For someone who spent a lot of time growing up in the shadow of Pikes Peak, I am not a fan of snow. At all. Sure, nothing’s prettier than freshly-fallen snow clinging to the trees and blanketing the lawn.And yes, it was fun sledding and having snowball fights with the other kids in the neighborhood. But you know what isn’t fun? When Grandma dresses you up to look like a rustling, multi-colored plastic marshmallow, hands you a snow shovel and tells you to get after it. Shovelful after shovelful, you learn to hate the snow. As you get older, and you have to drive in dirty, sloppy, slushy stuff (or worse, roads covered in sheet ice that leaves city buses spinning around like a hippo in Fantasia) you begin to dread every time the weather guy mentions snow. And if you’ve ever been trapped in a blizzard…well, you get where I’m going with this.
But snow can still be fun for the gearhead. An empty parking lot on a snowy, icy day is suddenly God’s gift. You want to practice drifting but don’t want to pay for a set of shred tires? You’re welcome. Love drift-bashing with a big, 1970s chrome bumper? You’ve got it. Lived out in the country and kept the car sideways through the better half of a cow pasture thanks to the fluffy white stuff? You’re a freaking legend, mate. I’ve got my fair share of snow fun stories. There was a few years back when Lohnes and I went four-wheeling in late-model Jeeps in Maine at the invitation of BFGoodrich, or the year before when he went up with Nutting. But the best stories come from the “young and dumb” file, and include the year I broke a battery tie-down and managed to tack-weld my 1978 Chrysler LeBaron’s battery directly to the hood, or the infamous 2002 ice storm incident that saw a few young soldiers playing “Crack The Whip” by hanging off of the tailgate of a Chevy Blazer in a Little Caesar’s parking lot. And just about every year, there are snow donuts somewhere, sometime. You have to keep those driving skills honed somehow!
So, we want to know: what are some of your best winter driving stories?
Doing doughnuts in front of the local fuzz in a church parking lot. Didn’t end well.
25yrs ago I had a sweet low mile 79 Continental Mk V black on black , around this time of year traveling east bound 401 near Neilson rd with my then BIL sitting beside me and the back seat held my then wife and her 2 sisters . next to no traffic a van out in front of me wiggled his rear end – Black Ice – that BIL was a pain in the ass always talking with a faux tough guy voice So I Looked in the rear view at the girls letting them know I what I was about to do . I cranked the wheel and smashed the brakes sending the car into several quick 360 spins, That BIL Squealed like a little girl . As the spins slowed I pulled out of it laughing at him .
Winter time in the rural flat Kansas Bible belt meant hitting every snowy country church parking lot within a 10 mile radius. Looking forward to taking the grandson out in the Mustang when he is old enough to drive . . . . .
In winter ’74 ’73 Mustang – under the influence of multiple substances ..
w/4 in the car – yes it was a different time
Getting late in a winter storm night – started a round of donuts/360’s in several
places – high speed in the HS parking lot , slower in the intersections
Wound up putting it through a snow bank into a fence …..Left the car there
and beat feet as we would say A woman in the house called the PD
she then looked out the window and said OH SHIT – I just called the cops
on Bxxxxx Xxxxxx ! I had gone to high school with her !
Just had to pay a tow fee for that one …..
A friend of mine had a 67′ Buick Wildcat with a 445. No steering wheel, just a pair of vice grips on the column. We had about 4″ of snow that day and later that night drifted all over our small town, long before drifting was even a thing.