The start: Beverly and George Burns, pointed west.
The prelude: me and some Yaris making the same left off Fairfax. We both beat every light, if just barely (both recognizing what the other was doing), until we both got stopped at the Burns light.
Him: yuppie dude out for the night.
Me: pretending not to be the same (and denying the validity of the comparison until the day I die).
Both of us- windows down.
I look at him.
He looks at me.
Him: “This is stupid, right?”
Me: “Yup.”
Him: “We’re doing it anyway, right?”
Me: “Why not?”
Him: “SMB?”
Me: “I should warn you, this shit’s manual.”
Him: “Whatever.”
Me: “Green means GO, motherfucker.”
He never had a chance. Gas mileage be damned, a manual ANYTHING beats a hybrid.
And sweet goodness. I can’t believe this happened to me. How the mighty have fallen.
I love you, rollerskate. I do. You’re the best car I’ve ever had. But you’re a down payment on a Mustang and I hope you don’t hate me for that.
Heh, a number of years back I did something like that but with a several-years-old Ford Taurus driven by thirty-something me, versus some kind of (IIRC) sporty and small Mitsubishi driven by a twenty-something guy who was apparently playing racer-dude down a suburban state highway. Sorry man, my car’s engine beats yours every day of the week - and I was even driving an automatic.
We sat at the light on 4th Avenue in Anchorage, Alaska in 1964. Both of us knew it was going to be a showdown. He revved his engine, I revved mine right after I nudged the gas a bit to get past the balky carburetion. We got the green and both nailed it. His automatic had the edge until I banged second gear. Winding the RPMs until the engine was screaming, I nosed him out just before braking for the next light.
Yeah, that’s right, my 1960 Rambler Super with an inline six and a three-on-the-tree sorta smoked a 1960 Chevy Biscayne that needed a ring job. Chew on THAT, beeyatches.
Oh, goody. Adults acting like teen-age boys.
Here’s mine, but without hybrid goodness.
Me & a buddy on our Ducatis coming back from the twisties into town early Sunday am:
We stopped at a light next to an older gentleman in a Corvette Z06. We’re next to a car lot full of Porsches and a Viper. I yell loudly to my buddy that the Viper eats Corvettes for breakfast. This of course got Pop’s attention, and he whipped around and looked at me next to him. “Not this one they don’t”, he says.
I just grinned, Pop grins, and without a word we knew what would happen. The light changed to green and we both hit it. My friend never knew what happened.
The Corvette stayed with me a bit, but was never really a contender. I smoked him something awful, then rolled off the gas. He blew by me, just laughing, and I caught him and winked and waved him on. Just 2 old farts acting thorougly irresponsibly, but without malice. It was a fun little vignette…
What pleased me so was that he accepted defeat so graciously; a teenager in a Ricer would have been so mad!
Oh, I did outrun my friend in my '66 Midget against his '66 Midget, but only because his hood latch failed, and the hood flipped back and smacked him on his head.
The Honda Nighthawk 750 is a strictly middlin’ sort of motorcycle; it’s built naked and lean, but it’s not exactly racing tuned. Nonetheless, almost any motorcycle will leave most cars in the dust; doubly so since most car drivers aren’t that quick off the line. That was certainly the case with the gray-haired gent waiting at a red light on California’s Highway 37. The light turned green just as I was approaching, in time for me to downshift and roll on the throttle; in the twinkling of an eye, I was past him and back up to 60. It was the second twinkling that stunned me, and the twinkle in the man’s eye as he roared past me, waggling his forefinger and utterly smoking me in his (I belatedly recognized) Jaguar XJS V12.
There’s a song on the Car Talk CD “Born Not To Run” that would’ve made a great soundtrack for your encounter. It’s called “Light Blue Saturn”-- the story of how a Saturn beats a Lamborghini in a drag race. The chorus goes,
Go, go, go, little light blue Saturn,
Let’s roll, roll, roll, right down the street,
Oh no, no no, now what’s the matter?
I think I made my light blue Saturn overheat
I love this car. But it has several problems. Not the least of which is in real life it looks like it should be a lot more than it is. One version comes with a supercharger and it is actually a lot more than it ought to be. mine? No SC, just a reasonably peppy-but-not-asphalt-blistering 1.6L.
So I’m driving home from the library one fine day (no really, it was the library!) and a school kid and his buddy pull up next to me in a 80s vintage Accord. I pretend not to notice them eyeballing my ride and puffing their engine as they come alongside me at a light. At the green the kid floors it and I maintain the composure that has led me to remain alive into my 40s. I purr along at the speed limit and remember the days when I had a cooler ride. Unfortunately, I end up sidling up next to them at the next light. My eye gets caught and The Old Man is called out. He revs. I rev. His head goes sideways–he wasn’t prepared for my engine note to come from behind us. I ended up winning that one, but only just barely. I think neither of us made it past 60mph in that 15 second race. Which made it a loss. But we all had a good laugh about it at the next light.
