Sidepipe flames

[rdorman]

MaSnaka.... reminds me of a story... back in the mid 80's I was at the run-offs at Road Atlanta with a few guys from Ireland that where competing. The night of the banquet was a Sunday night and the area was dry. This of course would not stop a bunch of irishmen from drinking. So with a fully loaded cooler we proceed to slip a couple of cases through the door over the course of the evening and managed to tie on on fairly well. We left them in a large pyramid of empties on the table right in the banquet. Many around us wanted a cold one as well.

Any ways, for the back fires. John was driving and decided to give the locals a little thrill as we passed them by. The classic dive over the bushes or pull over looking for the flat tire that just exploded has us, in our condition, rolling from laughter. John could make that van explode loudly! Well I guess the locals where not impressed because the police got calls that a bunch of guys where shooting off shot guns from a van meeting our description. I don't know what the problem was, I thought that was the norm for a sunday night in the Atlanta area

A short time later we are at a four way stop waiting for a light when all of a sudden we are surrounded by about 5 or 6 police cars coming from all directions. They leap out of their cars guns drawn and order us to put our hands up! They approach, spot lights, guns and dogs toward our van... very cautiously. Quickly they realize that we are there racing, they explain about the calls and the shotgun, and of course, let us go... with out so much as looking around inside the van! They even joked around with us... nice guys! We may not have had a shot gun, but they did have the right guys! Ah youth

[svtcobra]

I used to work for BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Services is the equivalent of AFN, except that it is a private company employing civilians and partially financed by the military for whom we were providing a radio and television service). The favourite company vehicle was a Land Rover V8 which would backfire and spit flames whenever the clutch was dropped and the throttle was blipped up to 5000+ rpm.

This did not go down well whenever we did this whilst driving through the garrison after dark during red alerts (caused by the IRA terrorist attacks). But the sight of grown men in uniform throwing themselves flat onto the ground as we drove past will remain a fond memory for many years to come !!

I'd like to blame this on our youth, but we were all in our late 20s then ....