speed
This is quite possibly the most bizarre and hard-to-believe story i have ever told. Didn’t happen to me, so i don’t know, but i have been personally assured that it is true. It’s worth the read even if it’s bullshit.
Have you ever been minding your own business on the highway, driving the speed limit (or maybe a little bit faster), and been passed like you weren’t even moving by some psycho in a ‘vette? Rob *is* that psycho in the ‘vette.
Actually, he doesn’t really drive a ‘vette. I’m not really sure what it is that he drives, but i know this for sure: it’s old, it’s midnight blue, it’s fast as hell, and he’s been pulled over well over 150 times in 4 years. (in all honesty, rob really drives a 1985 honda accord, but he bought a muscle car and spends his time and money fixing it up. He probably really has been pulled over 150 times though.)
So after countless hours and dollars are spent on this car, rob finally gets it running and tweaked how he likes it. What do we do? We go for a ride. We go for a ride in the middle of Illinois, of all places. I’m not talking about Chicago, either. I’m talking about the middle-of-fucking-nowhere Illinois, on some abandoned highway. We’d been toolin’ around all day, just driving, and not really going anywhere. Next thing we know, it’s dark (read: 2:00am), we’re in the middle of nowhere, and there’s no cars (or life) to be seen for miles. Rob, being the sane person he is, drops the car into 4th gear and kicks it up to a steady 110mph.
We’re flying. honest to god, ive never been in a car moving that fast before. honest to god, id never feared for my life like i did in that car. The engine noise was overpowering everything else, (thankfully, even the phish tape in the tape deck) and rob screams “look out for cops!” Great. Now i’m lookout for this crazy bastard. We drive for about 10 minutes, no problem.
“Cop!” He doesn’t hear me, i say again, “Cop!” No good.. one more time, “COP!” He heard me that time.
“Oh shit, man. Where?”
“Up ahead a little bit… you can probably slow down to 80 in time and not get that big of a ticket, but you’d better work quick.”
“Fuck that. Duck.”
“WHAT?!?!?!”
“Duck, motherfucker!”
Not a big fan of pissing off the stupid, i scrunch down as close as i can to the floor of the front seat, and i’m really wondering what the hell he thinks he’s doing. Then it hits me… the car. It’s dark blue. It’s late at night. We’re on a might-as-well-be deserted highway…
“Dude, don’t to it! you’re nuts!”
…He was ignoring me. Shit. Thats all i could think. Shit. He kicks the car into 5th gear, cuts off the headlights, and floors it. We’re doing 125 mph about to pass a cop, and then he reaches behind him and starts fiddling with something.
“man, keep both hands on the wheel! christ, you’re going to get us killed! what are you doing?!?!”
Rob just looked at me, smiled, and said “nitro tank.” Had i known that he had a nitro tank hooked up to the beast, i never would have gotten in the car, but it was too late. He fired it up, and we start picking up *lots* of speed. He buries the needle, and we keep building up speed, and we pass the cop (in the dark, with the lights off) at what had to be at least 160mph, probably faster.
We get pretty far away from the cop, and right as i look back to see if we made it, i see his lights come on back in the distance.
“Rob, he’s comin’ after us, man.”
“Quit being a bitch.”
So rob pulls off at the next turn, keeping the lights off, and pulls into a gas station parking lot about a block down the road. He throws his wallet in the back seat, pops open to hood, and steam gushed from the engine of the car (he explained to me once why it steamed up so bad, but i cant really remember… something about having to slow down as fast as we did.) I was a little scared to ask, but i did anyway.
“Now what?”
“Now we wait.”
We didn’t wait very long. The cop pulled into the gas station shortly after we did. As he stopped his car, rob silently mouthed “be quiet.” Evidently, he wanted to do the talking, which was fine by me.
“How’s it going, officer?”
“Just fine, thanks.”
“Can we help you with something?”
“Yeah, actually. You guys happen to see someone speed by on the highway a minute ago?”
“I haven’t heard anything. We’ve been here about 20 minutes, and it’s been pretty quiet.”
“So, you’re telling me that if i go ask the attendant, he’ll tell me you’ve been here for 20 minutes.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
The cop goes up and checks the door. It’s locked. The lights are off, and no one is inside. He walks back over to us and eyes us both like we are criminals.
“Looks like they’re closed,” i say.
“I’m going to need your license and registration.”
“No problem. It’s in the car — i’ll get it for you.”
Rob opens the door, pushes the back seat forward, and grabs his wallet out of the back seat. As he starts to get out, he disconnects the hookup from the nitro tank, being careful not to be seen unhooking it. He gives it to the cop, who looks at it very closely, and then starts looking the car over.
“This is a real fast car you boys are driving, you know that?”
“Yeah, I race it over at the track in Granite City once a month.”
“You got a problem with me taking a look around inside?”
“Naw, go ahead. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
The cop looks around, looking hard for something to bust us on. He comes back out after a few minutes, his only real “finding” being the nitro tank.
“You boys know that it’s illegal to have that in your car when you on the open roads, dont you? I’m going to have to issue you a citation.”
“Actually, officer, I checked into the law before i installed it. It’s only illegal to have on the open roads if its completely installed. I leave the tank unhooked unless we’re on the track so that we’re legal.”
“Right. What seems to be the problem with the car?”
“It overheats like a bitch… It’ll be okay in a few more minutes, and we’ve got a gallon of water in the trunk.”
“Right… You boys sure you don’t need any help?”
“No sir. We’re okay.”
“Alright then. You boys stay out of trouble. Goodnight.”
“Thanks.”
We both should have gone to jail.