“How I Got Here...”

Hello STREETRACER,

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I thoroughly enjoyed reading your posts on Blueline. I am a member of

several "traffic-law" type forums and your posts are BY FAR the most

intellectually expressed replies I've ever read!

I left this Forum MONTHS ago due to the hostile responses I received to MY

posts. I just happened upon your posts when I stopped in to Delete my

profile and posts, LOL.

I, too, am from the era of stop-light street racing. I still have my old

GTO and have plans to transform it in to a real "bad" machine with the

obvious intentions of "flipping-off" the current stunt laws... All

flat-black, fake Radar detectors and Laser Jammers, various kill switches

for exterior lighting, etc. Of course the car will be well equipped with

video camera's and digital audio recorders to document the multitude of

traffic stops I'm sure to encounter! I still launch from stop-lights like

in the old days. The difference is, no one launches beside me! LOL

I have been driving daily now for 30 years and have never had an at-fault

accident.

You can imagine how comical I find a system that points its finger at a guy who has driven (what those with authority define as) aggressively virtually every time I'm behind the wheel yet has never even scratched the paint of another car, LOL.

I tried hard to find this guy but I'd forgotten my password to the Blueline Forums and so couldn't get into my private message to respond. I even tried calling everyone with his name in his town but that didn't work either. If nothing else, I'm persistent. But he recommended this site last week and after a lot of false starts it finally worked.

Hopefully you're not in jail yet...

Probably can find this person (now CELEBRITY) with the alledged good driving habits on...

I'll autograph one of your books if you give me a free one, LOL

BTW... coming up on 3 years ticket-free!! (pats self on back)

I remember reading this article back in the early 80's. Of course I would never run from the cops, but I always wanted to build a similar "theme" car. It's just "too cool"!

Hi Hwybear,

I do understand that the individual who steered me to this site was declared one of Canada's worst drivers, #2 in fact.

I don't personally agree with that assessment and I believe it was a moronic assessment.

The reason for my disagreement is that his safety record also has to be taken into account to make a fair judgment and it was not. A clean, accident-free driving record has to count for something and thirty years of accident-free driving tells you this person has skills beyond those of the average driver.

In business, results count for far more than style. Results are rewarded. On the street they are rewarded too. No accidents means lower insurance and no payouts for at faults.

I saw nothing in that show that indicated anyone or anything was put at risk by this highly skilled driver.

Skill also has to be taken into account and it was not. Skill at being a slowpoke, a road block or a human pylon is not highly regarded in our society anywhere including the street. Slow drivers cause accidents. Fast, skilled drivers generally do not.

There is no law against acceleration. That means from zero to the speed limit, whatever it is can be achieved perfectly legally however quickly it's achieved. There is nothing unsafe about the process when conducted by a skilled driver. That means when taking off from a light such a person times the light and leaves first. Very occasionally the other driver does the same thing. The person in the curb lane can be considered at that point to be trying to prevent the other from over taking and thus is engaging in a race. Not the person in the outside lane. Regardless, if this activity does not last longer than a city block, there is very little likelihood of an accident of any sort. They are extremely rare.

Handling a vehicle well and skillfully is not a requirement of acquiring a license. As a result, most drivers who are behind the wheel are incompetent in challenging road conditions and that results in accidents. When a situation calls for putting the pedal to the floor to avoid an collision, most are afraid to do that and are often killed or kill someone else as a result. You know that. Most people have almost no skill with a steering wheel for avoiding accidents. Lots of accidents could be avoided by a mirror check, glance over shoulder and a simple lane change. It has been shown over and over in filmed road tests that when something unexpected happens right in front of the average driver, instead of changing lanes, they hit the obstruction with no attempt beyond applying the brakes to avoid collision. That is not skill.

Most people don't understand anything about the relationship between their tires, their condition, weather conditions and the road surface. Most skilled drivers have a working knowledge about how to achieve maximum traction that would leave the incompetent far behind. Most people don't even understand the dimensions of their vehicles or its ability to accelerate or how it contents can keep moving too long after they've stopped.

Experience is also a highly rewarded trait in our society and experience rewards those people with higher than average incomes with few exceptions. Practice makes perfect and driving is one of those skills that can be honed to a very high degree by a person with the aptitude. Experience teaches the ability to read traffic and conditions and predict with an exceptional degree of certainty what will happen seconds and minutes before it does. That ability keeps such drivers from having at fault or any accidents at all beyond the truly flukey. Drivers like these as rule generally have a history of speeding tickets generated by fishing holes but no accidents on their records and no record of having caused any.

Most Canadian drivers by and large are inept with respect to handling a vehicle and in that I include the police who have more than their share of at fault single vehicle accidents. In fact the police own a little piece of hell in this category. When a police officer is involved in a single vehicle accident, it is a big deal. Each officer represents a huge public investment. Their cruisers are huge investments as well. When involved in an accident, that giant investment can be completely erased along with their caseloads. The personal tragic aftermath is another public cost even if the accident was due to negligence on the part of the officer.

Attitude was isolated in the film clip. But that was a mistake. Leaving out the rest of the skills set and emotional make up took the entire segment out of context. Competitive attitude by itself does not make anyone a danger to anyone but the imaginations of the skill challenged who have no business being on the road without proper training, aptitude and interest.

In business, a competitive attitude is a highly regarded asset that garners high rewards. Business for the most part does not reward uncompetitive attitude. No one pays you for doing work slowly. The difference between survival and non-survival in business and in the natural world is speed and efficiency married to the intelligence to make both work to advantage. It is a trait that is part of our DNA - our genetic code in other words. There is no way to legislate human genetic code into something else.

Physical condition has to count for something as well. Being fit means being responsive and is the base upon which all activities requiring skill, aptitude, attention and so on are built. This driver, from his photograph, is fitter than the average driver. Much fitter. I didn't see any allowance for that. There was no mention of a glass eye, lack of arms or legs or other physical impairment. Where was any of that taken into account? I see plenty of overweight drivers who have no business operating anything beyond a treadmill. Being overweight does not cancel anyone out as a driver but it is a physical impairment even if you only account for mass in motion - momentum. It takes longer to stop heavier objects. Heavier people are physically less adroit than others and when weight approaches ponderous, that in turn is physical impairment and potential heart attack behind the wheel country.

The condition of the vehicle has to be taken into account as well. Car nuts tend to lavish money on their cars. They take pride in knowing everything there is to know about them. As such, their vehicles can do more safely than those of the average driver who may not maintain their vehicle at all or understand when catastrophic failure is immenent. We've all heard of wheels flying off of trucks. So even being a professional driver does not elevate you to the stature of a car nut in my estimation.

Finally, people like the guy who recommended me to this site tend to take serious pride in their ability to drive and drive safely. No normal person, aggressive or competitive has a death wish and none have any interest in being involved in a costly accident. People like that do not stay accident-free by being anything like the world's worst driver.

In my estimation, the manner in which the show was conducted is flawed and skewed to satisfy the comfort zone of the marginally competent. The people who have accidents in other words.

The problem for police is this: how do you discern the difference between a speedy skilled, responsible driver and a klutzy inexperienced learner who will always be a threat to him or herself and others?

You do it during the licensing process. There are lots of ways to grade skills and aptitudes that cannot be done at roadside by a cop who has to make a split second judgment that may or may not cost a person their life. The cop has to err on the side of safety. Sometimes the cop is wrong. But no one dies. On the other hand, when the cop is wrong, the person targeted should not pay a penalty for the honest error in judgment.

The fact that the government is in charge of licensing puts the responsibility squarely on their shoulders for cleaning up our roads. But they aren't doing it and I don't believe they know how.

Bookm wrote:I'll autograph one of your books if you give me a free one, LOL

BTW... coming up on 3 years ticket-free!! (pats self on back)

I remember reading this article back in the early 80's. Of course I would never run from the cops, but I always wanted to build a similar "theme" car. It's just "too cool"!

http://www3.sympatico.ca/sean.kathy/Firefoxx.pdf

After what I just posted, you should pay me at least double.

... maybe I'll just shut my big mouth! LOL

All right, I'll order your darn book. I've read a bunch of other forum threads on it (even ones you haven't found yet, hehe) and the general consensus is that folks are quite happy someone has finally compiled the necessary information to help educate the general public on this subject.

Besides, I'm sure you could use the gas money!

I think you will be quite happy to read the book. It could have been written for you.

The first book I wrote THE REBEL MACHINE IDENTITY is more you though. You should read that one too.

It's all about my adventures as a street racer. It's a fairly big book. I had a lot of adventures.

You can imagine getting chased in a car that shines in the dark was quite exciting. The chases were more fun than the races. Hilarious in fact. Of course no sane person would attempt anything like that today. You could easily end up dead due to some trigger or tazer happy cop.

Where did you get the shot? I haven't seen that one before.

The Rebel Machine as you've shown was the best of the muscle car era for street racing. It was not the most powerful straight off the show room floor but it was the most agile, well-balanced and safest of all of them. With a little effort and money the stock 340 horse power could be boosted to 466 horsepower by adding a cam, carb and electronic ignition. Everything else was already done and stock in terms of forged bottom end that generated an impressive 430 ft/lbs of torque. The sway bars needed to get around corners in a hurry were beefy and stock. It was also the only muscle car to have four wheel disc brakes as an option.

These days people spend thousand to covert their muscle cars to 'G cars' - cars that can pull G's going around corners in a controlled manner. They are trying to copy what Rebel Machines could do in pure stock form.

The cars don't look at all streamlined by today's standards and don't look like they could handle that well. Looks in this case were entirely deceiving.

My car handled like a dream and rode almost like a luxury car. Most of the others handled like hay wagons and rode like cheap taxies. If they had a small block - which meant a 350 or smaller they were thus no competition. My 390 fell neatly in the middle with small light block - the strongest in the industry due to its high nickel content and relatively large bore. What mattered was AMC engines' ability to breathe. When you added the cam and carb to that, you had more power at your disposal than a 454, 455, 426 or 440 and anything Ford had to offer.

I know of two Rebel Machines that were raced by dealerships on the track that were never defeated. There were probably more but the magazines were mostly anti AMC in those days and didn't go out of their way to cover AMC performance.

The Machine was preceded by the 1969 Rambler SC/Rambler and they were the opposite. Poor handling on the street but set records on the track all over North America and won that year's Baja 500. The basic Rebel body style won the 1967 or 68 version when the terrain was even more rugged.

Since AMC was bought out by Chrysler, car guys are finally beginning to realise that AMC's were way better than they were given credit for. As a result, their value is escalating faster than that of any other make.

The knowledge is crossing over to GM and Ford guys as well so AMC's are finally (but too late) having a brief moment of glory.

I was at the local auto wreckers the other day and was stunned to see a framed picture on the wall of our most successful street racer from the early 80's (in the '56). Here he can been seen smokin' another out-of-towner (Camero) out on the Amulree Road (1/4 mile marked out with white lines). This pic would be from around 1980. The thing that really caught my eye was... THAT's ME! The head you see just above the Camero hood, LOL! My friend is to the right. And the guy starting the race is now a prominent developer and customer of ours, LOL.

The guy in the black '56 can STILL be seen touring around town in it on occassion. Love the BLACK fuzzy dice!

Jeez I miss those days...