What a Night!

I guess we all do dumb things in life, especially when we are young. And we all know women are from Venus, and men from Mars, right? I guess that is why women love to shop, and men like to drive fast. And at one time, I was young, dumb, and felt like I was on Mars, and liked to drive fast!

In October of 1977, I was 18 years old, and my uncle had given me a car. It was a 1966 Buick Skylark Gran Sport. He brought it down to Indiana. He had been racing it in Michigan at the tracks. This was not your typical family car. It was a two-door sport coupe that was fire engine red with a white top. It had a Wildcat 401 cubic inch engine, that was rebored .030 over, and it had more than 370 horsepower. It had an aluminum Muncie racing transmission, a Hurst four speed 2+2 competition shifter on the floor, and a four-barrel carburetor, dual exhaust, and positive traction rear-end. So, this car would run!

And one weekend I headed south in my Buick to my friend, Kenny’s house to stay the night, and then he was going to come back to my house the following night. On Friday night, we went to the high school football game, and then drove around town like most teens of the day.

We decided to go to the next small town about 10 miles down the road and get something to eat. Most of the roads in southern Indiana are two lane roads and the speed limit is always 55. I was driving into town about 20 miles per hour, just cruising. Kenny said, “Get on it.” So, I hit the accelerator to the floor and shifted quickly from second to third gear, and the tires started screeching and smoking, and people in town turned quickly toward us to see what was happening.

We were doing about 50 at that time when suddenly a county sheriff went past us. Kenny yelled, “He’s turning around.” So, I turned right and then made another right and came out on the road behind the sheriff. We saw him turn down the street I just went down. He had his lights and siren on, and we knew he was coming for us. I turned left, and hit the accelerator, and hit third gear, then fourth, and we were headed out of town about 65 miles per hour. I had a head start on the sheriff, and we saw him come out from behind a building onto the road we were on and started in our direction.

I was speeding about 85 miles per hour, and knew there was a gravel road up on the left. So, I hit the brakes and slid sideways turning onto the gravel road. We started down the road very slow and I turned out my headlights. It was a full-moon night, and the countryside was lit up bright. You could almost see without your lights on. While slowly driving down the road, we saw the sheriff run past us.

The gravel road ran onto another paved road which led to a truck-stop at the end of the road, and there was a curve that went toward Kenny’s house. We knew this area very well. So, we cruised up to the truck-stop, parked the car in back, hurried in, and sat at a table.

A waitress walked up and took our order. As she was bringing our drinks to the table, we saw the sheriff run past the truck-stop. Kenny looked over at me, and we both just started laughing so hard. We knew then, the sheriff would not catch us.

After eating, we went back to Kenny’s house because it was getting late. He turned on the television, and we watched it for a while, and then went to bed.

The following day we rode motorcycles most of the day, racing each other through the woods on his dad’s farm. Then we got ready to go into town. We were going to go back north to my house for the night.

We left his house about 9 p.m., Saturday night. I was just cruising in the ol’ Buick as the journey took us north. Kenny wanted to stop and get something to eat, so we stopped at a restaurant on the way.

When finished, we took off, and it was around 10:30 p.m. I turned the Buick north, and off we went towards my house. It is very dark on Indiana roads late at night, and as we cruised the road that led to my house, it was very dark.

I was about 20 miles from home when headlights appeared in my rearview mirror. They seemed to come out of nowhere and were approaching very fast. I told Kenny to look behind us and see if he could tell how fast the car was coming towards us. Kenny said, “Man, that car is coming really fast.” My driver side window was down because the air felt good that night, but I slowed down because we did not know if it was a state trooper.

As we topped a hill the headlights were right on us. Suddenly, the car started around me. It was three young girls about 18 years old, and they pulled up beside us and started yelling. One of the girls pulled her top up to show us her breasts! Then they accelerated very fast. Kenny yelled, “Go after them!” So, I gunned the ol’ Buick, and off we went chasing three young girls driving a Black 1965 Ford pick-up truck.

We caught them and passed them. Then they started around us again. Kenny said, “Don’t let them pass, and let’s see what they do." There was no traffic on the road that night. We were running very fast. The girls were able to pull alongside my driver’s door, but they could not get around me. Kenny yelled, “You buried the needle!” That meant my speed odometer needle went well below 120 miles per hour.

We were jumping hill after hill, and the girls were right beside us laughing and cheering. I guess we must have been going about 130 miles per hour! It was crazy. I could not shake these girls in the pick-up. We could not believe they were staying with us. They could not get around me but stayed with us.

Suddenly, as we topped another hill, I heard a loud bang, and the gear shift hit my right hand hard, striking my knuckles. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a big ball of fire fly up from under the car. I shut the car off, pushed in the clutch, as the car rolled down a hill. The girls in the truck kept going and were out of sight in a few seconds. Kenny and I coasted down that hill for about a mile. Then I pulled over on the shoulder and shut the car off.

The drive shaft on my car had come loose after a universal joint busted. The drive shaft went sideways under the car, busting the shaft off the transmission. There we sat in the pitch-black dark, and there were no cell phones in those days. So, we walked about six miles to a truck stop, and I called my mom to come and pick us up, because we were still about 14 miles from home.

The following day, my dad and my uncle went to tow the Buick back home. They found the drive shaft lying in a field about a mile and a half from where we topped the hill. They asked me how fast I was going, and we both said about 60 miles per hour. My dad and uncle just laughed. They knew we were lying, and we had been going much faster because of where the drive shaft was found.

It was fun while it lasted. I didn’t always drive like that, but there were plenty of nights in high school where we would have drag races on the country roads. We would pour laundry bleach on our tires, and do burn outs, and smoke would roll off the tires during the races. I know it was a dumb thing to do, and I lost many friends that were killed in high school going way too fast in their cars. However, I was young, dumb, and liked to drive fast.