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BANGSHIFT QUESTION OF THE DAY: WHAT WAS YOUR CLOSEST CALL IN A CAR OR TRUCK?


BANGSHIFT QUESTION OF THE DAY: WHAT WAS YOUR CLOSEST CALL IN A CAR OR TRUCK?

After watching all those little Euro-mobiles wreck on the ‘Ring in that blog item yesterday you are probably thinking about a time or two where you found yourself a little short in the talent department behind the wheel. We’re not interested in your wreckage stories, rather the times when it looked like wreckage was imminent but somehow you bailed your own ass out of the hurt locker.

Maybe it was on the race track, on the street, in the woods, whatever. If you’ve spent a long time messing around with cars, you’ve undoubtedly done something that has left you and potentially your passengers wondering why you aren’t at the pearly gates chatting with St. Peter.

Us? Oh we’ve got more than a couple of these stories to tell, but one of the best involved an early 1980s Chevy half ton truck, a road course, and a complete lack of sense when trying to impress a friend. Let’s just say that trying to drive a C10 like a Ferrari F40 and narrowly avoiding a concrete wall when the brakes faded to absolute nothingless had us thanking the automotive Gods that our seat was made of easy to clean and stain proof vinyl. Said friend was thinking of charging us with attempted murder.

Thanks to SBG for the inspiration on this one!

There’s one of our skeletons from the near miss closet…share yours!

 

 

 

 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!


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21 thoughts on “BANGSHIFT QUESTION OF THE DAY: WHAT WAS YOUR CLOSEST CALL IN A CAR OR TRUCK?

  1. Monk

    Easy…..Summer of ’66.

    Coming back from drive in movie one night…….two lane blacktop.

    ’66 Charger (car I’m in) side by side with a ’65 Vette.
    Well over a 100 mph …………roads starts to run out……..headlights
    pop over the hill.
    We leave the road like the Dukes of Hazard.

    My first thoughts were………wonder what a head on collision is gonna feel like.
    Yeah…..we were damn lucky.

  2. kingcrunch

    Closest call until now:
    Missed an ambulance on duty (lights & sirens) – which pulled into an intersection that i approached doing 55 – by a mere 20 inches.
    All fours locked up, screaching to a halt just before hitting the passenger door.
    I’ve seen the white in their eyes ;D I drive a ’76 Dodge 3/4t 4×4, hitting that ambulance with this truck would have been an ungly mess…

    Guys gave me a thumbs up and proceeded to their call…

  3. SBG

    First year of college, I was going up I-84 (Portland, OR to points east), stopped at a middle-of-the-freeway rest stop (Multnomah Falls). The freeway was bone dry, but the entire rest area was covered in about 6″ of ice. I was driving a 1962 Buick Skylark (with no heater).
    As I was pulling back onto the freeway, I’m watching in my rearview mirror to avoid the cars that are travelling 70 mph in the fast lane and accelerating gently… things look good, until almost the end of the ramp when I see a couple of cars coming. I add gas, and immediately I’m travelling sideways down the ramp. The car gets to the freeway, and is travelling sideways. The car literally started to roll, but then started skipping down the freeway. Then the motor died.
    Fortunately, the other drivers were paying attention (pre-cell phone/texting days) – and they slowed down enough so I could get it fired and get on my way.

  4. Mopar or No Car

    Driving my ’91 Imperial with my wife in the passenger seat into Vallejo, Calif. on I-780 in the slow lane through the I-80 interchange. Suddenly the car directly next to me in the fast lane veers for the exit ramp — I don’t know how I avoided it, I swear she went right through the front of the car.

  5. Robert M.

    Years ago, I had just gotten a beautiful ’48 Ford coupe, which I was planning to make into a street rod.

    It was completely stock including the original single circuit brake system.
    Cruising down the expressway, approaching stopped traffic ahead, I hit the brake pedal and it went straight to the floor. I did some moto-X in the median strip and managed to stop it using the emergency brake.

    I and the coupe survived intact, but I immediately decided that modern (dual circuit) braking components were to be moved to first on the list, of the many modifications which were yet to come.

  6. Gonkulator

    testing the handling on my 73 bmw 2002 going around a cruve the back tire blew and the car hit and slid off the the wall drove it a 1/2 mile home with a rear tire blown and rear bumper dragging on the ground

    the next day took my dads 1 ton ford truck and a chain yanked on the front end a few times bolted the bumper back on tossed on a new tire and drove it for another year till it finally died

  7. threedoor

    Back in 96 while I was going to school in Prescott Arizona I was taking a few friends to Love field to go flying. I was driving my 71 GMC 2500 2wd at about 80 in a 45. There is a great semi banked sweeping 90 degree curve just south of the airport, I somehow managed to keep the pickup on the road as I somehow managed to drift it around the entire corner while a guy in a mid 70’s 1 ton dually passed me going the other way. I will never forget the look on his face, his straw cowboy hat, the baby blue color of the truck and the tire smoke rolling over the hood of my ratty 71. My passengers, the guy riding bitch who was a total adrenaline junky, 220 jumps at that time, rock climber, pilot ect was screaming bloody murder. The other guy, was calm as a cucumber, about twenty minits later ha simply said, “Don’t ever do that again.”

  8. Robert

    It was the mid 80’s. I had a 1969 Camaro. It was on the Long Island Expressway heading to Long Island about 8:30-9:00 p.m. I was following my friend in his ’77 Trans Am. We were in the left lane moving about 70mph. My friend comes up behind a guy in a Chevette doing 55 and wont move right. The guy in the Chevette “brake checks” my friend and he gets pissed. All the while Im watching this from about 15 car lenghts behind. My girlfriend at the time was in the passenger seat. We both said aloud that this wasnt looking good. My friend goes around the guy in the Chevette and brake checks him back. I knew better to slow down but the guy in the Chevette just stops. I had just enough time to swerve right but the back end came around and I went past him BACKWARDS! All I could see is headlights from the cars that were behind us coming up. Still rolling backwards I turned the wheel and did a “Rockford” and wound up going in the same direction in the same lane as the guy in the Chevette but I was only rolling about 15 mph and the engine stalled. I popped the trans into neutral, cranked it up (while waiting to feel a terrible impact) the engine caught and I pulled left onto the grass median. It was a split second that traffic whizzed by us. Luckily the crash never came. I looked at my girlfriend and asked if she was ok. She nodded . I reached up and cut the engine and took a few deep breaths then got out of the car to murder the douchebag in the Chevette. I ran back to his car. It was one totally scared dude and a car full of screaming girls. I cussed hime every word in the book and went back to my car. The only damage was frazzled nerves and a scraped exhaust as I went over the curb when I left. My friend didnt see what happened and kept on going. I had a few choice words for him too.

  9. Whelk

    During my college years I was taking a twisty backroad to the university. SR 732 between Eaton and Oxford Ohio. Zooming through in a ’77 Cutlass S, not well known for it’s handling prowess, I come over a hilltop and into a 90* turn where the road doglegs around some farmers fields. I jammed on the brake and cranked the wheel while wonder how long it take to call a tow (pre cell phone days) and if the car would roll as I slid off the road and down the embankment.
    Somehow I made the turn. I still don’t see how.

  10. John

    Holiday break from college ’88 – driving my folks ’80 olds 88 with the 307.
    I94 around the Southern tip of Lake Michigan is known for it’s lake effect white outs.
    I had recently replaced the rear tires, changed the oil and gave the car a general once over at my roommates dads shop close to school – it was only 135 mile drive home – but that seemed like a long way back then.
    All was well as I approached the lake effect area – a bit of light mist but nothing the defroster and winter wiper blades couldn’t handle. I had the cruise set about 62 (in a 55).
    I came up over a slight hill into a gradual left hand turn when I did a double take –
    up ahead were at least three cars side ways across the road still sliding – black ice.
    I tapped the brakes to disengage the cruise and see just how close the pavement resembled a hockey rink. The rear end danced a little with every touch of the brake pedal – no way I could stop in time. Looking at both medians – there was a gaurd rail to the right but the center median appeared somewhat friendly.
    Time stood still as I steered the car with the wheel and my right foot into the median, past the cars that were still sliding or rotating in the middle of the road. The plan was to drive right by them and not stop – stopping would surely mean getting stuck and waiting for a tow – and having to deal with the parental corrections that would surely follow.
    Somehow the olds managed the off road tail wagging sufficiently enough to load the rear wheel wells with slush mud and grass and kept enough momentum going to get back up onto the shoulder and eventually into the left lane. I just kept on going – at 50 – 55 waiting for a rest area to pull off and evaluate the damage to the rear end of the car.
    It all washed off.
    I hope my parents don’t read this.

  11. NitroNut

    When I use to drive trucks for a living; Loaded with about 7500 gallons of auto gas in my KW truck and trailer (for you Canadians, truck & pup) in the middle of the day, heading east on the freeway out of L.A. going about 60mph, when I encountered traffic slowing down rapidly. During the process of hitting the jake brake, grabbing gears and laying on the brakes as hard as I dare, as not to have the fuel sloshing around inside the tanks, which would have made me the epi-center of an accident.

    I saw something out of the corner of my eye coming from my left and cutting accross all lanes of traffic. I was a drunk driver in a very small car coming at me. I could see his head inside the car and he wasn’t looking over his shoulder or his mirrors or anything, he was just coming over. All I could do was lean on the brakes as hard as I could as this car disapeared under the end the hood of my truck. I grabed the steering wheel tight and waited for the impact. Luckly for me and about 50 of my closest friends in the cars around me there was no contact. However when this guy came out the other side he took a mom and her kid to the right shoulder and them some before he finally went off the freeway completely.

    When I got to my drop point, I called my now late wife, told her that I loved her and my son very much and finished my day. I’m a lucky some bitch!!!

  12. Alvis

    16 years old, 1970 Mercury Cyclone, washboard road – passing telephone poles 90 mph backwards in the ditch – God was watching over me!

  13. Garry

    Shit, let me count the ways…

    One time I was headed to work in the middle of a blizzard. I was cruising down the highway and could hardly see anything in front of the car it was snowing so hard. Suddenly, low and behold, there’s a parked car with no flashers on in my lane. It was one of those I’m F’d for sure moments, the highway was a sheet of ice and hitting the brakes would have positively meant imminent destruction. Somehow I made it around that car without losing control, but I probably missed it by a fraction of an inch.

  14. Jake

    I was headed to Odessa, Tx on a two lane highway going 82 mph in my Ford Escape.
    I had one hand on the wheel and the other, rested on the center console. I was kicked back in my seat, so I pulled myself up with my steering wheel hand to check my rear-view. I was a little too quick to do this, as my seat belt locked up from coming out too fast. I reacted by supporting myself with the steering wheel hand, which I jerked downward on the wheel. In a split second I was perpendicular to the road, sliding at 82, in the opposite lane. I immediately tapped the brake to let off cruise control and turned the wheel to correct my angle with the road. The tired hooked back up with the road, and my car literally “jumped” back into my lane.

    Looking back on it, I thank God there was no one in the on coming lane…

  15. Don Brayman

    Coming back from Omaha to Council Bluffs, Iowa my friend Don Fredrikson in the passenger seat. Freezing rain, I-29 North, in my 72 Olds Cutluss (short window).
    We came off the Missouri River bridge on I-80 West going like 25 MPH taking I-29 North around to the Ninth Ave. exit for Council Bluffs. We passed under the first overpass I looked ahead a quarter mile away to the next overpass where there is a semi jack knifed under the bridge and everyone is stopped in various locations due to the freezing rain.
    I took the high part of the road as the Interstate is banked for the exit almost getting to the shoulder when the car starts to slide and the passenger side comes around.
    Theres this orange Caddy on the lower shoulder and we start sliding at about 10 MPH down the banked Interstate. Passenger side first.
    It never stopped it kept sliding. Don and I had a chance to talk about the impending accident as we slid ever so slowly towards the caddy.
    ” Looks like a pretty nice car huh Don?” Yes it does man. ” How much isthe rear bumper of a caddy cost do you think?” “Oh I dont know, it only looks like a year old could be a bit expensive.” As we braced for impact and the white haired old-lady was nothing but eyes in her rearview the car ground to a stop maybe 2 inches from her bumper. That was my closest call.

  16. Derek

    Having some fun in my 71 GMC in the rain with my girlfriend, 17 years old and only going about 45, started getting a little rowdy haha I was lucky, there was a gravel parking lot/pullout beside the place where my driving skills and grip failed at the same time!

  17. Caveman Tony

    Seriously, my closest was on a *borrowed* Ducati Monster SS, came over a rise at 90-ish, hit some potholes, and whoaaaaa-holy-crap-I’m-gonna-die-this-is-the-worst-friggin’-TANKSLAPPER-EVAAAAAAAAARRRRR.

    Saved it though.

    Or… you ever gone over an 8′ high railroad crossing? At 110? After a blind corner? There was new underwear for me next time out on the Honda. My buddies said I got sweet hang time. No, it was not a dirt bike.

  18. Geoff Nilson

    Heading down to Englishtown for the races in my parents ’76 SAAB 99 with 3 buddies, flew over a set of elevated RR tracks at about 60. The road on the otherside was about 3 feet lower, so I was airborn for at least 40′. Landed on all fours, scuffed up the underside pretty good, didn’t break anything, kept going to the howls of the passengers.

  19. Challenger 6 Pac

    Coming home from Atlanta on I-75 in 2001. A semi rig crossed the median and missed us by only a foot.

  20. Barn Engineering

    Time trial at New England Dragway: Lined up my stock class 69 big block Nova against a 63 Vette with an injected hemi. His stock suspension certainly couldn’t handle the horsepower. I was way out ahead hitting well over 80 when I saw the chrome Hilborn stacks right next to my driver’s side door. Knowing that he’d be backing off after crossing into my lane, I stayed on it in case he was heading for the guard rail. Instead he stayed on it as we hit 4th, somehow not hitting me as he slid around. Though I can’t repeat here on Bangshift what I told the driver once we got back to the pits, suffice it to say he got a stern lecture on drag racing etiquette. I was so pissed, I forgot to critique his stupid looking hemi Vette combination.

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