Dumb crap you did in a car as a teen.

From Lexi's thread:

I've got two decent ones. Never heard of rally but teen + rual + V6 '78 firebird =

Don't know about other parts of the country, but in the agricultural midwest, most gravel is straight and without much interest. That said we have section lines. They are laid out on lat/log scales and well since we live on a globe, grid lines don't line up north and south. Everyonce in a while there's an offset, a pair of 90 degree corners to make up the difference.

Some other fun loving teen had borrowed the stop sign and I blew it big time. some where north of 60, I went headlong through the tree row between two huge trees. Tree so close I knocked both mirrors off. STUPID LUCKY. In an instant I popped out on the other side, middle of the road like nothing ever happened. Looked over at my friend and shrugged.

Even better: High school senior. My mom got her exhusband's prized Z 28, ($8,000 engine from Proshops in STL, trick trans, 4.10 gears, the works),in the divorce. Since my junk was usually broke, she would let me drive it "To run errands and look for a job".

I grew up in Hannibal, MO, Mark Twain country, Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi and the like. We had a "500 year flood" in '93, funny we've had 3 of those in 20 years. I snuck the car out and picked up the same friend from story 1 (slow learner). The water was 10/20 blocks up from the riverfront on the south side of town. We were out roaming and came across perhaps 100 ft wide slug of river water. Figured This will be fun! and hammered it. didn't figure on the cross street wasa foot lower than the street we were on and whoops water over the hood. Thought we'd be fine if the engine doesn't die

You guessed it. To make it even better, There was a factory on the corner and the guys were on break, laughing their ass off. Popped the T tops and climbed out. One guy in a 60 is Biscane slowly crept in and we hopped on his hood.

Went and got my friends Pontiac 6000 and a rope and pulled the Z home, stuffing it in the garage. I told my mom I was changing the oil in it. Spent all night every night cleaning the muck out, plulling the plugs to get the water out, etc.etc. Still wouldn't start. Finally told mom it wouldn't start, didn't know why and needed towed.

This somewhat jerky mechanic had JUST (like that month) built a shiny new shop. White tile floor (??!?), White walls and all. They backed it in and put a charger on it, I'd run the battery down. Soon enough the went to try it, Shooting two wide carbon black stripe across the floor and up the newly painted wall. He started cussing, things that would make a sailor blush. I gave him the "I don't know" look and $50.

She didn't know for over 15 years.

I am not sure if this server has the storage capacity for me to detail the dumb things I did in a car as a Teen.

Around the time I was 14 all the family rally cars were sold off, I am sure with an idea that I would be driving in a few years. But I was hooked on the idea of going rallying... leading to my early attempts to go sideways in a car.

My first stupid teen story at 16; the first car I had use of was a 1971 VW bus. Slow steering, no power and really not the car to try to slide around corners. I quickly figured out I could not make it slide. Finally one night I over cooked a turn and the rear end started to come around (about time!) I dial in the counter steer but over corrected, the rear end swings round the other way starting an oscillation with that motor way back (in another zip code almost) acting like a pendulum.

The view out the front (or side windows) was ditch, wall, ditch, wall, ditch, wall, driveway! I let go of the wheel letting the car run up the driveway and promptly locked all 4 brakes coming to a safe and sound stop.

The last stupid teen thing, just prior to turning 20, I was loaned a RX2 rally car that a friend had bought. We knew nothing but somehow I did manage to run one of the Doo Wop rallys in this car way back in the 1980's. Anyway, this RX2 had a welded diff. I decided to take it out one week night evening, just prior to dusk to "learn" how to drive it faster in the suburbs or exurbs of Olympia, WA. Somehow I manage to put a slightly taller tire on one side of the rear, causing little mechanical bits to be abused to their limits unbeknown to me.

Off I go blasting around areas one should not be power sliding a very loud RX2 in while the good people of society where reading their little ones bed time stories or prepping for bed themselves. A few hundred feet beyond making nice work of these nice little linked corners exiting a small clump of houses the rear diff blows up and the rear wheel passes me on the left, bakes and axle shaft still attached bouncing down the road a fair bit faster then the RX2 that is now dragging one corner on the ground. Good thing the rear was dragging as I now have no brakes to slow down with.

Once I get slowed down to almost a full stop on the side of the road, I jump out, lock the doors, run down the road get the wheel etc and toss it into the woods and keep running all the way back to where we had another car parked a few miles away. I really did not want to discuss my moral failings with one of the locals.

Several hrs later under the cover of darkness a friend and I sneak back (lights off) to retrieve the rally car and tow/drag it back to its home.

Between these events many other dumb things occurred, only a few bent sheet metal, no injures but several that could have and likely should have turned out much worse but for dumb blind luck.

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In the long run reality always wins.

Only ones that come to mind right away....Phinney Ave + rental car = ......

Others like towing a Rabbit home with a honda civic. didnt end well for the rabbit.

Seeing when my buddies 68 RS would top out going to Portland. Seeing a white blur and after some discussion relaized it was a stater. about 10 min later doing 65 in the slow lane see 4 staters blow by doin 100+.

Taking said rabbit up to Evans creek in the middle of the night. Causing it needing to be towed home.

I grew up on the side of a mountain in Idaho. My parents house was about 1/2 mile past the end of the county road, and continued up the mountain for a mile past their house. Perfect rally sprint road.

First excursion was when I borrowed (without permission) my dad's pickup truck to drive down to the bus stop. My parents had taken a day-trip to Reno, and my 14 year old mind thought it would be the easiest way to get down there.

On the way home, I decided to punch it...350 V8, empty bed, and inexperienced driver did not make a good combination. I fishtailed around the first corner (a 90 left), panicked and ended up slamming my foot on the gas, which made it fishtail two more times before exiting the road, hitting a ditch, and rolling onto the roof. My friends were in a car in front of me, saw the cloud of dust in the rear-view, and then me walking out of it dazed and confused. I had them take me home, got my dad's tractor, drove it back down to the truck, flipped the truck back on to it's wheels, got everything home and hidden behind the house. THAT was a very long wait until my parents got home.

After that, my favorite passtime was hooning up and down our road in my dad's old 1980 Datsun 310. I'm not sure how I never managed to crash that car...probably because it didn't have enough power to get out of it's own way.

Then I got a Jeep pickup. More than a couple near misses in that thing. One was right at graduation, a tree took off the driver's mirror, and I had to use most of my graduation money to buy a replacement.

It is a borderline miracle that any of us survive to 20...

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Jay Woodward
Snohomish, WA
'90 Mazdog Frankenprotege
Chronologically, 46...

The parking brake on early 70's Fords (pedal on the far left) was released by a vacuum servo that would automatically disengage it when you put the trans in gear. Therefore, if you had the car in gear, it was a fly-off handbrake that you could really get your leg into.

It takes a loooong time for a 4800lb, 120" wheelbase T-bird to spin 180 degrees...

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

After 11 long years of watching my parents and every other adult operate the controls in an automobile and having been attending to the Parent's VW bus and other machines for some time... I did at the tender age of 11 release the brake after winding up the air-cooled beast and spun that rear tire that was sitting on wet leaves as I was headed East on 36th Street in Vancouver.... She needed a test drive!

Never any bent sheet metal for it.

Obviously it got more colorful.... It doesn't all end up on the internet... Gotta have some secrets!

Jay.... Matt.... Shhhh....

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JohnLane

Overkill is consistently more fun

The mere fact that I survived my late-teen years is proof that Darwin was wrong.

I only bought an Evolution to thumb my nose at him.

When I first drove a FWD car for the first time, I was massing around on snowy streets...I gave it gas around a corner, it continued straight and ended up halfway in a ditch.