jhawk127

Bizarreness last night....
I'm cruising in a 55mph zone and a I-think-it-was-a-Civic passed me slowly. Limit changed to 70, so I speed up casually as normal and set the cruise at 74, incidentally passing the Civic in the process. Civic catches up to me a second later, side-by-side, he keeps hitting the throttle, speed up, slow down, looking over at me. I knew what he wanted........

A few points to mention at this point:
1. A Civic vs. a Corvette.
2. It's after 10 pm - and I'm already running the speed limit. with other cars in the vicinity. on an often-patrolled stretch of highway.
3. My 14 yr. old son is with me.
4. Guessing it was a 20-something with his 20-something buddy in a Civic with a big spoiler and ready for a paint job.

My response?
"You've got to be kidding me. Seriously?"
So, I set a good example for my son, left the cruise set at 74 and let them enjoy looking at my Vette as they sped up, slowed down, sped up, slowed down.......FOR 8 MILES!!! Exit ramp time - I'm still in the left lane, so disengage the cruise. He slows down also, but I've got traffic coming up on me quick, but he did let me in behind him, and he exited in front of me. We went separate ways at that point -perhaps because I waited until he was committed to turning left, before I turned right, which was headed to my destination.

It was just bizarre that he didn't get the hint, even with me ignoring him and occasionally shaking my head no. 8 miles!

On one hand I would have loved to smash the go pedal and show him what he was up against, but also glad I didn't. Call it maturity, common sense, responsible parenting, or whatever.

On a related note - I'm starting to look into HPDEs. Will ask more questions and look for recommendations once I've done a bit of homework.

1SickGS

It is posts like this one right here that makes us ALL look good. Props to you fine sir for doing the right thing. There is a time and place and why take an unnecessary chance. I know I could go on and on about hurting someone or blah blah blah, but wouldn't it suck to break something showing off to a ricer? Well done my friend. Well done.

jrose7004

He probably has nitrous.

Crabbers

Well, I'm a young 20-something and I don't race people

With that out of the way, I agree. It's weird that cars at an obvious disadvantage are the ones that seem to want to race more often. I dunno what it's all about so I just ignore it.

1SickGS

Yeah don't get me wrong, I swear the first time I seen one of those front wheel drive P.O.S. with slicks on the front do a burnout and sound like a pissed off weedeater, but lay down a 9 second quarter I was like "well, now I have seen it all".

jhawk127

haha - Wasn't trying to imply that all 20-somethings are immature (or that I'm an old guy)! I'm sure I would have been in a lot of trouble if I had a Corvette in my late teens/early 20s, however.


Possible, but doubtful.

wayback

Never ceases to amaze me how many cars want to see how they fair next to a Corvette.

Had a similar experience when cruising in my C4, slow 85. They just would not quit. Pulled into a gas station by my home, they did to. Told them I never race the old C4 but if they would give me a minute I would come back in my other vette.

When I pulled up next to them in the C6 I gave it a good rev. Needless to say they did not want to race anymore. We spent 15 min talking cars. Told them to leave the racing for the track. Set up a time to meet at local dragster and have some fun.

Nice young men who are into cars, just can't afford anything really fast yet. Was reminded of myself at their age.

Crabbers

No offense taken, just trying to bring a young voice to the discussion I'm old at heart anyways

BWF07

I agree there are lot of teh imports as well as other makes that seem like they justy want to see what a Corvette can do, but on the other hand there are a lot of imports out there that can lay some numbers down and they will put a hurting on stock corvette's. Not saying this one was one of those, but just because it looked like a P. O. S. does not mean it was one.

I auto cross and this past weekend there was a VW GTI that was sandwiched between two Z06's that wee not normal street cars and built for auto crossing, but if you saw it (the VW) on the street you would have thought no problem.on

wayback

Those GTI's can be made fast pretty easily. I bought my oldest son one with the twin clutch transmission. Fun car to drive.

You can see part of it here.

cartop2

I think a lot of young men and women buy Corvettes and end up showing maturity beyond their years. I've also seen old guys my age leaving car shows and doing burn outs with all the young kids at the show seeing their actions. When I see crazy stuff, I tend to wonder about their IQ more than their age.
By the way, I have more minivans than anything else making sure they get ahead at lights and the highways. Usually a complete family is on board, some in car booster seats.

ZR1Cat

Give the Honda driver a friendly wave or 'thumbs up', and then ignore the challenge. You have nothing gain or prove from engaging in a lopsided street race. In other words, you can realistically only have a chance to lose in this encounter. By "lose" I mean, if you beat him so what? You achieved nothing. If you race him you could get a speeding (or worse) ticket for racing a Civic. Wow, that would be stupid. What if the punk wrecks? What kind of example are you setting for your kid if you race him.? I just don't see a favorable outcome for you in this scenario.

Crabbers

I try to fly under the radar. I feel like I draw enough attention to myself driving a low & loud car with massive flares and a giant window on the hood. People are already judging me and I don't want to do something to prove them right

I generally go out of my way to be extra courteous so that people might think differently about people who drive "flashy" cars and not judge them based on it. Unfortunately, it appears to be a losing battle

Titan C6Z

Don't judge a book by it's cover. Don't be THAT guy on YouTube with the corvette that lost to a... Whether you race on street or strip there's gonna be a "lesser" car out there that's gonna spank you so bad the only thing you'll have left to say to defend yourself with is "well at the end of the day I have a corvette and you still have a..."

The 1/2 mile event I went to, I was one of the slowest cars there. I was also the only one with stock tires (runcraps). Civics, integras, all types of bmws, mustangs, camaros, saleens, vipers, lambos, 911s, a 918, GTRs, C5s aC6s and C7s put my Z to shame. They all hit 150-229mph.

I think a more powerful message to the kids would be taking them to organized events and showing them how to have fun in an organized event. Telling them not to do things is cool, showing them what to do is even cooler. Great way to share another life experience with kids too.

Elijah71

I have no doubt that a ricer with enough $$$$$ spent on upgrades could keep up or even take on some of our Vettes BUT at the end of the day it's still just a P.O.S and we are still in our American Dream Machines

1SickGS

Well said.

*Trip*

for some reason it seems like every Dodge Ram pickup truck with the HemI emblem on it wants to race...

rprice

It dosent matter what I see on the road. They all want to race! it's ridiculous. Self control is hard sometimes.

Not So Fast

Do any of you watch Street Outlaws, the "Farm Truck" is quite the sleeper huh?? Who would guess???
NSF

Todds427

Yeah, 1100 HP and it moves right along! Sleeper for sure!