With all the news coming out about the sinking of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, the root cause is looking more and more like a simple act of bad judgement on behalf of the captain who may have been showing off to impress someone or a group of people. While his gaffe is one of the largest in recorded history and led to the deaths of a currently unknown number of persons, we’ve all done something done when feeling our gearhead oats.
My personal tale of showing off gone wrong involves the 4×4 GMC I drove in college, a steel framed sleeper couch, and several member of the UMass Motorsports club.
Long story short, we used to use our trucks to crush couches that kids threw out at the end of the semester in college. Kids would graduate or move out of their apartments and using our trucks to flatten nasty old furniture was kind of a homegrown sport for the car and truck guys in our complex. After squashing a couple and feeling like Jim Kramer driving Bog Foot, the guys slid the next victim out in front of my truck. Well, the truck climbed up on the bottom portion of the couch and it didn’t break. It didn’t break because it was a steel framed sleeper couch. I smashed the gas pedal and instead of crushing under my mighty wheels, the couch tore a section off of the bottom of the stepside body of the truck, blew out the spare tire, taco’d the exhaust so bad that I needed a sawzall to cut it off, and drew an amazing amount of laughter from my pals. It was not my proudest moment, but I can smile now when looking back.
That’s my tale of getting an omlette’s worth of eggs on my face, what’s yours?!
Immediately after turning 16 year old two more awesome things happened to me; a really cute chick agreed to go out on a date with me, and my Dad agreed to let me use the family car (early ’80s Malibu sedan) that night.
The folks gave me extra cash to fill the gas tank and I excitedly picked up my female companion before stopping at the gas station. The problem was she lived further out of town than I thought and then we had to go all the way back into town and at 12-14 mpg we just didn’t make it. We were close though, and the ‘bu finally dried up just a few hundred feet from the gas station. I got out to push and worked up a sweat trying to get it up the small hill to the Sunoco. My girl got out to help push and I was embarrassed, but was thankful for the help. I apologized profusely, got gas, and hopped back in to go. The car just wouldn’t start dry and I ran the battery down trying (electric fuel pumps sure were a great invention). I bought a can of starting fluid from the gas station and FINALLY found someone to jump start us. My female friend seemed a little impatient and got out to help or at least provide encouragement. Somehow, bump, jump starting, or otherwise the power door locks all worked in unison and the doors were locked with….you guessed it…the keys still in the ignition. The date was pretty much over after my dad came after searching for 1/2 hour for the extra set of keys and then a ride. I never did go out on a date with her again and lost touch with her. To this day she probably thinks I am a total car moron.
I was trying to sell an old jeep…
Pretty nice four-wheeler: lifted, 33’s, beefed rear axle, V8 swap, etc..
Potential buyer and his GF stopped by.
Wanting to fire it up and rap the throttle a few times to show off the V8, I grabbed the keys, leaned in, (the doors were off) stuck the key in the ignition and fired it up. Which it promptly did.
And it took off, up my short driveway, with me half-in, half-out, hanging onto the steering wheel, desperately trying to shut it off. The only thing that stopped it was the side of my house.
Yes…. I’m an idiot.
No, the e-brake was not on.
Yes, it was in gear.
No, the dude did not buy the jeep.
I was doing a bad ass burnout on my Suzuki 1100 when the back tire bit. The big bike stood straight up. I ran with it for 4 steps before I had to let it go. It went thru a hedge and into a Corvettes drivers door. Pure adrenaline took over as I pulled it out like Hercules. I told the hottie chick I was with to get on quick and bailed…. I came back the next day to talk to the owner. Surprisingly he was super cool about it and took $200 from me. Live and learn.
Did a doughnut into a light pole I didn’t know was in the middle of the parking lot. It lifted the back wheels off the ground and screwed up my 86 regal’s bumper and grill. Worst of all I told my Dad someone backed into the car and he said, funny, it looks like you drove into a light pole.”
A bunch of us gearheads were hangin out in garage talkin cars. We each took turns pulling our car out into the street and doing a nice smoky burnouts. My turn came. I backed out, looked around for da cops, didnt see any and let her rip. As I began moving forward and looked in my rear veiw mirror I saw the flashing red lights coming through the smoke. Yes he gave me a ticket. Unsafe start. LOL.
Playing in the snowy/icy driveway I gained too much speed and didn’t have enough brake… stopped in the garage… with the garage door and part of the wall. Never been so happy the previous owner was a total nut and didn’t anchor it properly, tied everything to the truck, straighten it close to it’s place, fined tuned it with a sldge hammer and everything was good as new (almost) but the door sealed right and the automatic door opener still works.
Never should have told my wife about it, she wouldn’t have seen the difference.
When I was still in highschool, transplanted a 440 into a 1971 Dodge Charger. I was at the local McDonald’s when a group of kids were giving me crap about my Charger. While holding a drink in my hand, I placed the 727 torqueflight into first gear and matted the throttle.
I drove straight for the street and made a hard right hand turn. I lost control and crossed over the center line hitting a car head on.
The group of kids came out to the street and started clapping and cheering.
The damage was minor to both cars, We were both hard on the brakes when we hit, but the damage to my ego was much worse.
The silver lining to this is I asked the female driver, of the car I hit, out on a date. It was a good time.
Now I’m a Cop…..go figure 🙂
Am I too late to comment? Last was this afternoon…
It’s 1989, I was working in/on my 1972 Plymouth Satellite. In- because before the last header, you can stand within the engine bay…Had dropped in a 360CID with a purple cam, like .500 lift, with some crazy ass duration, anyway, used the tree in the front of my house as the engine hoist to swap the 360 in and the 318 out. (Used a come a long wratchet over the main branch with steel cable). Realise, you have to roll the car away, drop the motor on a dolly, roll the dolly away, then hoist the new motor/tranny up, and roll the car back under. Only at 18. A tourque monster of a motor for sure. Anyway, putting in the 727/360 coupled, I sheared the tranny shift linkage right off. It was late, I was solo. I wanted to drive the beast upon start up.(I’m 18 years old and stooopit).
So….(After all connections-i.e. drive shaft, wire harness, etc.I start the car with some ether spray, tweak the timing to 10 degrees advanced, pull the throtle at the throtle body- sweet! Now, e-brake applied, I go under the car to click it into drive. Careful of those headers! Hot! The car takes off immeadiately, goes about three parking spots and completely destroys a 1980’s era Toyota into an acordian.
I’m like Holy Shit!!!
I grab all my tools.( Remember, I was doing a cam swap, an engine swap, and header install, all in the road with spotlights in the front of my house. I’m the kid everyone knows is a car maniac. So this flies in my town.)
Yes, I drove my non-transmission linkage car away, burned myself on the headers, and almost ran myself over. Somehow got away with it.
Returned home later that evening. In my living room are my Dad, and a man. The owner of the 1980’s era Toyota. Question was “Doug, do you know what happened to so and so’s car?”
Response was “No. was busy working on my car all day.”
Quite boneheaded. And never even got to show off.
…and another thing- went to a job interview that Monday. In the linkage-less transmission car. Pulled into a gate that wasn’t gonna open, tried to do my e-brake, get out, go under the car, around the header and manually shift to reverse. Ended up smashing my boss to be’s brand new car. Of course, I wasn’t at the wheel, I was lying on the ground. Manual shift, automatic transmission. Huh? So, we’ll call it a twofer.
Boneheadedness x 2. Still didn’t get to show off!
After clearing tech at the drag strip, I goosed the gas on the return road… the hood wasn’t latched, and opened up with a bang. I don’t know how many people saw my smooth move, because I was too embarrassed to look around. The amazing part is that aside from some slightly bent hood hinges and a severely bruised ego, no damage was done.
So I’m 19 years old in 1979, I’ve got a ’70 GTO (yes, those were still the days when a 19 year old could actually afford a ’70 Goat–and it was no clone!) and I’ve got a hot blonde with big … eyes … by my side.
We go to pick up her younger brother at some out-of-the-way burger joint and when we’re leaving the parking lot I decide to get on it. Today, I would abort the run at the first sign of trouble, but back then I tried to drive my way out of it. Big mistake. It’s dark and it had been raining earlier that night. The M&H Racemasters (remember those?) break loose and the car starts sashaying back and forth across the road. There’s no traffic at all, so that’s not a concern, but there are trees and eventually the swinging gets out of control and I find one.
I can still remember missing one tree when it first left the road and thinking, ‘Oh good, I’m just going to get stuck,’ and then WHAM!, head on into the next one.
Fortunately, no one was hurt, but score that one Tree 1, GTO 0! I’ve even still got a little piece of bark from that tree as a reminder of my stupidity. That also was the last time I ever went out with that girl.
You know, over the years I’ve felt heartache over girls and women come and gone, but to be honest, now I can’t even remember half of their names. But I still feel regret about what happened to that car. She’s the one I want back!
It was summer time in So Cal, and as a 14 year old boy, that ment running around with no shoes on. Needless to say, my poor mom had to make lots of trips to the ER for stupid stuff i did to my feet.
We lived at the enclosed end of a culdesac and one of the first things my dad did when we moved in was to put a door in the back of the garage so you could go through into the backyard, to the back door of the house.
One day a friend who lived a street over showed up on a mini bike and I promply asked if I could ride it. He told me it had no brakes, but being 14 and stupid, I hopped on and took off at the speed of as fast as that thing would go.
I went down the street, around the corner, down the next street, turned around and headed back the way I came. When I got on my street I opened up the 1.5hp Briggs and Stratton and when I got within one house of mine, I lifted and grabed a handfull of brake. It was at that moment I remembered what he told me, “it has no brakes”.
At this point I was carrying way to much speed to just slow down, so I was faced with one of two decisions. One was to go straight and run into the curb which ment certain dealth (in kid terms), or, crash in the garage. I chose to crash in the garage.
So what do I do? Like something out of the Flintstones, I put my bare feet down on the ground in hopes of stopping. That didn’t help much. My friends were waiting for me in front of my house and as I went screaming by at breakneck speed with my feet firmly planted on the ground I yelled, “no brakes”! I proceeded up the driveway, into the garage, thank God the door my dad put in was open, through the garage and the door, and into the backyard. As I went through the garage door into the backyard, the kitchen window was right there and as I flew by I caught a glimpse of my mom’s face and it was like, “what the F***!” I flew on around the back of the house, raced accross the patio and the yard before crashing into the fence.
I got up, picked up the mini bike and started walking accross the grass back to the patio. My first step on to the patio was like stepping on a bed of hot burning coals. I didn’t know this then but when I use my bare feet as Flintstone brakes, I burned all the callused skin off the bottom of them. I couldn’t walk barefoot on concret or asphalt for about a month after the incident because it felt like my feet were on fire.
Moral of the story; wear shoes when you ride stupid!
Trying to do a burnout aganist a parking lot concrete barrier, instead my `71 Nova jumped the parking barrier and the car high centered the frame on the parking barrier and I couldn’t drive backwards off the barrier. Once my buddies stopped laughing, they lifted the front end just a little bit and I could back over the barrier.
Embarrased yes, lucky I didn’t crush the oil pan.
I’ve killed many transmissions, clutches, u-joints, etc. while racing but, that was the biggest bonehead thing I did, didn’t help it was in the community college parking lot either.
My buddy wanted to do a intake manifold swap. 2 Barrel to a 4 Barrel to try and get more power. You know how it is when your 16 right!! We swapped it all out and got it to fire up. Well the fuel line fitting on the new carb set up didn’t fit the fuel line on the car. So we got out the duct tape and made it fit. I felt like this wasn’t a good idea, but hey the thing was running!!! Took it for a test drive at about 4AM- brought it home and parked it. The gas melted the tape on the fuel line. The next morning we got up to pull it into the garage, to correct the fuel line. We started it up- it was running fine then it stalled. Try cranking it over-pop-whats that??? FIRE!!!!! The line popped off, sprayed fuel all over the engine and now this thing is burning. Needless to say, the fire dept came- sprayed it down. Lost the whole car. Carbeque!!!!
I could fill a book….
1976. High School. 18 year old with a big block 4 speed ’68 Torino. Back doors to the school were doubled up with a steel post between them. A couple buddies (?) hold the doors open while I back the car up over the sidewalk & up against the post. I then let the clutch fly IN REVERSE and proceed to absolutely fill the building with tire smoke.
Feeling pretty cool (and not yet realizing the difference between cool and stupid) I toss it into first, side step it again and hop sidewalk and curb at speed to get outta there! In full Dukes of Hazard mode I cut the turn onto the main road under power and stab it again.
Thats when the back end of the car came apart. I watched in the mirror as the driveshaft went out the back like a torpedo. It just missed the cop car that was behind me – doubtless responding to the “situation”. As I stepped out of the car I realized that it was sitting flat on the ground in back and leaking fluids profusely. Broke 3 out of 4 rear end U bolts, both shock mounts, spring center bolts, the pinion flange, and various attaching hardware. Cop just looked at me and deadpanned that “something musta broke…huh”…