Greatest Driving Moments

[Lawrence C Leung]

Hey, 

75 MPH in the wet can get very exciting when passing a car on a Maine two
lane (US 1, perfectly legally with signals) when it decides to turn left
into you! Blew the horn enough to stop the unsignalled left, swerved to
miss the interloper (about 3 ft into my lane) and dealt with 3 large
fishtails that must have covered 100 to 120 yards before I recovered the
4KQ. My (female) friend and I didn't say a word for nearly 10 minutes (at
least not out loud), and then virtually no words were spoken about the
"incident". 

Even more excitement could be had as slow as 15 MPH. Test driving the
(then) new Quantum Syncro from a dealer, best friend (and quattro
lover/owner, just not a lister) riding shotgun. Of course, the test drive
was in 12 - 14 inches of snow, and car had the factory Continental summer
tires on it. As we were decending a fairly steep, snow covered hill (from
the tracks on the road, all of maybe a half dozen cars/trucks had passed
before us), cliff wall on the left, guardrail free drop off to the right,
I slowed for the right hand hairpin, about 100 ft away at the bottom.
Weight transfer exaggerated by the slowing effect of the snow proceded to
get the car into an immediate fishtail. Fishtailed 100 ft, trying to
decide which was worse, hitting the wall on the left, at the bottom or
dropping off the cliff? Car finally slowed enough to make the turn at the
bottom. Had I known then what I know now, I would have gently touched the
throttle when the fishtailling ensued to settle the car, THEN brake. Oh
well, live and learn........

LL - NY

On Wed, 17 Jan 2001 18:30:44 -0800 "Geordie" <clarkeg at telus.net> writes:
>> Living on the edge doing 93mph eh....
>
>Now now, for those of us who don't drive extremely fast cars....don't 
>rain
>on my parade...haha. Actually, I meant effortlessly in that the car, 
>which
>had only 136hp, achieved that speed at a comfortable rate. Most low
>horsepower street cars I've been in can't hit 140km/h. I was no 
>proponent of
>the mechanical problems with the car(bad tires, suspension bits, 
>brakes,
>slushbox etc),it was in need of a major overhaul, that was before 
>someone
>ran into the back of it.
>
>I think what made that a great driving moment was that some guy in a 
>brown
>GMC pickup was trying to pass me, so I just decided to make sure he 
>couldn't
>get by. I showed that yokel that his truck can't even do 90mph.
>
>It was nothing like my friend's (same friend)Eagle Talon TSI AWD that 
>got us
>up to 160km/h in a short city block near my house. Probably the most 
>crazy
>fast street car I've been in.
>
>Geordie
>'82 Coupe
>Victoria, BC
>
>
>
>