Almost a wipe out!!! • The Dodge Challenger Message Board

by **RedRaven** » 23 Oct 2007 20:27

Hey Guys,
Has anybody got any stories of terror on the roads i.e. almost wiping out the MOPAR!!??

by **Eddie** » 23 Oct 2007 21:02

Many.

by **RedRaven** » 23 Oct 2007 21:07

Ladies and gents...your winner of this years short stories award....AirfuelEddie!!! :thumbsup:

by **Eddie** » 23 Oct 2007 21:27

Ok Ok, smarta##! :lol:

It was the dumbest thing I ever did, Ok, one of the many dumb things I did as a teenager with Chrysler Muscle Cars, or any car actually :mrgreen:

anyways, my first car was a 1970 Plymouth SuperBird, 440 6bbl. I only had it 2 weeks, I got into a race with a kid that had a worked 396 SS Chevy. His car sounded really souped up and it was, his dad owned a small Sunoco Service Station and he had a cam and headers. I didnt have any bottom end power because my car had really low gears for high speed, it was built for high speed anyways. I told him I would race him from a roll only. I had his friend riding with me and we went at it from 30 or so. All three carbs screaming wide open and we were neck and neck for a few seconds then I started to pull on him pretty good. I realised the stop sign ahead and there was no way I could stop so I ran it at 80+, no joke man, we could have been killed and killed some one else, Wayne," Pride" can get you killed in these machines. I lost a few buds this way. The cops in those days were also much more lenient, I got caught with booze many times but was cool and the fuzz let me go. It's all a gamble Part1 of a two part series :biggrin:

Ronnie Holt I kicked your ass!(if he ever does a google search this will show up)! :mrgreen:

by **RedRaven** » 23 Oct 2007 21:45

Man..your first car was a 440-6 bird...mine was a ford fiesta!! :oops:

Great story Eddie....dumb teen stuff but I guess we are all guilty of it at that age...

...it reads straight from a movie script...but these type od things were common place in your day right!!

by **jh27n0b** » 23 Oct 2007 21:56

Eddie, your story sounds a lot like some of the stuff I did in the 70's. I remember in 1978 racing a GTO with my Challenger. We were running around 130 mph on the interstate and his passenger passed a beer to me while I was driving. Talk about ignorant I can't believe I sold that Challenger oh and that I am still alive. :shock:

I too was pulled over by the cops and all I had to do was empty my open can of beer and promise to go right home. Crazy dumb days.
Bob

by **RedRaven** » 23 Oct 2007 21:59

Again crazy dumb teen stuff..but keep em comin lads great stuff!!

by **Eddie** » 23 Oct 2007 22:00

Wayne, those cars were nothing more than disposable items. It's a wonder any of em survived! I hate to say it.There were a few shrewd dudes who put em up for 'someday',(today), but those dudes were the anal retentive conservative type. I was not. We hung out on main street for two things Chicks, Girls. the cars were simply a by-product of the era, I was fortunate to have lived through the latter stages when they were cheap, effective,(at getting chicks), and sadly disposable. My second car was a 1973 plymouth RoadRunner. 340 Power, cam headers 4.10 Sure grip B&M Transmission(Guts), 3000K convertor. Pretty quick for a heavy car. I lost a few times to big blocks but beat many as well. The cops got to the point of pulling me over almost nightly, they called me by my first name Eddie, and I was pursuing my Criminology Degree at the time. I should have kept all my cars but money prevails or the lack thereof! :frown:

I recieved many firsts in this car! Sniff Sniff :mrgreen:

by **RedRaven** » 23 Oct 2007 22:04

Man...its movie stuff I tells ya!!!

How many cars have you owned mate?

by **Eddie** » 23 Oct 2007 22:10

Part Two: I was with four other people in that Runner one day, we had all decided to go swimming. Heading towards the pubic swimming pool this girl asked me how fast would this go? Stupid question. An even more stupid response, I nailed it getting up to 100 or so just as a County Sheriffs Deputy was gong the opposite way. I figured"I can outrun him"! (Told you I did stupid stuff), he simply did a 180 and caught up with me at the swimming pool. Were else out in the country with this swimming area the only social gathering place, smart Eddie, he pronounced on his loudspeaker," the owner of this Hot Rod get out here NOW", cool he called my Runner a Hot Rod :thumbsup:

The worst part, his name, I will never forget it, was officer FAGG Yuk Yuk I had to bite my tongue to keep from smiling, he was pissed and then threatened to lock me up. I wasnt smiling anymore. That one cost me dearly. 165.00 and 8 freaking points on my liscence!!!10 they take it away from you! :frown:

He did call my ride a hot rod and for that it was worth it! :s024:

by **dave-r** » 24 Oct 2007 9:29

I wouldn't know where to begin. :roll:

You could say i was a pretty stupid driver for many years. I still drive too fast at times.

I started driving cars well before I was old enough.
Yes. I was one of those teenage "Joy Riders" you hear about. :oops:

Sorry.

Accidents in Mopars....mmmm. I can think of three.

Two in my 318 Oz Charger. One bad one in the Challenger.

Here is the first one.

Showing off in the A-body Charger I hit a large bump in the road at 95mph (in a 30 limit) and flew the car Dukes of Hazzard style for 30 feet.
Took out the oil pan. The front shocks never worked quite right after either.
Got my dad to tow me home. I told him I hit an object in the road. he told me I was a damn liar because he spotted marks (and a pile of rust) on the road where I landed and followed the trail of oil to my car. :roll:

I got a mate to weld the oil pan for me. We made a patch from an old fan blade. Getting the sump off the engine was going to be too tricky. So we gas welded it from under the car...

As the pan heated up residual oil kept catching fire from the drain hole. My mate kept blowing the flame out. In retrospect that was probably a mistake as without a flame burning the fumes off the gasses built up.....

So he is under the car welding the sump. I am kneeling down watching his overalls don't catch fire. I stood up for a moment just to go to the toilet. I turned away and BOOM! :shock:

Big cloud of smoke from under the car and hood.

I shouted to my mate to see if he was OK. No response.
I shook his legs and shouted again. Nothing.

So I grabbed his legs and pulled him out from under. Only then did he speak to say he was OK.

He looked like a Black and White Minstrel when he took his welding goggles off. His face was as black as an African and his hair was blasted into black spikes.

You know. Every gasket on that 318 block was blown. Head gaskets, intake gaskets, carb gaskets, valve cover gaskets. Even the core plugs blew out!
But otherwise it was OK. :lol:

My mate was a bit deaf for a couple of days but he got over it.

by **RedRaven** » 24 Oct 2007 10:02

Wow...thats sounds hairy Dave..lucky escape there Id say!!

Any more??

by **dave-r** » 24 Oct 2007 10:19

Well crash #2 in the Charger I can't say too much about.

Other than the car should not have been on the road at the time as some of the paperwork was not complete and the rear brakes were defective. :oops:

This was in the very early 80s by the way.

But I had been storing the car in a mates garden and he was getting a garage erected so I had to move my car somewhere else.

I am not setting a good example here am I? :oops:

Anyway. All was going well until a guy in a Cortina pulled out in front of me and stopped. It was raining at the time and we were going downhill. I had left enough braking distance to the car that had been in front of me but this guy jumped into the gap and left me no choice but to brake hard. The front wheels locked and me and my mate just had time to look at each other and say Shittttt before we made solid contact with the back of said Cortina. Which promply squashed up about a foot shorter than it had been moments before.

Oh well. The Charger came off quite well really. Bent the bumper slightly and cracked one turn signal lens.

Could have been worse. I had been doing 85mph 5mins before. :roll:

by **dave-r** » 24 Oct 2007 10:55

The crash in the Challenger was in the early 90s.

That one was not funny at all.

I had picked Diana up from the airport in the early hours (back before we were married and she had been away with a girlfriend) and slept over there.
The next morning I had to get home to park the Challenger before going to work (I lived 10mins walk from work then).

I had a 3rd storey apartment over a busy road with parking spaces at the rear. The road is a 30mph limit but everyone drives at 40-50 on it because it is not really residential and it is 4 lanes wide.

I came down the road at about 80mph (as usual) but was slowing down to turn right to the parking area 100 yards on when a minibus full of nurses pulled out and turned right in my direction towards me from the blood transfusion place opposite my apartment block. Remember we drive on the left here boys.

This was OK. I slowed some more but was still doing about 50 or 60mph at this point.
But then a second bus came up fast from the left and followed the first out without looking. Plus there was traffic coming in the opposite direction so he couldn't actually turn right so he stopped half way out of the junction right in front of me. I was REALLY close at this point. Maybe 30-40 feet?

But it was a wide road and I had room to swing around in front of him and between him and oncoming traffic. So knowing I could not stop in time I aimed there. I knew the Challenger would go right through the side of the bus if I t-boned it.
At the same time he noticed me and pulled forward another 6 feet.
So having turned the steering wheel to swing past him at his front I now had to try and swing past his rear. No chance. So I tried a power slide into the road he had just come out of. That meant throwing it sideways and stomping the throttle. Kinda goes against your instincts in the middle of a crash but I had very fast reactions in those days.

All of this was in the space of a second or two.

I almost made it. I could see the faces of the nurses looking at me in horror as i slid past. I missed the back of the bus. But caught the far kerb at about 40mph. The Challenger lifted and few sideways over the footpath, through bushes, the wooden legs of a billboard and finally stopped by a small tree into the quarter panel between the passenger door and the rear wheel. Then the billboard landed on the roof.

I was lucky to hit the tree because just behind it there was a 6ft drop to a car park.

by **ianandjess** » 24 Oct 2007 11:28

well it sounds like we all had fun in our younger years didnt we i had a cool crash 1 night in my 1974 vj valiant charger i was heading home after a bit of a night out (just a few :s023:

) & a motorbike over took me on a windy hilly road so being a stupid young bugger i threw i back to second & blasted past him& just kept winding it out till i hit the top of the last hill but it had no rear brakes & the road had a T junction with a lake at the end so being a downhill run at over 200kph yes i got WET
cheers ian

by **Eddie** » 24 Oct 2007 13:20

I gotta tell you dudes. I laughed so hard reading Daves, Bob, Ian stories. Dave's description,"I could see the horror on the nurses faces", Ha :biggrin:

I know it's not funny but I laughed so hard man!!! :thumbsup:

by **Eddie** » 24 Oct 2007 13:34

RedRaven wrote:Man..your first car was a 440-6 bird...mine was a ford fiesta!!

Great story Eddie....dumb teen stuff but I guess we are all guilty of it at that age...

...it reads straight from a movie script...but these type od things were common place in your day right!!

Wayne, I wish I still had the SuperBird or the RoadRunner. Those were my first two muscle cars and I had the Runner for a few years before selling it to a high school kid who went out and promptly totaled it in a few days after aquiring it. When I was at the University I drove an old beat up 225 CID Slant six one barrel Plymouth Duster, I got it cheap and it never failed to start, even in 40 below freezing weather. It rusted away to literally nothing. The radiator support actually broke and it was hanging below the front bumper! Today the cops are relentless, they pull you over for the most minor of offenses, they make so much money it has become almost ridiculous. They ticket the 'kids' out on the streets on the weekends for 'loitering' and they have to pay 45.00 for such an 'offense'. The parents wonder why their kids are all meth heads? It's because they arent in to muscle cars and the 'safe' things we did as teenagers. They should put me in charge of something! :biggrin:

by **Eddie** » 24 Oct 2007 13:38

jh27n0b wrote:Eddie, your story sounds a lot like some of the stuff I did in the 70's. I remember in 1978 racing a GTO with my Challenger. We were running around 130 mph on the interstate and his passenger passed a beer to me while I was driving. Talk about ignorant I can't believe I sold that Challenger oh and that I am still alive. I too was pulled over by the cops and all I had to do was empty my open can of beer and promise to go right home. Crazy dumb days.
Bob

Oh and Bob, Please tell these guys about 'peckerheads' you know the mushrooms? We eat them. Along with other Morels. :s024:

by **dave-r** » 24 Oct 2007 14:12

airfuelEddie wrote:I gotta tell you dudes. I laughed so hard reading Daves, Bob, Ian stories. Dave's description,"I could see the horror on the nurses faces", Ha I know it's not funny but I laughed so hard man!!!

Hey Eddie. Stop laughing man. It was serious. One of the nurses was pregnant and nearly had the bastard there on the spot!

I am making you laugh worse now aren't I? :lol:

by **RedRaven** » 24 Oct 2007 14:27

Ha Ha...Dave I dont care what they say about you over on MMA I think you are good craic!!! :s023:

I gonna sit back and watch this one go up!!

Whers that gerry can!!! :mrgreen:

Keep em coming lads!!! :thumbsup:

by **Eddie** » 24 Oct 2007 18:48

Sorry Dave I am in tears man. :lol:

I do understand Dave, I really do :biggrin:

by **Eddie** » 24 Oct 2007 19:18

RedRaven wrote:Man...its movie stuff I tells ya!!!

How many cars have you owned mate?

The SuperBird, The 73 RoadRunner, a 76 plymouth duster that rusted away to nothing but the engine,(225CID 6 cyl),still ran fine, Then Trucks a Dakota that I had while I worked at the State Farm, Got rid of it, no power from the V-6, I ordered my 1990 PowerRam which I still have, and my 2002 Dodge Diesel 6-speed H.D. 4x4 which I currently own. 3 total 1 car my R/T, and 2 Dodge Trucks.

by **jh27n0b** » 24 Oct 2007 20:20

I will have to adnit that eddie is right about the mushrooms that resemble the male anatomy. They are referred to as Peckerheads.

Thanks for the question red. You sure got me thinking back in time. I tore up the house last night to find some of my old pics. My first car was a 1968 Satellite, 318 Auto Dark Green Metallic. I have owned 7 Challengers in the past.

#1 1971 318 Pistol Grip 4 speed Top Banana
#2 1970 340 Pistol Grip 4 speed Plum Crazy A66 car
#3 1971 318 Conv Auto Hemi orange Pace Car
#4 1970 383 Conv Auto Plum crazy [I still own this one]
#5 1970 318 Auto Raylle dash Rallye Red [parted out in 1988]
#6 1970 383 Auto Plum Crazy R/T S/E [Parted out in 1988]
#7 1970 318 Conv Auto Top Banna
Bob

by **Eddie** » 24 Oct 2007 20:29

Impressive Bob! You truly are a E-Body Man. Thanks for explaining the 'Peckerheads'. I dont want these fine upstanding gentlemen to think I was a little 'off' or something. BTW, when are you coming down again? I would like to go for another cruise before it goes up for the winter season. :thumbsup:

by **RedRaven** » 24 Oct 2007 20:58

Yes we use peckerhead as a phrase here too lads...now about these photos of cars..scan em and post em..oh the ladies aswell something very sexy about 70s chicks...not too sexy mind you or I will get another fat ear off the gaffer!! :thumbsup:

by **jh27n0b** » 24 Oct 2007 21:58

Ok Red here is a picture of some hot Indiana Chicks.
Sorry Dave, They don't have clothes on.
Eddie, Soccer is now over so maybe we could hook up for some last of the season cruising.

by **RedRaven** » 24 Oct 2007 22:02

Ha Ha...Sorry Dave my fault I was egging him on!!!! :mrgreen:

by **jh27n0b** » 24 Oct 2007 23:56

I found these pics of two of my old Challengers. Still looking for the others.

The top pic was taken in 1978 of my first Challenger.
The bottom pic is from 2000 when I bought this 1970.

by **Eddie** » 25 Oct 2007 21:26

Sweet and Hot! The Challengers are cool too! :mrgreen:

Let me know when you want to hook Bob, You can hold the meter and see what the A/F ratio is at 100+M.P.H. :twisted:

(I'm totally serious)

by **RedRaven** » 25 Oct 2007 21:32

Id believe him...He drinks aviation fuel ya know!! :mrgreen:

Well so Dave says anyway... :s023: