Your Most Embarrasing Street Moment.

[Paul Ceasrine]

I have to agree, I don't think anyone can top Adger Smith's parachute jump!
I'll give it a try.
1972, still in High School and have a little money. I decide to abandon
my 67' 273 Cuda and break our family's Mopar tradition and purchase a GM vehicle, a 1970 Pontiac GTO 400/350HP 4-speed.
A pretty car, tan w/off-white vinyl top, and 'Endura' bumper, Ansen mags and F-60 x 15" GoodYear tires.
The owner told me it could run in the 13.00's.
I have the car about a week, babying it and acting like 'Joe Cool'.
I spend about a week on the prowl, looking for a chance to blow someone away.
Finally I get my chance, I pull up to a red-light and who is next to me,
my mother, in her 1970 Tor-Red, 340 Duster 4-speed, with a load of groceries and my little sister in the passenger side.
I figured, I'd let my mother take-off first, then I'd punch-it out, and blow her away.
Of course, I have a deadly 400 cubed GTO.
Well the light turns green, and she launches it, I immediately floor it, and what happens.
She keeps pulling away from me, and beats me by an easy half-dozen car lengths.
Later that night, my father asks me what happened. I told him the truth, and that the GTO was supposed to run in the 13.00's.
He took the GTO out for a test drive, and came back.
Told me the GTO wouldn't do 13.00's if you pushed it off the side of a mountain.
I put it up 'For Sale' 1-week later.
Destroyed by the family 340 Duster, with my mother (all 5' 1" and 110 lbs. of her).driving.
Paul

[Frank Castros]

When I was senior in high school (1973) I had a '69 Camaro SS 350/300 and it was a pretty hot car among many in the parking lot at school and one day a pretty hot chick (among many) asked me for a ride home. Of course I said yes and we head out.
She digs the car, I'm banging gears, I have Zeppelin cranked, (I'm so cool!) and as I'm driving I realize I can no longer steer the freak'n car! Not so cool!
I manage to get to the side of the road, open the hood to see what the hell is wrong and find a breather has fallen out of the left M/T valve cover and is jammed between the steering shaft of the box and the Hooker headers. I remove the mangled breather and drive off thinking I'm still cool.
Wrong! We get to her house, she gets out of the car, slams the door and says see ya!
I guess she wasn't impressed with my trouble shooting skills!

[G Schenck]

I am not going to tell any of my stories, but I will copy one from the Comp forum that I thought was real good.

Greg

There are many seniors that read Comp Buzz and a lot of them still compete on the track. I am one of them but I am the only one (I think) that competes on a dragbike. I work with the Watson Boyz in D-4 and I am sure many of you know me.
The year was 1970; things were a little different then. Horsepower was growing faster than starter motors. Most motorcycles had kick-starters and those with electric starters were unable to handle any significant horsepower changes.
The “high class” tracks had powered roller starters. A devise built into the ground with 2 rollers about 8” apart, powered by a V-8 engine would start most vehicles. Most cars still had differentials, which would allow a single tire to be put on the rollers. My memory of whether the rollers were wide enough to accommodate posi is not clear, but I think so.
The “country” tracks had push to start, or in the case of motorcycles, you would hang onto the rearview mirror, be towed to about 30 MPH, let loose, pop the clutch and start the motor. A few racers built their own rollers that depended on a car or truck with a differential spinning the rollers. I just had to have my own rollers!
In the spring of 1970 I bought a magazine project bike that competed in the Daytona 200 road race. When it arrived, I just had to start it.
This really isn’t a drag strip story; it’s a home in the driveway story. I put my new 1969 Toyota Corolla wagon on the rollers with one wheel on the ground. Next the race bike, not yet a dragbike, on the other half of the rollers, and propped it up. Next I go around to the passenger side of the Toyota, climb in, start the motor and put it in second gear. Clutch out. rollers spinning exit the wagon and get on the bike.
The Toyota had a unique feature. It had a choke lever in the dashboard. By moving the lever I accelerate the motor and the rollers. Now I squeeze the clutch, put he bike in 2nd gear and let the clutch out. We used to call that “burping” the motor. The motor burped all right, but when it did, the horsepower of the motorcycle was greater than the horsepower of the Toyota. There goes my new Toyota through the back wall of the garage, collecting everything in its path.
Now that’s a funny story! I have to admit even a short time after it happened, and after suffering the expense. It was funny even then.
There’s a chapter 2 to this story but I’ll save that for another day.
Rich Gentili
__________________

[X-TECH MAN]

I remember Danny Lattimore (Olds racer) doing a wheel stand in his dads driveway a long time ago with his stick shift 455 powered SS/J Olds Cutlass coupe. Any way the front tires came down at the beginning of the garage floor and those skinny front tires slid on the slick concret floor of the garage and it slid right thru the back wall of his dads garage. I wonder if he will admit it if he reads this.....lol.

[Jeff Lee]

Originally Posted by X-TECH MAN

I remember Danny Lattimore (Olds racer) doing a wheel stand in his dads driveway a long time ago with his stick shift 455 powered SS/J Olds Cutlass coupe. Any way the front tires came down at the beginning of the garage floor and those skinny front tires slid on the slick concret floor of the garage and it slid right thru the back wall of his dads garage. I wonder if he will admit it if he reads this.....lol.

I had a S/ST AMX with a 440 Mopar. First "real" race car. Before I even took it to the track had it at my friends AAMCO on the lift; a drive on lift. With slippery trans fluid all over. No neutral safety switch. Six foot up in the air. Started in gear and hitting the brake pedal didn't help as the tires just slid on the oil. One custom fiberglass hood and one AMX grill cracked up. Man did I feel stupid!

[rick lester]

the year was 1987, about 5 or 6 friends and me skipped school and went to....well we'll leave names out of this one...new house. his fathers racecar in the garage, he gets the bright idea to do a few dry hops out of the garage and into the driveway. after the first one, i look back and see these two long wide black marks. the right thing to do was stop him, but noooooooooo, i started to laugh. hes thinking im getting a huge kick out of what he was doing. after a bout 6 or 7 dry hops, he parks the car in the driveway, gets out, and just about s#^t his pants. "o my god, dads going to kill me. rick, help me. what do i do?" my answer? he's still waiting for it, alls i could do was roll around laughing. been a while, but i think i even peed a little. thank god, for him, for clear coated concrete, or he would of never got the rubber off the floor. i haven't seen my buddy since 89 or so, seen his dad about 4 years ago. no, i still don't think he knows and i'm not about to tell.

the year was 1985, dad just bought a 1940 ford business man coupe, 60 hp flathead, 3 speed, black, beautiful. just beautiful. my brother and i got home from school way before mom or dad, so we would take that car cruising. always had fast cars in the yard, big block chevelles, 302 dz z/28, corvettes, mach 1's, gto's, all bad *** fast cars. so why the flathead ford? i guess cuz dad loved that thing, plus we thought it was so cool. drive around all week, sometimes two, before the old man would announce he's taking the ford out this weekend. now we start to panic, he always kept all the cars full of gas. we didn't want to get busted, but we knew we couldn't just use to gas in the gas cans, then he would know. 3 wheelers, 4 wheelers, go carts, and lawn mowers don't use that much gas, and we didn't want to use our money for gas, so we came up with the brightest idea, at least to a 15 and a 13 year old...garden hose! yes, the garden hose. we fill it up and make sure the gas gauge showed the same as when we first started. the old man would go out and get in the car and go. about 10 minutes later here he comes, on foot. he would tow it back empty and clean the tank, blow out the lines, rebuild the carb, fill it with fresh gas, then let it sit. and we would go it again, and a again, and again. after about a year, he sold it, so frustred with it water in the gas tank. still doesn't know about it.

i have more, even stupid stuff at the track, but thats for another day.

[Geerhead55]

Back in 73', a buddy of mine had met this cute lil' blonde and was taking her to a Doobie Bros. concert in Seattle (about an hour away) and wanted to borrow my 69 Z/28 since I had 3:73s and would be better on the freeway than his 66' L-79 non SS Chevy II which had 4:11s. We swapped for the night as it was a work night for me and I was going to the mall to get some work shirts. Well, this was the night my girlfriend decided to tell me it was all over and after I dropped her off, and not being in the best state of mind, I pulled that Nova out onto the street and gave it hell. When I grabbed second gear, the driveshaft broke in two and busted the yoke also. Going down hill I was able to coast almost half a mile before I parked it and locked it up,,,he had an 8 track afterall. It was about a mile walk home,and I had to borrow the ol' mans pickup to go to the guys' house to tell him what I'd done, and that I'd fix everything. My tail was deffinately between my legs that night. I still don't think I've ever had more emotion behind a power shift since.
Danny Durham

[Paul Ceasrine]

Not me, but my friend and neighbor Mike.
He spent the whole summer re-doing a 1967 Barracuda 273 Hi-Po,
4-speed fastback. Painted it just like the Mopar Missle, with Cragars.
Looked beautiful. re-did the engine himself, including putting in a
Crane 'Fireball' camshaft, headers, etc.
First day of school, he drives it in. everyone OOHs! and AHHS!.
On the way home from school, I'm riding in the school bus, and who comes up behind us, Mike in his Killer Cuda.
It's a 2-lane road, and he's waiting to pass, finally he gets his chance, and pulls out alongside the bus, and he guns it, but the car doesn't pull,
he's now side-by-side with a 'Wayne Bus' full of high-school kids.
The bus driver floors hit, as everyone is yelling 'Don't let him pass' maybe we were going 50 MPH, and we start pulling away from the Cuda. He couldn't pass us, and he backed off. The kids on the bus were roaring, and cheering on the bus driver!
That Cuda was 'cool no more'.

[Chuck Garey]

1975, I was working as a lube boy for the local Buick dealership. The wash boy brought around a 1970 GS Stage 1 4-speed a guy just traded in, I decided a little "test" drive was in order so after going down the street a bit to a connecting street that was nice and straight I revved her up and dumped the clutch-----"bang" "zing" I thought I blew the clutch until I looked out the back window and saw the driveshaft with the pinion still attached. Needless to say that was long walk back, made me fix the car then fired me.

[Paul Ceasrine]

Chuck,
Now that picture of the 'driveshaft and pinion together' would have been
a classic.

I borrowed my friends mothers Rambler American. With a promise that
I would put $5.00 of gas in it (1/2 a tank of gas).After using the car, I went to the gas station,
to fullfill my obligation. After putting in the gas, I pull-out and I try to act cool by doing a couple of power-brake burn-outs in front of the gas station employees. After rocking a couple of times, BAM! the front-end fell out, right in the road, tires jammed up within the fenderwells.
The gas station group nearly 'died of laughter'.
The station didn't have a tow truck, so we tried pushing the car into the station lot, but the tires jammed up further into the wheel wells. Everyone is laughing, finally we end pulling the car into the lot with a big Buick, by putting a chain around the rear axle. The car looked like an
Antelope getting dragged to death by a Lion.
2-days later I found out what 'trunion arms' were, and how much they cost to replace.
The same gas station did the repairs, and the owner said, 'Oh by the way, you bought that car a transmission too!.
Paul
Ramblers,,,,,,,,,