Coldfire- If I’m not mistaken, the Opel is approximately analogous to the Buick. I know that GM marketed some of its European-made cars in America under the name Buick-Opel back in the seventies.
Anyway, I have a similar story. I don’t think it’s quite as exciting as yours (if this was really a competition, I’d probably have to concede to you), but it was definitely exciting at the time.
I am normally not a very competitive person, and I’m usually a conscientious driver. But there was this one time, I was driving with my sister from Albuquerque to the town where I lived, Belen, about thirty miles (or fifty kilometers) to the south. On the Interstate, just outside of Albuquerque, they were doing construction on a bridge, and the traffic narrowed to one lane. I was getting ready to merge, when these two girls in a red car with a Nine Inch Nails sticker in the rear window suddenly pulled up alongside me, and wouldn’t let me in. I almost had to come to a full stop before I was able to merge, due to the traffic behind them. This really pissed me off, and my sister and I spent the next few minutes griping about that.
A few miles down the road, we came across the same car again, and this time it wouldn’t let us pass. So, I waited until we got behind a slower vehicle, the girls pulled out into the fast lane to pass them, and then returned to the slow lane. We stuck behind the other car for a couple of seconds, then pulled into the fast lane. And then, with my sister egging me on, I floored it.
I drive an 81 Toyota station wagon, which had about 150,000 miles on it at the time, but you would never have guessed that the way we accelerated! We were past the girls before they even saw us coming. After that, it was a race, us in the fast lane not letting them pass us, just to give them a taste of their own medicine, and them trying their damnedest to get by us. We were both passing cars like they were standing still. I have no idea how fast we were going, as my speedometer only goes to 85 miles per hour, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we topped 100.
Finally, we come to our exit. It was closed. More construction. The highway narrowed down to one lane again, with a only very narrow space between concrete barriers to drive in. Fortunately, the area had no traffic to speak of, so we were able to enter the lane with no problems this time. So there I was, my sister clinging to the dashboard with white knuckles, these girls in their car right on our tails, and two concrete barriers mere inches from our sides. It felt like nothing short of the scene from Star Wars, with Luke piloting the X-Wing through the canyons of the Death Star, Tie fighters hot on his tail.
We emerge from the construction zone. The next exit comes up, but first, we have to pass this highway maintenance truck going very slowly down the highway. We had two choices. A) Either pass the truck, and probably miss our exit, or B) slow down and get behind it. What did we do? What do you think we did? C) None of the above. We flashed past the truck, and then, in an absolutely brilliant maneuver on my part, suddenly changed lanes, rocketed onto the exit ramp, and managed to come to a full stop at the stop sign, where we spent the next five minutes catching our breath. I don’t know if the girls even saw where we went, it must have looked like we passed the truck, then disappeared. If there had been a cop anywhere along this route, I would probably have wound up in jail. This is without a doubt the most competitive I have ever gotten.
