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Detroit, 9:25 PM
Fri Nov 20
28 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/04/09
And then there was the great burnout experiment. You could not get them to break loose unless you started off in gravel first.Then they would smoke 'em easily out onto the blacktop and down the street more than 100'. I had several mechanical failures in a few months.
I did not last very long for some reason.
09/04/09
1) Hillcrest Dr. heading south crossing 29th st. There are huge dips on BOTH sides of the intersection and 29th st has at least a 3 ft crest for some reason. My friends and I would regularly jump it in various cars. The best was in my dad's S10 Blazer. 35 MPH was enough to get air. I decided to go for 60. The front wheels cleared the whole thing, but the back wheels landed in the bottom of the dip on the other side. The truck proceeded to bounce the rear about 4 ft in the air while the front stayed on the ground. Talk about unstable steering. We got out to check if the front bumper had hit the ground. It had the offroad HO package so it had clearance, but had it been base, it probably would have. To top it off, there was a 19" TV in the cargo area that left marks in the headliner and it still worked fine. I used it in college for 3 years until I sprung for a real TV.
2) 240th Ave (Hall Rd) going north of town. After you cross Fairground Rd it gets REALLY hilly. There are 3 hills in succession to catch air on above 55 MPH. Oh did I mention this was a dirt/limestone chalk road? 92 Lumina Z34 and 70 MPH got 5-6 ft of air over the second jump. The back sides are like landing ramps to the landing is actually really soft. I never had any problems there, but a friend managed to rip the front bumper off of his Buick. He would have stayed on the road if it weren't for the bumper getting stuck in the front suspension. He went off, cleared the ditch, and snapped off 2 12" square limestone fence posts. The car still drove so he drove it like that for another year before it died, misalignment and all. This road catches 2-3 kids a year.
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There was (it has since been regraded) a particular rural railroad crossing when I was in high school that was elevated about 4 feet above grade and the made up the difference in about 15 feet. It was basically a ramp strait out of the Dukes of Hazzard. Safe crossing could be attained at about 25, our teenage driving skills were able to manage about 60 mph. This is just the back story.
So senior year just before graduation my buddy (he is the friend that everyone has who always getting into things), myself and some others go out driving after school and he claims that he can go 80 mph across the R.R. crossing. So we go to find out. We line up at the end of the road and he guns it (it being a late 80's Ford Tempo). My last glance at the speedo showed that it was buried against the 85 MPH limit, my guess is that we couldn't have been going much faster than that as it was a late 80's tempo. We hit the jump. Mind you we cannot see anything on the other side of the tracks due to the incline. Just as we are about to leave terra firma we all see what is coming the other way down the road: a police cruiser. The driver, desperate to do something, hits the brakes which are no longer in contact with the ground. I was sitting behind the driver and looked down to see us pass the cop with elevation. Being a front heavy car the nose naturally hit first and with the brakes now locked up had no steering control. Somehow we didn't roll but went end around a bunch of times and finished in a cornfield. There were baseball size chunks of asphalt in the front subframe. My buddy got a bunch of tickets and some community service which he had to ride his bike too. Everyone else was just glad to be alive. The Tempo died.
09/04/09
During one fight, one guy lands the other guy a blow to the back of the head, and, of course, gives the guy a concussion. So we sit around for a few hours waiting for him to feel better, then we go hit this farm-land area to go off-roading in my 1986 Toyota 4Runner. It's flat black, with a pirate flag on the antenna, it has no doors, no top and a long, thick rope wrapped around the roll-bar. Being that it's a Toyota from the eighties in the midwest, it's also rusted through and through. So what seems to be a good idea at the time? Jumping it, of course.
There's this perfect, ramp-shaped hill about ten feet high, at a 60-65 degree angle where we're messing around. I start out kinda slow, getting my nerves up, then it gets to the point where I'm trying to get higher and faster. The highest we got was about six feet in the air with all four wheels. To top that off, the guy with the concussion was in the back, shirtless, barefoot, holding on to the rope with one hand and standing up when we did it.
Man that was fun...But don't ever do it.
Oh yeah, and the brakes never really worked very well after that incident either.
09/04/09
For once though, their complaint is somewhat valid. I am not against hilljumping, but if you're going to do it, do it responsibly. Taylor is a skinny, two-lane, two-way street, with cars parked alongside it at 90 degree angles. So unless you're the 2007 Hoon of the Year in your Suzuki Sidekick, there's a good chance you're going to t-bone some parked car. Not the youtube clip you are aiming for. So don't jump there unless you are Krewson for a bruisin'.
Step 1: What you want to do is take Gough street south of Geary, and pull over. Gough is a one-way street here, a major north-south thoroughfare with three lanes of traffic and cars parked parallel on both sides. Take a few minutes to study the timing of the lights down the hill from you, as well as the timing of traffic coming from behind you. Like most great things, this is best done in the middle of the night when onlookers/potential casualties are at a minimum. There is also a large Catholic high school nearby, so the daytime potential to get yourself and others killed is very high.
Step 2: The jump is at Gough and Ellis. Of course, you are going to want to be in the middle lane. You do NOT need to drive fast to jump, the decline itself will have you going faster than needed, just don't brake.
Step 3: Profit! I've taken this beast in an Econoline van, a Honda Civic, a Mustang, and a Vespa, and I never crapped my pants or caused serious damage. If you're on a scooter, after a few jumps you might start believing you have the hangtime and skill to pull off a tabletop; DON'T DO IT unless you hate having both legs. You're not Radical Rick and this is not BMX Plus!
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I used to watch Streets of San Francisco just to see them do this every episode in big old cop cars.
What did they drive on that show? I remember something green with a vinyl top.
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Behold
[www.imcdb.org]
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I think jumping is cool, but in this setting, it's just like street racing. Go get your kicks on a dirt track somewhere.
09/04/09
I loved speed-humps when they came into vogue in Dallas. At the time, I had a proper sled, a '73 Coupe deVille, and people would brace for impact while I went over them at posted speed, usually 30-35 MPH. Barely felt 'em.
09/04/09
It's a mix of drag racing and Excite Bike but with cars.
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Yeah he looks like riffraff half the time in the movie. But that guy could clean up good.
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