In a message dated 1/4/04 7:28:13 AM Pacific Standard Time,
jerrybarr@charter.net writes:
<< Spinning my 356 on county hwy C in Kettle Moraine, 1 and 1/2 turns
backwards into the woods, my wife yelling "take me home I peed my pants >>
I bought my 1959 TR-3 back in 1962 from Buffo's Motors in Beaver Falls, PA.
The previous owner was a girl, who ran hill climbs and rolled it over once.
Like Donna Mae Mims, she was a Mighty Ms before this concept was popular. The
car was dropped off at my apartment in Beaver, PA; and was driven to work the
next day at the Shippingport Experimental Atomic Plant, where I landed the
previous year after escaping from Bucknell University.
There was a site beer bash at Raccoon State Park after work, and one of the
big bosses invited some of us back to his house after the party (after we all
had too much joy juice). I followed the parade to the boss's house, and the
guy in front of me mowed down his lamppost while turning into his driveway. I
then decided to take off and found myself on a smooth, narrow, asphalt road.
It was amazing how much faster the TR could go around bends compared to my 1959
Rambler American.
Suddenly, while flying over a hilltop with an immediate bend, I noticed
someone else coming up the other direction in the middle of the road. Going
off of
the road to miss him, I spun out while coming back onto the road and went
backwards down over an embankment crashing into a hillside. They shouldn't
have
been in the middle of the road, but I shouldn't have been going about 85 MPH
over the hill and around an around the bend.
The other car stopped and four guys came down over the hill after me. They
were talking about pulling a citizen's arrest and asked to see my license.
Figuring that I was in a lot of trouble, I decided that my only chance was to
generate some sort of a feeble offense by blaming them for being in the middle
of
the road. I then said that I didn't know if I could take care of all of
them, but I will certainly try, and to get out of here (beer talking). Much to
my
surprise, they turned around and left.
A couple minutes later, another guy in a pickup truck stopped and pulled me
out of the gully with a chain. I gave him $10.00 and he asked me what
happened. I told him that I was sleeping beside the road, and the brake
tripped off.
Meanwhile, the whole right rear fender was shredded.
After limping back to my apartment, the juice wore off and I sat down in a
chair trembling for a good while, thinking about the close call and the mess
that I could have been in. This incident pretty much convinced me not to fool
around on the highway, and to reserve these activities for auto-crosses, hill
climbs, and racetracks.
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