The Scariest or Stupidest Thing You've Ever Done

[tedly]

[silver_bullet]

Both... at the wise age of 16 I took a 72 Honda CB 750-F for a ride....Figured that it should be able to bury the speedometer...she held true to 135 plus, however, I was not aware how spoked wheels could go gyroscopic at high speed when power is removed... I dropped off the throttle abruptly, and the suspension and wheels unloaded rather severely... I limped the bike back home, checked my shorts, and vowed "NEVER AGAIN!!!" I've ridden other bikes since, but have never pushed it...

[pdub]

have never pushed it...

I never saw anything bad happen at land speed, the airport racing. That would be a great place to lose it, you'd just roll and tumble at worst, there's nothing to hit out there. Just pavement and grass.

And now that I'm thinking abut it, I never saw anything bad at track days on road courses either. I guess because we were not going all that fast. I drove up on cars sitting sideways in the grass. Woops. Lost it, didn't ya? Usually Corvettes. I never saw or heard of anybody getting hurt doing it. But that was just from all of the events I participated in.

[silver_bullet]

Pavement and grass are pretty rough at speed when losing it on two wheels....

[Big Dave]

Back when I was a lot younger driving intoxicated on more occasions than anyone should and now being able to tell about. For all practical reasons I shouldn't be alive today with all the tore up cars. So that's the stupidest thing I ever did. When I got into racing I was never scared..........don't really know why but just wasn't.OH Oh Oh the scariest was when I said "I do" at the alter.

[fatguyzinc]

this was pretty scary AND stupid at 45 yrs old and 340lbs...
one hand off the bars mid air, giving the single finger salute.

[Dan Barlow]

I don't want to talk about it . I have mentioned it before though , so nobodies missing anything.

[elcaminogirl59]

I never saw anything bad happen at land speed, the airport racing. That would be a great place to lose it, you'd just roll and tumble at worst, there's nothing to hit out there. Just pavement and grass.

And now that I'm thinking abut it, I never saw anything bad at track days on road courses either. I guess because we were not going all that fast. I drove up on cars sitting sideways in the grass. Woops. Lost it, didn't ya? Usually Corvettes. I never saw or heard of anybody getting hurt doing it. But that was just from all of the events I participated in.

When ECTA was still at Maxton, NC, we saw an older guy wreck a motorcycle. He later passed away. Vic was working staging lanes and was chatting with him and his girlfriend while he was waiting to run. Even took some pictures with him. It was his first time doing land speed racing. He was at the end of his run when he suddenly sat straight up and ran off the pavement. He hit a brushpile and went pinwheeling through the air. It was pretty horrible. They determined he may have had a heart attack.
Scariest moment in my life was when Vic got hurt, between the time I was notified and the time I got to the hospital. Not knowing what was happening was the absolute worst!!

[DanStokes]

When ECTA was still at Maxton, NC, we saw an older guy wreck a motorcycle. He later passed away. Vic was working staging lanes and was chatting with him and his girlfriend while he was waiting to run. Even took some pictures with him. It was his first time doing land speed racing. He was at the end of his run when he suddenly sat straight up and ran off the pavement. He hit a brushpile and went pinwheeling through the air. It was pretty horrible. They determined he may have had a heart attack.
Scariest moment in my life was when Vic got hurt, between the time I was notified and the time I got to the hospital. Not knowing what was happening was the absolute worst!!

That was a bad time but we got thru it! (For Terri it was much rougher time than for ME and me but we did a lot of worrying, too.) It's great to see him pretty much back to his old self.

Dan

[Matt Cramer]

This might prove interesting, maybe.

My scariest thing no doubt was Turn 12 at Road Atlanta. Over and over and over again, lap after lap, and I PAID money to do this. Many times.

I recall one time when I was trying to sort out an issue with a Datsun Z car having an ignition missfire, and I was riding around in the passenger seat at Road Atlanta. Going into Turn 12 at full throttle forced me to drop my "fearless tuner concentrating on the laptop no matter what" act and hang on for dear life.

[Matt Cramer]

As for scariest thing I've ever done - grabbing too much front brake on a motorcycle when a Jeep pulled out about 100 feet ahead of me (as estimated by later measuring the skid marks on the road). The front tire lost traction, I dropped the bike, and slid behind the Jeep, which drove off like nothing had happened.

[JRoberts]

When ECTA was still at Maxton, NC, we saw an older guy wreck a motorcycle. He later passed away. Vic was working staging lanes and was chatting with him and his girlfriend while he was waiting to run. Even took some pictures with him. It was his first time doing land speed racing. He was at the end of his run when he suddenly sat straight up and ran off the pavement. He hit a brushpile and went pinwheeling through the air. It was pretty horrible. They determined he may have had a heart attack.
Scariest moment in my life was when Vic got hurt, between the time I was notified and the time I got to the hospital. Not knowing what was happening was the absolute worst!!

I was working in shutdown that day. It was ugly. The rider had raced elsewhere and, as I remember, he went faster than he was suppose to for his first time down that track. Not a good day.

[pdub]

I was working in shutdown that day. It was ugly. The rider had raced elsewhere and, as I remember, he went faster than he was suppose to for his first time down that track. Not a good day.

Well, I was remiss on an earlier post. I had totally forgotten. I tend to forget unpleasant stuff, have done so all of my life. Donna Timney ran off of the end of the track in Ohio.

I was next to go and away she went on that motorcycle. I even ran the the car cam to watch her leave from behind. She got out of sight and I turned off the camera. That track ran downhill, you can't see the end from the start.

Lohnes was on the mic doing the broadcast. He announced 200+ mph in the trap and Joe Timney was standing right next to my car. He started hopping around and hooping and whooping, both arms in the air, jubilant. It was only seconds later, Lohnes said, "She ran off the end of the track." I don't know yet why she couldn't get it slowed down but she laid it down before she got to those metal runway light towers after the end of the runway. I was looking straight at Joe. Oh my gosh, major high to an ultimate low literally in a heartbeat.

Donna got out of that "okay," bruised and battered and a huge black eye and I think she broke a bone, maybe a wrist, can't remember. Shut down the event, Medivac helicopter, it was scary.

[BBR]

Stupidest and scariest are all kind of intermingled. Most seem to involve 2 wheels.

1. Jumping a bmx bike off a full flight of stairs. Float like a butterfly, land like a cement truck. Landed it, but my ankles, wrists and spokes did not appreciate it.

2. Go dirt bike riding by myself (and not telling anyone where I was) and waking up from a dirt nap after crashing.

3. Learn the hard way that you can't attack a corner on your dual sport motorcycle on asphalt like you can on dirt. And then almost getting run over by the Buick I just crashed in front of.

4. Getting my foot hung on an embankment while riding an enduro and twisting it completely backwards and stopping me there with it pinned between the embankment and the weight of me and the bike. Involuntarily screaming in pain, I was sure I had just stupidly broken my leg in a ravine in the middle of freaking nowhere. I managed to climb over the bars to untwist my leg and then work it free. I laid on the side of the trail for a while, then manned-up, got back on the bike and rode one leg biased for a while and finished the rest of the enduro. Probably 40 miles or so. It hurt like hell the rest of the day, but I managed to beat all but one of my buddies. When I finally took my boot off, my ankle swelled up like a purple cantaloupe. Nothing broken though... that I know of.

5. Had a truck fall off a jack once (hot asphalt). I had just been laying with my legs under it, but swung out to reach a wrench behind me. It was a lowered truck so I had a heck of a time getting it back up on a jack.

6. The F250's carb backfired in my face. That was pretty scary. Burned eyelashes, brows, etc.

7. Playing intramural flag football in college, accidentally ran into a guy and was I was not able to see for a couple of hours afterwards.

[SuperBuickGuy]

I make it a point to keep my guardian angels busy. Nobody likes a bored angel.

Thankfully my brother was far better at eclipsing my stuff so what I did was minor, but cumulatively it is impressive.

outrunning cops on I-5 on a gixxer got the blood going

getting stuck, by myself, in the woods and having to break into a cabin to survive.

almost falling off a roof because AAMCO wouldn't let us use their parking lot to safely access the roof.... almost falling into concrete forms....

pulling duct up the outside of buildings while looking over the edge to get a good grip

sliding down the same mountain a friend later fell from and died.... 1200 foot step

skiing with that same friend down avalanche chutes - choose the wrong path and die because some paths simply dead ended into trees.

those are ones that got me.... there's a lot more that others think was dangerous.... *shrug* I'm still wheeling alone and motorcycling alone. Plan to add flying to my list of new accomplishments in the next year

heck - there is a plan to go to 3rd world countries and teach welding that could be dangerous too....

fortunately, my guardian angels have been working out and are pretty buff now.