WHAT CRAZY DRIVING THING DONE AS A TEENAGER! The u

[smithbrother]

And I'm STILL alive.

In 1955 my parents split, dad was the general manager of the local Buick dealership. Mother wanted a new Buick. Wasn't about to buy from my dad, so drove 20 miles to another Buick dealership to buy a new 55 Century HT.

I was 18 living with my mother. I hung out in a race crews garage, LES (TIGER ) SNOWS shop. He was a strong ARCA driver, and a winning driver to.

On a Saturday night one of his employees mouth off about how fast his car was. Tiger said, HEY, MY PARTS TRUCK WILL OUT RUN YOUR CAR. A bet was made, the race was to be in the morning, (SUNDAY) on Route 66. There was a 13 mile stretch from Bloomington, Il to Shirely Il that was our top end track. The speed limit signs read, REASONABLE and PROPER. TRUE!

Tiger secretly asked me to be there with the Century, and to follow him in his parts truck. Said Dale, when I wave at you, pull up and PUSH me past his car. Well, at some point around 100 MPH I did such. The truck had a wooden bumpers, common then.

Well, the employee had a fit, Tiger said, hey, I just told you I would pass you when you reached your top speed, I didn't say HOW.

And that's JUST one on the crazy things I/us kids did.

I bring this up because in today's paper it was announced that the dealer she bought that Century from just died at 96.

Dale in Indy

Edited February 8, 2016 by smithbrother (see edit history)

[SpecialEducation]

Bad decisions make good stories...

 

For the record, I made no bad decisions as teenager driving my dad's '82 Buick.  The fact that he's on this forum and could be reading this has no bearing on my recollection or the number of transmissions I ruined.

Edited February 8, 2016 by SpecialEducation (see edit history)

[60FlatTop]

Right after I got out of the Navy in 1971 I went back to work in my Grandfather's Tire Shop for a year before deciding to pursue a career in power plant operation. I got my HS friend, Mike, a job spreading peanut butter in the body shop area.

 

One morning we both showed up for work walking and dropped off by a friend. Jerry, my Grandfather, asked where my car was. I told him I needed to take the tow truck and bring it back. It was up along the side of Covell Rd. with a blown rear end. Then he looked at Mike. Mike said "I need the truck after him. My car is on the other side of Covell Rd. with a blown clutch." Mine was a little farther ahead so I guess I won.

 

That was around the same time I stopped by a garage at the edge of town and was looking along the shoulder of the road. One of the guys I knew came out carrying the rear half of a '58 Chevy driveshaft. He cheerfully said "We figured it was yours." I had taken the car home the night before but it was too dark to find the parts.

 

Bernie

[TxBuicks]

When I was 15 I got my Learner's permit, which allowed you to drive with a licensed driver in the front seat with you.  Of course, that was not always the case.  My brother was 16 and already had his license.  We went to the store in our 1966 Skylark 2-door coupe with bucket seats and an automatic console shift.  It was a few miles from home and he bet me I couldn't drive all the way home without using my hands on the steering wheel.  I could use my knees, chin, forehead, teeth, whatever; just no hands or fingers.  Well, that sounded reasonable at the time.  And I wasn't about to let my brother win that bet.  I started out slow and sure using my knees, but had one final right hand turn to get down our street.  It was one of those roads that was over a drainage ditch.  Not much shoulder on either side.  I tried to turn the steering wheel with my right knee but it wasn't turning quite as sharply as it needed to.  At the last instant, my brother grabs the steering wheel and jerked it his way, narrowing escaping the 3 foot drop into the drainage ditch.  I went back to look at the tire threads and it appears we missed the ditch by about half an inch.  I don't know why we thought that was so funny, even years later.  I don't think our parents ever knew about that.  But every time we went over that drainage ditch I thought about it.

[John_Mereness]

Yes, it would go 100

 

A good car story comes from a friend - he bought a Vollkswagon Beetle and ended up tipping it over - he found some help to flip it back on its wheels - they flipped it over on the good side verses the just damaged side = said it was not one of his better engineering moments !

[50jetback]

The old Studebaker could smoke it up alright - the big problem was keeping the supply of rear ends up to it!

Edited February 9, 2016 by 50jetback (see edit history)

[TxBuicks]

Ha!  A $10 fine.  Makes it almost worth it.

[RivNut]

I was driving home with my girl friend from another friend's house in my dad's 1957 Special and thought, as I was about to go up a pretty steep hill, it would be neat to drop the tranny into low to climb the hill so I pulled the shift lever down.  The car jerked and died and I couldn't get it restarted.  I panicked, ran back to my friend's house and called dad to come see what was wrong.  Dad climbed in, took the car out of reverse, put it in park, and started it.  He threw me the keys to the the '50 and told me to drive it and take my girlfriend home.  It was his work car and smelled of grease and cigarettes, and was filled with a bunch of crap.  Needless to say she was anxious to get out of the car and into the house. So much for any romance that evening.  When I got home Dad didn't say a word.  The next time I asked to borrow the '57, he said that if I ever tried using "low" again, that would be the end of my use of that car.  He then asked me if the car didn't come to a quick stop when I shifted from D to R, didn't wait for an answer, and walked off.  Needless to say "lesson learned."

[50jetback]

Ha!  A $10 fine.  Makes it almost worth it.

Yeah, if it was today it would be $1000, 4 demerit points and have the car confiscated for a month and a conviction for Dangerous Driving. A couple more of those and the old Studebaker would wind up in the crusher.

Got to love our " Hoon Laws "