It's stock, it's slow, and I don't want to race you.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: I drive a diesel Mercedes wagon. A tan one. Non-turbo. No one tries to race me, but last week some kid in a silver Golf decided he would be cute and tried to pass me on the shoulder. Mind you, this was in afternoon traffic on a 4 lane primary road. I guess the fact that I'd left 3 or 4 car lengths between my Mercedes' front bumper and the car in front of me meant that I clearly needed to be passed at all cost.

If its like every other tan diesel Mercedes I've been stuck behind (they are a scourge around here) the fumes and general speed means they needed to get around you to get some fresh air before they asphyxiated.

Seriously, I despise these things plodding around town as they are sooo slow to accelerate, almost always cruise at 5 under, usually stink to high heaven and almost always driven by some smug bearded person who is also somehow clueless about the tailback they've created. Welcome to Portland where the Hippies drive old Volvo's, diesel Mercedes and clapped out old Toyotas, unless their parents buy them a Prius or hand them down something newer.

There isn't really a such thing as a straight road where I currently live, unless you count arterial roads. The look on a dudebro's face when I'm able to eke out a noticeable gap in the twisties in a Crown Vic without even breaking the speed limit is hilarious.

I enjoy street racing. Honestly, if not for street racing, i wouldn't like ANY kind of racing because it would all be too impractical to be relevant to my life. Same reason i stopped being obsessed with planes when i learned a little about socioeconomics and statistical realities of social mobility.

There's plenty of stupid to go around. You see it when you race, you see it when you don't. You see it on the news when other people get racing wrong, and you DONT see it on the news when it isn't racing because if you represented all the dangers of the road proportionately on TV, it wouldn't be news at all. It would just be a depressing stream of reminders that driving NORMALLY is already the most dangerous and inaccurately-risk-assessed thing that nearly everyone does on a daily basis, and we'd all think we were going to die.

18 years of driving so far, and still haven't hurt anyone.. and yet when i get into a street racing conversation that probably has multiple people in it who have caused injury to other people even when they WERENT racing, noone asks for tips! It's all good. I do me, which means having fun at appropriate times and NOT hurting you.

Furious_E wrote:

Joe Gearin wrote: I wonder if he added an M3 sticker to his car's flanks.......like WWII airplanes used to do to signify vanquished enemies.

For some reason, this is what I think of whenever I see the stupid stick figure families on the back of mini vans and CUVs...Look at me everyone, I murdered my whole family! I'll admit to engaging in such juvenile behavior described in this thread from time to time. I had an n/a 5 speed Volvo 850 in high school that had the exhaust completely rust off behind the cat at one point, so it was obnoxiously loud and not particularly fast at all. Great for trolling faster cars, just to see what they could do, knowing full well I'd get my ass handed to me.

My friend used to tell a story of how he had a 5-speed twin cam Neon that the exhaust fell off of and he would try to either goad people into showing off or try to outrun anything he had a chance against. One night he wheeled up to a stoplight and there was an old beat-up Galant sitting there. He launches the Neon and the Galant promptly flies past him. They get stopped at the next light and my friend did a redline clutch dump and once again the Galant beats him out of the hole and then runs away on him. As it goes by, this time he sees the VR-4 badge on the back.

Stefan wrote:

volvoclearinghouse wrote: I drive a diesel Mercedes wagon. A tan one. Non-turbo. No one tries to race me, but last week some kid in a silver Golf decided he would be cute and tried to pass me on the shoulder. Mind you, this was in afternoon traffic on a 4 lane primary road. I guess the fact that I'd left 3 or 4 car lengths between my Mercedes' front bumper and the car in front of me meant that I clearly needed to be passed at all cost.

If its like every other tan diesel Mercedes I've been stuck behind (they are a scourge around here) the fumes and general speed means they needed to get around you to get some fresh air before they asphyxiated. Seriously, I despise these things plodding around town as they are sooo slow to accelerate, almost always cruise at 5 under, usually stink to high heaven and almost always driven by some smug bearded person who is also somehow clueless about the tailback they've created. Welcome to Portland where the Hippies drive old Volvo's, diesel Mercedes and clapped out old Toyotas, unless their parents buy them a Prius or hand them down something newer.

In the situation in question, I was driving the exact same speed as the flow of traffic, only I like to leave 2 seconds' car length between the front bumper of my car and the rear bumper of the one I'm tailing. There's a difference between driving slowly and leaving appropriate following distance. Doing the latter can actually speed up traffic flow as it reduces the standing waves.

The VW in question continued to zig through traffic after he managed to get around me. He wasn't singling me out as slow, he was simply a 20-something douchenozzle kid with a silver Golf. Probably vaping.

As for the tailpipe of my Benz, I've driven behind it with someone else driving, and even under W.O.T. (which is pretty much all the time) the smoke is barely evident. I keep it tuned up, and run 50 cetane with additive.

The hidden secret of the W123 chassis is its handling. I routinely pass cars on the road around corners.

NickD wrote:

Furious_E wrote:

Joe Gearin wrote: I wonder if he added an M3 sticker to his car's flanks.......like WWII airplanes used to do to signify vanquished enemies.

For some reason, this is what I think of whenever I see the stupid stick figure families on the back of mini vans and CUVs...Look at me everyone, I murdered my whole family! I'll admit to engaging in such juvenile behavior described in this thread from time to time. I had an n/a 5 speed Volvo 850 in high school that had the exhaust completely rust off behind the cat at one point, so it was obnoxiously loud and not particularly fast at all. Great for trolling faster cars, just to see what they could do, knowing full well I'd get my ass handed to me.

My friend used to tell a story of how he had a 5-speed twin cam Neon that the exhaust fell off of and he would try to either goad people into showing off or try to outrun anything he had a chance against. One night he wheeled up to a stoplight and there was an old beat-up Galant sitting there. He launches the Neon and the Galant promptly flies past him. They get stopped at the next light and my friend did a redline clutch dump and once again the Galant beats him out of the hole and then runs away on him. As it goes by, this time he sees the VR-4 badge on the back.

I remember beating a GT500 in my Galant VR4. Ahhh those were the days.

Vigo wrote: I enjoy street racing. Honestly, if not for street racing, i wouldn't like ANY kind of racing because it would all be too impractical to be relevant to my life. Same reason i stopped being obsessed with planes when i learned a little about socioeconomics and statistical realities of social mobility. There's plenty of stupid to go around. You see it when you race, you see it when you don't. You see it on the news when other people get racing wrong, and you DONT see it on the news when it isn't racing because if you represented all the dangers of the road proportionately on TV, it wouldn't be news at all. It would just be a depressing stream of reminders that driving NORMALLY is already the most dangerous and inaccurately-risk-assessed thing that nearly everyone does on a daily basis, and we'd all think we were going to die. 18 years of driving so far, and still haven't hurt anyone.. and yet when i get into a street racing conversation that probably has multiple people in it who have caused injury to other people even when they WERENT racing, noone asks for tips! It's all good. I do me, which means having fun at appropriate times and NOT hurting you.

And there in lies the issue. I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about the other dumbass. If he kills someone then you are on the hook too. I have way to much to lose to deal with it, so I completely ignore them, no revs, no nothing.

This doesn't mean I don't speed or accelerate (excessively at times ), it just means I don't want someone else's lack of skill putting me in a bind.

In reply to Stefan:

Hey now, I'm from Portland and drive a clapped out Toyota! But, yeah, you hit Portland on the nose there.

yupididit wrote:

NickD wrote:

Furious_E wrote:

Joe Gearin wrote: I wonder if he added an M3 sticker to his car's flanks.......like WWII airplanes used to do to signify vanquished enemies.

For some reason, this is what I think of whenever I see the stupid stick figure families on the back of mini vans and CUVs...Look at me everyone, I murdered my whole family! I'll admit to engaging in such juvenile behavior described in this thread from time to time. I had an n/a 5 speed Volvo 850 in high school that had the exhaust completely rust off behind the cat at one point, so it was obnoxiously loud and not particularly fast at all. Great for trolling faster cars, just to see what they could do, knowing full well I'd get my ass handed to me.

My friend used to tell a story of how he had a 5-speed twin cam Neon that the exhaust fell off of and he would try to either goad people into showing off or try to outrun anything he had a chance against. One night he wheeled up to a stoplight and there was an old beat-up Galant sitting there. He launches the Neon and the Galant promptly flies past him. They get stopped at the next light and my friend did a redline clutch dump and once again the Galant beats him out of the hole and then runs away on him. As it goes by, this time he sees the VR-4 badge on the back.

I remember beating a GT500 in my Galant VR4. Ahhh those were the days.

He said at the time he was pretty heavy into DSMs, and he saw the VR-4 badge and thought it was like the people who stick SS and GT and Type R badges on everything. Then he went home and looked it up and realized it was a real thing.

When I lived in Ottawa, there was another Miata that looked a lot like mine (red with silver stripes). Even our friends got them mixed up. The other guy said that people were trying to race him all the time. It never happened to me. So maybe it's not everybody else...

Nobody messes with Miatas in Grand Junction, though.

plance1 wrote: Happens to me sometimes, but in reverse, nicer cars want to race me... https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/hey-911-ownerim-well-aware-youre-just-a-little-faster-than-my-turbo-brick/97015/page1/ I blame Vin Diesel and the rest of that fast and furious crap. I like to speed up until I come across a known speed trap and then jamb it into second gear (to avoid brake lights) and watch the zit faced kid in the other car slingshot ahead of me like he's Ricky Bobby on fire. This is why the punk in the silver celica got a ticket this past Saturday night heading south on I75 south of Dayton. It was fun to watch, really.

I don't ever do this, but one time I ran 2nd gear out to 60 before upshifting on an onramp, and the person who had been behind me on the surface street (in an Sentra or something) proceeded to pass me at a very high rate of speed about 1/8 of a mile later. My car isn't very fast (mid-high 13s) but come on...

I passed him again after he was pulled over. And no sympathy was given that day.

In reply to volvoclearinghouse:

You're a rare case as most are poorly maintained, bald tires, sagging suspension, belching "bio-diesel" smoke as well as often is the case, marijuana smoke just to add insult to injury.

I do like old cars, like those Mercedes and even the older chrome bumper rigs, the Volvo Amazons, etc. but the owners of many in my area are more often than not a menace to others with their poor maintenance and poor driving skills.

In reply to Vigo:

You're an shiny happy person and damned lucky. Knock it the hell off on the streets. Street racing is a waste of time, doesn't prove anything and makes the general public think all "car people" are raging street racing shiny happy people.

In reply to Tyler H:

I call BS! Only because a 12a can't hit 100mph... just kidding. That sucks.

racerdave600 wrote:

DeadSkunk wrote: I'm continually amazed how often some guy in full sized pickup feels the need to blow by my MINI Cooper. It's normal for it to happen after the double left turn lanes on a local boulevard. I can take the inner lane quickly and then expect the pickup to blow by and then slow back down to the speed limit once they're ahead. It's silly, but happens anyway.

Odd, I get the exact same reaction when driving my MINI. It's almost always guys in trucks too. They seem to have adverse reactions to MINIs. This week I've been driving my dad's BMW as I needed more room than normal. It gets a totally different reaction to drivers. No one seems to feel the need to race it (except some jerk in a beat up old Buick this morning), but cutting it off is a different story. I've never been cut off as much in my life as I have in this car. It brings out the hate in people evidently. On a different note, I've also never had as many women check me out when I park as I've had in this car. That never happens in the MINI or Miata.

People cutting off your BMW?

It's just a preemptive strike.

Stefan wrote: In reply to Vigo: You're an shiny happy person and damned lucky. Knock it the hell off on the streets. Street racing is a waste of time, doesn't prove anything and makes the general public think all "car people" are raging street racing shiny happy people.

This.

I've lost a lot of respect for you, Vigo.

Y'all just live in the wrong areas. I have to go out of my way to find a road with two lanes going the same direction. But plenty of times I have made temporary drivin' buddies on winding back roads. My favorite was either the Z28 that couldn't keep up with a mk2 Golf around the corners but roared up behind me on every straight, or the Ferrari 308 that tailed my GTV6 for a while and then disappeared into the distance with a thumbs up at the next passing zone. Another neat one was the chromed out C4 vette would run away from the 3 on the straights but I'd reign him in at the corners. After a while he started slowing down at the end of the straight to try to put distance on me in the corners. That was a fun drive.

I'm not sure if 'spitired driving' on empty back roads through forest/cornfields/canyons WHILE STAYING IN YOUR LANE is going to get blasted as harshly as actual street racing but I get the feeling almost all of us do it.

One time someone tried to get me to race at a stop light. Following a period of driving a loud, built, kinda obnoxious Maverick with drag strip points series stickers on it daily for two years. No one ever tried to race the Mav that whole time. Within a week of buying my (bone stock 17.5 second) Integra I had a couple of people revving like crazy at stoplights. It was so confusing at first. (No I didn't race, part of growing up bracket racing was having it beaten into my head to never street race EVER)

Keith Tanner wrote: When I lived in Ottawa, there was another Miata that looked a lot like mine (red with silver stripes). Even our friends got them mixed up. The other guy said that people were trying to race him all the time. It never happened to me. So maybe it's not everybody else... Nobody messes with Miatas in Grand Junction, though.

When I had my Stalker there was a guy with a Caterham that was virtually the same color, and he always wore a helmet while driving. People would come up to me and say. "Glad you ditched that helmet. Kinda made you look like a dork." They also told the other guy that he drove a little too aggressively whenever he took the helmet off.

RedGT wrote: I'm not sure if 'spitired driving' on empty back roads through forest/cornfields/canyons *WHILE STAYING IN YOUR LANE* is going to get blasted as harshly as actual street racing but I get the feeling almost all of us do it.

On suitable roads that you know well, it's safe enough IMO. Some of the most fun I've had with that was keeping pace with various sports cars while driving a friend's roadkill-grade Volvo 740 wagon. Bigger turbo, boost turned up, loud exhaust, decent suspension and IIRC, it was on 225 Rivals at the time. So it had a good bit of grip, enough power and the noises got lots of confused looks from people when it turned out that it could keep up. Especially considering it looked like a total POS (PO painted it with a brush and house paint, fiberglassed the bumpers into the rest of the body to get rid of the gaps, etc.). The one time my friend got pulled over in it, the cop had to ask him what it was because he couldn't figure it out...

I've been involved with one street race in my life.

It was between a v6 dakota and a 305 powered 80s grand pricks.

Mildly underwhelming.

Man nobody even rev's at me in the Viper.

I have big winged and stickered STI/EVO's come up all the time and try and creep by me at slow speeds like they are afraid of being noticed.

In reply to RedGT:

I do the same thing. I had a day where I chased a C4 over all sorts of backroads for about 3 hours. He seemed perplexed as to why he couldn't shrug the smiley little blue car and just kept trying to shake me. Good fun

Sky_Render wrote:

Stefan wrote: In reply to Vigo: You're an shiny happy person and damned lucky. Knock it the hell off on the streets. Street racing is a waste of time, doesn't prove anything and makes the general public think all "car people" are raging street racing shiny happy people.

This. I've lost a lot of respect for you, Vigo.

I bet 80% of this forum populance has street raced at least once. No Respect Son!!!!!

yupididit wrote:

Sky_Render wrote:

Stefan wrote: In reply to Vigo: You're an shiny happy person and damned lucky. Knock it the hell off on the streets. Street racing is a waste of time, doesn't prove anything and makes the general public think all "car people" are raging street racing shiny happy people.

This. I've lost a lot of respect for you, Vigo.

I bet 80% of this forum populance has street raced at least once. No Respect Son!!!!!

The only times I've been involved in competitive shenanigans on the street were as a somewhat unwitting passenger. Tandem drifting in snowy parking lots, however...

yupididit wrote:

Sky_Render wrote:

Stefan wrote: In reply to Vigo: You're an shiny happy person and damned lucky. Knock it the hell off on the streets. Street racing is a waste of time, doesn't prove anything and makes the general public think all "car people" are raging street racing shiny happy people.

This. I've lost a lot of respect for you, Vigo.

I bet 80% of this forum populance has street raced at least once. No Respect Son!!!!!

When I was younger, yes. I didn't prove anything and its taken a while to get my driving record and insurance back to a reasonable level. I still drive assertively on the street when the situation allows it, but racing people? Nah, it doesn't do anything for me and it doesn't impress the people who ride with me or the people in the other car.