Thanks to a discussion in the BangShift Forums, let me paint a picture for you: it’s a Friday evening, with the sunset casting a killer light show through the Douglas firs that line the road. Sitting in a gravel driveway is a primer black Chevy Malibu, it’s 305 idling. Inside the car are two morons who are about to do one of the stupidest…and ballsiest…things they will ever attempt. There are no helmets, and only the stock seatbelts keeping this from being a driver’s ed fear video. Not a word is spoken, the radio is off, and both driver and passenger are steeling themselves up for what’s about to go down.
The driver looks over and asks, “Ready?”
The passenger simply nods, exhales out a sigh, and says, “Let’s do this.”
The shifter goes into first, the clutch is dumped, and the Malibu roars into life. Going through the gears as if it was a cop chase, the G-body picks up speed quickly as the road slopes down into a hill. At a certain point the target comes into focus: the hill flattens out for an intersection with Fragaria Road before dropping off again. At speeds that would make normal people scream for mercy, the Malibu hits the flat section, bottoming out for a second, before launching into the air. The few seconds of flight feel like an eternity, but eventually the car slams back down to earth in a shower of sparks and starts to climb the hill on the other side. Driver and passenger make sure that everything survived the experience, and make a quick dash before any neighbor gets a good look at the car.
Readers, that was a play-by-play of what was known as the Banner Jump from a first-hand viewpoint that I got just after school let out for the summer of 1999. You’d come screaming down Banner Road in whatever direction you chose and at the right speed you simply would get air. There was no question of “if”. Located in Banner, Washington, this section of road was so notorious that after a particularly nasty wreck that same year that seriously injured a girl I went to school with, Kitsap County Public Works re-did the road to eliminate the jump altogether in 2002.
I will always admit that I’m no saint on the roads, and getting a car airborne has happened. More than once. You can call it stupid, you can attribute to dumb luck, you can call it whatever you feel like. Just like doing burnouts on Bandix Road or drifting the on-ramp to Interstate 5 while leaving Fort Lewis while the road was wet, there is that bit of daredevil that creeps out every once in a moment and bypasses common sense. Officially, we do not condone such behavior. But we all know it happens, so we want to know: what’s your best airborne story?
Highway 227 heading south into Richmond IN has a bunch of hills. In the 95 Vette I had, with the cruise set on 50, we launched one good enough for the cruise to disengage. It takes a little more for liftoff in my Suburban.
Mom’s 64 Galaxie -71 or so ..local back road w/ two large bumps…
‘ Let’s see if this thing will get airborne ‘… yep.. it did – landing was a bit noisy
’73 Mustang in 73 leaving Watkins Glen concert ..routed to the roads west of the lake we were headed north – 2 lanes , on the gas , came up on a raised RR crossing , didn’t lift , said hang on as we launched ..no problem
Folks were on vacation first time home alone jumped the old mans 74 new yorker and fixed the oil pan before they got home , ooops
Yep in highschool .I had a 65 F-100 .Henry Ford built a gooood truck in 65 .I jumped every railroad crossing and bridge in the south part of Lake county In. On one jump as I was coming up to a launching at a bridge a man and woman on a motorcycle saw us coming,I had 2 other idiots with me,no seat belts at all. The guy on the bike pulled into the ditch on the other side of the bridge. I made the jump , as I had done before and went on our way.A couple days later as I was just cruising in town a cop stopped me. ” whats up officer? ” “this your truck” “yep “you let anyone ever drive it” ” nope” .” You almost killed my wife and I the other day,We were on the bike that pulled over when you jumped that bridge.Your lugnuts were at our eye level.” Back then they couldn’t write a ticket unless they were in uniform.So I slowed down the jumping after that. Look up the Flying Buick LaSaber on YouTube .its unbelievable
May 2018. Renault Captur rental car. Western Ireland headed to Cliffs of Moher. 80kmh tiny country road road. I saw it coming up and didn’t have much time to react. I calmly said “Jump” to my wife and and about 1 second later we went 4 wheels in the air over a bridge in approximately BFN Ireland. Fun times. Car took it like a champ; I got my whole deposit back.
I’m a gearheaded product of the 80’s with 2 kids of my own, the oldest of whom will probably soon discover this site. No footage, it didn’t happen, right?
…whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess!
04 crew cab silverado, I’m driving and my friend is sleeping in the front seat. On the way back to his house, I knew of a intersection up ahead that was a down hill slope then leveled off at an intersection, then even steeper down hill slope. He’s asleep, my other friends are ahead of me, and I had basically long travel suspension under the truck. I got up to about 75 and hit the intersection and we flew. Truck landed like a regular trophy truck, my friend didn’t even wake up it was so smooth. If I could do it again, I would in a heart beat.
72 4×4 Suburban and a road next to where I used to work. The hill the road was built on was sliding into the river and for the summer the fix was to pave over the elevation shift. If you were doing about 50 or more you could catch some air, at about 80mph it was awesome. Half ton 4×4 Subirbans are nicely balanced and land on all four wheels nearly every time. My friends watched me from the side, on the safe side of the guard rail, said I got about 30” of air and traveled around 60’. Lots of fun, did that nearly every lunch for a couple of weeks.