Tale of the King of Automotive Crackheads

A topic on the local forums reminded me of this story which I thought I'd share with you.

I didn't find out about this until it was over...but a few years back (maybe around 2006?) there was a guy who drove the most ridiculously riced Prelude, complete with what appeared to be a drag racing parachute and some weird tubes sticking out of the rear bumper. Written on the car in electrical tape letters was "C.A.R. - COMPUTER ASSISTED ROCKETS."

But this is about the king of automotive crackheads, not the king of ricers.

It turns out that he had actually installed a pair of bigass homemade solid rocket boosters in the car and wanted to break the local landspeed record - unofficially, of course. Once SRBs light they keep firing until they run out of fuel Some guys on the local forum talked him out of it - which surprises me a bit considering the kind of crowd on there and the amount of lulz on offer.

Of course he picked up the nickname "Rocket Man."

I only saw the car a few times within a maybe 6 month period many years ago so I guess that the car no longer exists in the same form now.

Anyone know of a challenger to his title?

Why would anyone talk him out of it? How fun would that be to watch pinging off buildings and tumbling end over end?

I knew a guy when we were kids who was so gullible that we conned him into crawling under his porch with a cat on his chest and sticking the tail up thru a hole in the porch. berkeley yeah we stepped on it's tail. I have never seen anyone bleed like that since.

I knew a guy in High School who thought he was the frickin' strongest man on the planet. I told him "I'll bet you're strong enough to stand in front of my truck with me on the gas."

he agreed.

We made it halfway outside before he reconsidered. I am not sure what I would have done, I had no desire to run him over.

Homemade solid rocket boosters are pretty hard to top for lunacy - unless he'd done some VERY careful testing with them before putting them on the car. There's so much that could go wrong there, from the rockets exploding to having the mounts break off.

Some people like rotary engines.

True story.

In reply to Brett_Murphy:

Look, party pooper, it's no fun if people start posting crap without any regard for whether it's remotely plausible...

MadScientistMatt wrote: Homemade solid rocket boosters are pretty hard to top for lunacy - unless he'd done some VERY careful testing with them before putting them on the car. There's so much that could go wrong there, from the rockets exploding to having the mounts break off.

It doesn't even have to be nearly that dramatic- simply not having them both putting out the same amount of thrust could lead to it pulling harder to one side than the steering on the car could counter to keep it from veering wildly to one side if they're placed far enough apart.

Of course, if this had been a truck done up like in Buckaroo Banzai, I'd at least have been forced to give him credit for style...

And double bonus points if he even remotely looks like Peter Weller.

Reminds me of the time the drunk in a bar insisted his Trans Am would do 200 MPH. He kept on, kept on, then I finally said something to the effect that it wouldn't do 200 MPH if t was dropped off a cliff. Now he starts yelling 'GET IN! I'LL SHOW YOU!' Yeah, right. Like I'm getting in a car with an angry drunk guy.

GameboyRMH wrote: Of course he picked up the nickname "Rocket Man."

Today, he is known only as "Ken Block".

N Sperlo wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote: Of course he picked up the nickname "Rocket Man."

Today, he is known only as "Ken Block".

Have you seen that guys video's? They're pretty amazing.

How about this?

Although, I know this car was done some time ago....

In reply to mtn:

Oh, their great. I love them. He also runs a great rally, but he does a lot of silly E36 M3.

I respect him, but he deserves to get a little E36 M3.

Also that beetle works pretty well from what I have seen.

Wait, is this actually a non-ironic discussion about Ken Block, or am I just hopelessly out of it?

This may belong in the flounder thread, but I did hear somewhere that the lead singer of the band Meatloaf arrived by his nickname when he was dared in highschool to allow a friend to drive over him in his Volkswagon Beetle. When he reappeared out from under the car a spectator said: "wow, your face looks like meatloaf man!"

Duke wrote: Wait, is this *actually* a non-ironic discussion about Ken Block, or am I just hopelessly out of it?

No.

Lol @ Rocket Man.

There was a guy nick-named "Foot-Fungus" that would troll the late night parking lot shows with his 305 third-gen Camaro. It was a 200 mph drift car. Someone bet him that he couldn't get it sideways and then he said he could at 90mph...in a parking lot... I left after a low speed spin-out.

At an import show, I saw a fully riced Del Sol get a couple feet off the ground while screwing around in a crudely paved parking lot, where they just paved over a stump, or rock. Watching the bodykit shatter was the best part.

We had an unofficial rally back off of a four-wheeling trail that led to a power station. A buddy with a decent Audi 5000 (I think) slid through a fence and into a transformer. I was surprised that nothing happened, but the damage was done to the car and he just backed it out and left it on the 4 wheeling trail. We went to check on it a month later and it had been turned into an obstacle and was totally crushed. I cant ever feel bad for these people.