It's stock, it's slow, and I don't want to race you.

Trackmouse wrote: In reply to Tyler H: I call BS! Only because a 12a can't hit 100mph... just kidding. That sucks.

When I was younger and dumber and the roads weren't as crowded, I was the only person on a certain stretch of the Ohio Turnpike and I used to cruise at 115mph on the way to work. Every morning. Stock 12A car except for an upgraded fuel pump. Stock fuel pump craps out at sustained speeds over 85.

One day after work, I was on a similarly empty road and I saw 7000rpm in 4th (120mph, rated top speed), upshifted to 5th, gained another 200rpm (124-ish? 5600 to 5800rpm) then backed out because I was coming up to some traffic.

Can't do anything near that dumb anymore, way too much traffic nowadays. What was once mostly farmland is now all housing developments and the people who used to live in the inner suburbs live out there now. There's more traffic at 2am than there used to be at 7:30am.

Kreb wrote: They also told the other guy that he drove a little too aggressively whenever he took the helmet off.

It's usually the opposite, no? Adding helmet increases aggressiveness and decreases IQ.

yupididit wrote:

Sky_Render wrote:

Stefan wrote: In reply to Vigo: You're an shiny happy person and damned lucky. Knock it the hell off on the streets. Street racing is a waste of time, doesn't prove anything and makes the general public think all "car people" are raging street racing shiny happy people.

This. I've lost a lot of respect for you, Vigo.

I bet 80% of this forum populance has street raced at least once. No Respect Son!!!!!

Yeah, when I was an idiot 19-year-old. I have since grown up.

Knurled wrote:

Trackmouse wrote: In reply to Tyler H: I call BS! Only because a 12a can't hit 100mph... just kidding. That sucks.

When I was younger and dumber and the roads weren't as crowded, I was the only person on a certain stretch of the Ohio Turnpike and I used to cruise at 115mph on the way to work. Every morning. Stock 12A car except for an upgraded fuel pump. Stock fuel pump craps out at sustained speeds over 85. One day after work, I was on a similarly empty road and I saw 7000rpm in 4th (120mph, rated top speed), upshifted to 5th, gained another 200rpm (124-ish? 5600 to 5800rpm) then backed out because I was coming up to some traffic. Can't do anything near that dumb anymore, way too much traffic nowadays. What was once mostly farmland is now all housing developments and the people who used to live in the inner suburbs live out there now. There's more traffic at 2am than there used to be at 7:30am.

I can certainly relate to that.

When I was a kid dad used to get up early once a month, usually on a Sunday morning, and "go blow it out" often he would ask me to come along. There is a road that bypassed Hamilton and Fairfield along route 4, aptly named Bypass 4. It used to be an arrow straight two lane through farm land. I figured out that to go "blow it out" meant going WFO for at least five miles.

The last time I was home it was five lanes wide with red lights every 1000' lined with entrances to subdivisions and shopping centers the entire distance.

Plenty of arrow straight empty roads out here in Texas though. I got a chance to "blow out" the bike this evening after work. Not another car in sight.

What's the difference between street racing and driving at expressive speeds?

In reply to yupididit:

The price of bail.

When I'm driving the rally car on the street, people for some reason think I'm gonna take off from stoplights so they tend to accelerate harder I think.

This has resulted in a good half-dozen minivans (accidentally) smoking me from stoplights, as well as various other appliances, SUVs, etc. I guess they all expect a 32-year old BMW to have some kind of crazy ///M motor in it or something....not a chipped M42 lol.

yupididit wrote: What's the difference between street racing and driving at expressive speeds?

Good question. I think it's psychological, in any kind of competition the tendency is to take greater risks. The so-called "red mist". There's also less/no "out" to take if maybe we should slow down a bit.

yupididit wrote: What's the difference between street racing and driving at expressive speeds?

I think it is more of a question of if there are other people around.

I'm on an arrow straight road, perfectly flat with no driveways and no side roads and clear visibility as far as the eye can see. I posed no danger to any other person besides myself. Add one other vehicle to that mix, or even the possibility of another vehicle coming within a quarter of a mile of me and that totally changes the dynamics of the situation.

Ahh, the hazards of driving a race car for pizza delivery Duty. On my way home about 11 o'clock at night some guys in a really loud old Chevy Blazer decided that they would rev at me. I took a look around and then punched it and caught second gear exactly right. Turns out my piece of crap was in fact significantly faster than theirs that night

NickD wrote:

Furious_E wrote:

Joe Gearin wrote: I wonder if he added an M3 sticker to his car's flanks.......like WWII airplanes used to do to signify vanquished enemies.

For some reason, this is what I think of whenever I see the stupid stick figure families on the back of mini vans and CUVs...Look at me everyone, I murdered my whole family! I'll admit to engaging in such juvenile behavior described in this thread from time to time. I had an n/a 5 speed Volvo 850 in high school that had the exhaust completely rust off behind the cat at one point, so it was obnoxiously loud and not particularly fast at all. Great for trolling faster cars, just to see what they could do, knowing full well I'd get my ass handed to me.

My friend used to tell a story of how he had a 5-speed twin cam Neon that the exhaust fell off of and he would try to either goad people into showing off or try to outrun anything he had a chance against. One night he wheeled up to a stoplight and there was an old beat-up Galant sitting there. He launches the Neon and the Galant promptly flies past him. They get stopped at the next light and my friend did a redline clutch dump and once again the Galant beats him out of the hole and then runs away on him. As it goes by, this time he sees the VR-4 badge on the back.

Imagine the look on the stupid kid in the Integra's face when he floored it away from a light and got walked by a minivan.

minivan_racer wrote:

NickD wrote:

Furious_E wrote:

Joe Gearin wrote: I wonder if he added an M3 sticker to his car's flanks.......like WWII airplanes used to do to signify vanquished enemies.

For some reason, this is what I think of whenever I see the stupid stick figure families on the back of mini vans and CUVs...Look at me everyone, I murdered my whole family! I'll admit to engaging in such juvenile behavior described in this thread from time to time. I had an n/a 5 speed Volvo 850 in high school that had the exhaust completely rust off behind the cat at one point, so it was obnoxiously loud and not particularly fast at all. Great for trolling faster cars, just to see what they could do, knowing full well I'd get my ass handed to me.

My friend used to tell a story of how he had a 5-speed twin cam Neon that the exhaust fell off of and he would try to either goad people into showing off or try to outrun anything he had a chance against. One night he wheeled up to a stoplight and there was an old beat-up Galant sitting there. He launches the Neon and the Galant promptly flies past him. They get stopped at the next light and my friend did a redline clutch dump and once again the Galant beats him out of the hole and then runs away on him. As it goes by, this time he sees the VR-4 badge on the back.

Imagine the look on the stupid kid in the Integra's face when he floored it away from a light and got walked by a minivan.

I just got back from running some errands, and I saw this guy in a beat up E36 get his ass absolutely handed to him by a dude in an 04 Denali on all terrains. The look on E36 guy's face was priceless.

On the way home one night from work in my ae86, this chick hangs out the passenger window and says "I bet our truck could roll right over your car!" I replied "yeah, you gotta catch me first." She died laughing and I left her at the light in a blaze of 90hp tire smoke. It was a good night.

In reply to Trackmouse:

A better reply would have been, "Why don't you come over here, so I can roll over you."

I will admit to majorly pissing off a very riced, primer-ed Integra a few years ago. I was in the Jeep, waiting for a left turn onto a 2 lane highway entrance (both lanes continue, no merging or anything). Integra was in front of me. We turn, he jumps into the left lane and punches it.

So I figure "berkeley it, let's see what happens". I backed off right around the speed limit with him about 2 lengths behind me. He proceeds to fly by me, flashers on, slow down, fly past me again, gets in my lane and then just flies down the highway at 80+. Just a butthurt idiot who was pissed off that his ricer was slower than a Jeep...

The guy looked exactly like the kind of idiot who once tried to tell me his crappy off-brand all seasons were "race tires". When I called him out on it, he said "yeah, they still have tread and aren't super low tread wear, they're street racing tires". Then he proceeded to start his Civic and blanket the area in oil smoke... Moron...

I was leaving a car show with my Miata and had some kids yeling at me to do a burnout. In a stock-drivetrain 1.6L Miata with 4.10s and 200tw tires? I don't think that's happening. Sorry

Knurled wrote:

Kreb wrote: They also told the other guy that he drove a little too aggressively whenever he took the helmet off.

It's usually the opposite, no? Adding helmet increases aggressiveness and decreases IQ.

Not necessarily, some of the most hairball motorcyclists do so in muscle shirts and shorts. In this case, people were getting us confused, thinking that the no-helmet, more aggressive guy (me), and the careful helmeted guy were one and the same.

yupididit wrote: What's the difference between street racing and driving at expressive speeds?

Huge difference. When I'm backroad bombing, I'm still staying in my lane if there's any chance that someone could be in the other lane - basically depending on the conditions, I'm between 7/10ths and 9/10ths. Whereas when I used to street race, I was basically doing 10/10ths on public roads while dicing with another car (yes I was an asshat, and fortunately the only one who ever got hurt was myself).

I had an sti hatch come up behind me, slow, pace me back there, and wait for my lane to go double stripe do not cross, and traffic in front of me. At which point the ricer flyby went down and I am certain he was on NASIOC the next day crowing about taking down an AMG... the one time I've gone aggro in this car was with a P85D, on an otherwise dead empty road. This was for science, obviously. Turns out, if I am going 35 and a P85D wants to pass, and I apply throttle, said Tesla ends up in my rearview mirror. I need to file a large grant application for further research.

Reading all of this makes me happy I drive an iQ. Fastest thing at the drag strip I could beat would be a paddock mini-bike if I bothered going.

MugenReplica wrote: Reading all of this makes me happy I drive an iQ. Fastest thing at the drag strip I could beat would be a paddock mini-bike if I bothered going.

I remember a 70's Civic (CVCC?) with the 2-speed auto that ran consistent 28s.

On a track time basis, he was having the most fun that night!

In reply to NickD:

Everyone loves a burnout, you should have at least tried ;)

volvoclearinghouse wrote:

Stefan wrote:

volvoclearinghouse wrote: I drive a diesel Mercedes wagon. A tan one. Non-turbo. No one tries to race me, but last week some kid in a silver Golf decided he would be cute and tried to pass me on the shoulder. Mind you, this was in afternoon traffic on a 4 lane primary road. I guess the fact that I'd left 3 or 4 car lengths between my Mercedes' front bumper and the car in front of me meant that I clearly needed to be passed at all cost.

If its like every other tan diesel Mercedes I've been stuck behind (they are a scourge around here) the fumes and general speed means they needed to get around you to get some fresh air before they asphyxiated. Seriously, I despise these things plodding around town as they are sooo slow to accelerate, almost always cruise at 5 under, usually stink to high heaven and almost always driven by some smug bearded person who is also somehow clueless about the tailback they've created. Welcome to Portland where the Hippies drive old Volvo's, diesel Mercedes and clapped out old Toyotas, unless their parents buy them a Prius or hand them down something newer.

In the situation in question, I was driving the exact same speed as the flow of traffic, only I like to leave 2 seconds' car length between the front bumper of my car and the rear bumper of the one I'm tailing. There's a difference between driving slowly and leaving appropriate following distance. Doing the latter can actually speed up traffic flow as it reduces the standing waves.

Wrong. This is why people behind you evidently hate you. Its not just the fumes. Leaving too much space is just an open invitation for everyone to change lanes in front of you. And im telling you this as one who is a firm believer in the zipper merge, ie i let everyone in who uses a signal. But 3 or 4 car lengths just signifies that you're a sucker and makes life miserable for everyone behind you. Tighen it up.

In reply to Nick (Bo) Comstock:

Yes, bybass 4 used to be just that. I was shocked when i went through it nit long ago. "Progress"

plance1 wrote: Wrong. This is why people behind you evidently hate you. Its not just the fumes. Leaving too much space is just an open invitation for everyone to change lanes in front of you. And im telling you this as one who is a firm believer in the zipper merge, ie i let everyone in who uses a signal. But 3 or 4 car lengths just signifies that you're a sucker and makes life miserable for everyone behind you. Tighen it up.

I increase my following distance the closer the doofus behind me is following, and brake earlier and gentler. I assume anybody who tailgates is too inattentive to slow down properly.

I have only been rearended once, and that was unavoidable on my part. I was already stopped when it happened.