[fastgtr]

I have two police and one fire dept. Being a bit windy i will TRY to keep them brief. Bear with me, they are true, and funny.

I had just finished building an extremely hot 68 Firebird with a 400 with about 550 Hp, TH400 and 4.10's in a twelve bolt posi with ladder bars and 50 series meats on the back. This car was fast. I ran low 11's in it often by simply putting on the slicks and shifting at 6400 rpm. It was senior prom night, and at after the prom my girlfriend and our two best friends decided to leave. It was about 4am. We were going to go to my apt ( lived away from Mom! YES!!!) to have a few brews and make out. We pull up to a stop light at the freeway offramp in Oroville ca at Grand Ave and my buddy steve who had never been in the car noticed my solid lifter cam loping like crazy and idling at 1300 rpm in drive and asked is it fast? Before I could process where I REALLY was (RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CHP station-and I KNEW it!!! Doh!) I laid into the thing and just destroyed the rear tires. I laid about 200 feet of rubber and went through all three gears until we hit about 100 mph which happened VERY fast. Well, Johnny Law was waiting fer me right there. Three cars hit their lights at once and I made no effort to flee. This time. Cop walks up grinning and says, "who the hell do you think you are? Speed Racer?" "No sir" I replied!

I TRIED to talk my way out of it, but they laughed at my lame excuse, said it was the best burnout they had ever seen, and wrote me the most expensive ticket I ever got. Min wage in 1978 was about $1.65 and hour as I recall(could be wrong the seventies were VERY good to me) and the ticket was $186!!!OUCH!!! My friend Steve graciously paid half the ticket as I simply could not cough it up. We have been freinds since the 7th grade and still speak occasionally. Righteous dude. To the cops credit they were 100% professional about the whole thing, and noticing our garb did not haul me off to jail.

Same car, well broken in now...two of my best friends Franie and Jim and I all decided to go out to the rockpiles and do some bo and luke duke driving. We had just finished some insane manuevers in the gravel tailing (old dredger ponds and miles and miles of crazy gravel roads leading to them) when we decided to head back into town. the car was hot, we were toasty as well;-) and all of a sudden red lights in my rear view! Oh NO!!! Im going the exact speed limit...What did I do wrong? He was about a 1/4 mile back...so...being in an altered state of mind I decided to make a run for it. i knew I was faster, and in the small town of Oroville, I knew there was no air support... so I foolishly laid into it, and hit about 70 through the empty streets of the "ville" midful of the fatc that there was a very good chace of an accident at this speed. The cop and his car were SLOWWWWWW! Frankie said "hey maybe lincoln street is wide enough at the next intersection to swing a 180"...so I did...at about 85MPH! No brakes either, just full f'ing drift. I was in rock pile mode on pavement! I thought for sure we were going to roll the car but she held up and swung her ass wide and clean. Smoke was pouring out of the wheelwells. I went by the cop at full throttle. He was so red faced I could see his eyes bulging and his gritted teeth...and he saw me. Damn!

My first thought was stop and pull over. This is over. But...as I said this was not the way to be apprehended. If he caught me later he would only be able to get me for speed and evasion, but if he caught me now...well, i think you all know where I am coming from. Then... to my utter shock and amazment he simply shut off his lights and kept driving the other direction. Frankie and Jim were whooping and hollering for joy. I took the cops clue and did the same and dropped my speed down to the posted limit and made for the outskirts. I felt a whoosh of relief and my buddies were blown away. I had just pulled off a dukes of hazzard escape! But not quite.

My girlfriend who was with me when i got the ticket was working at Taco Bell, and a few weeks later, I got a call at work from her asking me about it. We were married by then, and I fessed up. She was at work too, which was strange-why would she call me from work at work to ask about a cop chase that happened a few weeks ago? Hmmm....enquring minds...


I knew it wasn"t good, but I went back to my work at the butcher counter and it bugged me all day. I was worried. Before she hung up..she told me to hide the car and she would talk to me later. She couldnt tell me now. Oh.... I HATE that!

She came home pissed off as hell at me! Turns out they were so determined to "get" me they sent up a special Z28 interceptor CHP car, and he came in looking for me at the TB. They wanted to put the fear in me and they surely did. i might have won a lot of 1/4 mile races handily with the firebird, but there was no way I could outrun that interceptor at top speed nor was it likely outdrive the hired gun they sent to get me. Needless to say i parked the car at my my Mother in Laws house for about 6 months


One last one that has nothing to do with the police...it was the fire dept. Another buddy of mine, Chris and I were on my way over to my apt, and we decided to do some donuts on Nelson Ave. why? Hell, i dont know. seemed a good idea at the time. It wasn't. i spun about 8 donuts in a row... hard into the throttle, and turned into as tight as it would go, and there was so much smoke and noise the fire crew thought we had an engine fire, and we were trapped. they came running towards us with 4 fire extinguishers!!! We let off the throttle, thanked them, and left in a hurry, and I realized then I had to to sell that car or die in it!!! I was simply not to be trusted with that much power!!! I was pretty talented as a driver, but foolish.

Now boys and girls, what did we learn fastgtr's story? Dont drive like he did or you could get a ticket! Or worse yet, some unwelcome fire extinguishers coming at ya with some rather determined firefighters who intend to help! Far worse, you could very well kill someone. Gladly I have never caused an accident or hurt anyone. But...I sure could have. Now...I merely cruise the GTO mellow and open it up at the track. Safely. current GTO's best time is 12.02! I'll break those 11's yet!!!