I'm start'n to feel the love...... .... keep'n come'n.....
I'm start'n to feel the love...... .... keep'n come'n.....
Chuck Miller
Creative Advisor/Message Board Moderator - Early 911S Registry #109
R Gruppe #88
TYP901 #62
'73S cpe #1099 - Matched # 2.7/9.5 RS spec rebuild
'67 Malibu 327 spt cpe - Period 350 Rebuild
’98 Chevy S-10 – Utility
’15 GTI – Commuter
I thought this thread would take off and feel privileged to be one of the few.
Really???
Chuck,, didnt you try and chop your finger off a while back,,,, that was a goodie.
Mark
Another threade . . . .
http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...114-the-moment
...........
I've left this story off the Internet for the most part because, you know, it's really stupid.
I was 16, tired after my school day. Headed home, back roads and SoCal curves. Thought I was God's gift to asphalt. I was wrong. I'm driving too fast and drop an outside wheel into the dirt and spin across the road and down a fairly gentle embankment. About half-way down this embankment is a bit of refuse (it's still there, hence the present tense); someone had dumped a washing machine... and I hit the damn thing with my quarter panel. Blew out the window and the firmly-rooted appliance provided a nice fulcrum to rotate the car onto its lid, where it landed in marshy water. It kinda sucks to crawl out of an upside-down car, through broken glass and brambles, to be able to walk your way to the nearest house to call for a recovery.
When you're 16, you have a choice: shrug off what happened and don't learn or let it hit you hard and learn from it. My parents helped me out with the payments to repair the windshield and the quarter window but we left as much of the giant dent in the quarter as possible- I wanted that reminder, to keep me humble and to always keep me on my toes. After that, I read just about everything I could about performance driving, went to a couple autocrosses, and generally spent my paychecks on getting better.
No accidents since then, and I haven't wrecked the track car I've had since '04. But I'm not sure I can ever live down the fact that I rolled my car by hitting a washing machine.
I was welding up a rocker panel yesterday when I stopped to grind the welds (using the only grinder without a guard). I slipped and hit my left index finger with the grinder cutting it down to the bone, right on the joint. Luckily it was on top so I didn't damage any tendons. I had a fun time cleaning the cut out and taking tweezers to pull the shards of grinding wheel out. Took a trip to town to pick up paint supplies and swung by my doc's office and she said steri strips would work just as good as stitches so that's the route I took. Healing up nicely so far.. Lesson learned, wear your PPE!
Seb
1971 911t coupe
2002 Camaro z/28
I was 16 years old and bought an '82 Rabbit for $20 (that wasn't the mistake). As a side note it had 652k miles on the odometer when I bought it and I added another 12k. I have no reason to believe this wasn't actual mileage. Anyways, this car was kind of a jalopy but it was my jalopy and my $20 jalopy at that. I had to hot wire this car under the hood every time I started it until I got the brains to run two wires into the car and just spark the wires in the cabin. (Hold on, we still haven't gotten to the stupid mistake yet). So.... I used to drive 7 miles of country dirt roads to school everyday and for a few weeks I had been noticing this vibration as I was going around corners. I chalked this up to a tie rod going out and figured I'd get to it one day. (ok now we're being stupid) But seriously who buys a car for $20 and puts a $25 tie rod on it right? So I kept driving it this way for a while until one morning when I was late for school, the car wouldn't start, I swapped a battery we had laying around and was finally on my way. It had been raining that morning which is like miracle grow for dirt road pot holes. I made it 99% of the way flawless swooping left then right, back and forth dodging these craters. As I pulled a right turn into the school parking lot it happened. Simultaneously as I felt the front end drop, I watched the little 13" steelie roll into the distance.
Turns out the tie rod was fine I should've just checked to see if the lug nuts were tight
I ended up parking that car in the old man's field after the alternator went out. I just couldn't bring myself to spend the big money lol. I'm sure I've got plenty more moments of doltish decisions
Porsche taste on a Volkswagen budget...
It may be hard to top jos.hall but here goes, and it is totally stupid and dangerous.
In 1982 Jim and I were young, stupid and poor, but we had a 356! Jim had been banging around on this thing for a while and it was about ready to be shipped to the painters. I was 7.5 months pregnant with our son and his plan was to get this car painted and go on a wilderness fishing trip before it was time for the baby to arrive. Because we were strapped for money, he borrowed this huge trailer from some guy he knew. OK, so he parks the trailer on the street in front of the house. The trailer is way too high for the 356 to load so Jim goes around scavenging a bunch of junk to make a ramp. He put all his West Virginian engineering skills in this ramp and it was something to behold. When he got ready to load it, he went waaay down to the end of the street, warms up the 356 and starts revving it up. At this point I started to raise my concerns but he was on a mission. He came flying down the street like a fireball and hit the "ramp" which immediately disintegrated and the 356 became airborne. After its flight it somehow managed to land on the trailer where it skidded to stop just before flying off the front of the trailer. This is not something a pregnant lady should witness. When he got out of the car I started telling him that he could have been killed and the car mangled, the guy's trailer damaged and on and on. He replied that yes it got a little hairy but it worked didn't it? I went into the house and got sooo sick. I had to lay down the rest of the day. He takes the car to the painter. The next morning he went fishing. That afternoon I had the baby. Happy to report that the car got painted, the fish were caught and my son is now driving a 997.
Karla
A hell'of'a story Karla......
Chuck Miller
Creative Advisor/Message Board Moderator - Early 911S Registry #109
R Gruppe #88
TYP901 #62
'73S cpe #1099 - Matched # 2.7/9.5 RS spec rebuild
'67 Malibu 327 spt cpe - Period 350 Rebuild
’98 Chevy S-10 – Utility
’15 GTI – Commuter
OK here's one....
About 50 years ago my buddy Danny and I were driving in his '61 Impala (350 hp 348, tri power w/ a BM Hydro..) around Lake Piru when we were pull over by a CHP for, what turned out later, a brake light equipment violation... Well, 50 years ago here in CA. we right on the cusp of either getting out of your car and walking up to 'greet' the officer (like you always did), or staying in your car and waiting for the officer to come to you....... Well, unbeknown to us, about a week before there was a shooting of an officer from a motorist who got out of his car... You can imagine which side of caution 'our' officers were on....
When a gun is leveled at you ALL you can focus on is the end of the gun....
After a few moments with our hands raised the officers realized they pulled over just a couple of kids in a 7 year old hot rod....
When we explained we had always gotten out of our cars when pulled over... They said "NOT ANY MORE YOU DON'T"
Chuck Miller
Creative Advisor/Message Board Moderator - Early 911S Registry #109
R Gruppe #88
TYP901 #62
'73S cpe #1099 - Matched # 2.7/9.5 RS spec rebuild
'67 Malibu 327 spt cpe - Period 350 Rebuild
’98 Chevy S-10 – Utility
’15 GTI – Commuter
So I bought a 72 E in 1986 or so I wanted to build my first 911 hot rod. Car had ST rear fender flares, what hell is an ST? I removed factory bumper ends and threw them in the trash and put on a nice AIR ST F/G bumper. No if we want to go full disclosure I'm pretty sure I could fill 50 pages based on my life from 16-30
Phil
Early S Junkie # 658