Cheap Thrills in an Expensive Car

Porsches are great automobiles! They are very high quality and probably saved my life – on two separate occasions. That particular one was painted “Crystal Blue”. (The same color as the Porsche 917 featured in the Steve McQueen movie “LeMans”.) It had mechanical fuel-injection, dry-sump oiler, 5-speed manual transmission, and was air-cooled (all Porsches and VWs were at that time). And it was FAST!

The problem with high-performance cars is that they can be a handful and can get you into trouble faster than you can blink! Porsches are well-balanced for superior handling, but the 911-series is rear-engined. That’s something you can’t forget because they can swap ends quickly and suddenly you’re out of control or facing the wrong direction!

July 3^rd. My future wife and I were westbound on I-40 in Amarillo. It was about 5:00 pm and a week day. Traffic in Amarillo is never very heavy, but with the holiday almost upon us, a lot of vehicles were passing through town. It was sunny, hot and dry.

Uncharacteristically, I was driving the speed limit (70 mph), in the middle lane as we topped the bridge over a cross street. In the congestion, a slower-moving car in the right lane moved into my lane as I was about to pass him. I quickly veered toward the left lane to keep from hitting him. That was my first mistake – moving BEFORE looking to see if it was clear. It wasn’t…

That’s when I made my second mistake. Seeing a car, I immediately cut back to the right, over-correcting a bit, and was now heading into the right-hand lane and toward the guardrail designed to keep vehicles from sailing off of the bridge. Now the adrenaline was pumping and I made my third mistake! I cut the wheel sharply back to the left to try to stay in the right-hand lane – and on the bridge. A little too much adrenaline in that move and I over-corrected again! At the same time, I tapped the brakes to slow things down – mistake number four. That’s when the rear bias of the engine weight plus the braking action on the front end conspired against me. A lesser car would probably have flipped over, but not the Porsche! Suddenly, we were in the center lane again, skidding backwards, looking at the cars and semis coming over the top of the bridge. That’s when time slowed down…

In that adrenaline-induced timeline, I realized what had to be done. First, shift to neutral and let the engine speed drop. Then, I slammed the shifter into Reverse, cut the wheel to the right and backed through the small gap in the left lane traffic and onto the narrow shoulder where the center guardrail separated us from the eastbound traffic. Just enough room to again be facing west, I put it in 1^st, steered back into the left lane and burned rubber! I pulled off at the next exit, stopped, got out, and looked the car over – especially the Michelins. No damage! It was as much my fault as his, but I don’t think the guy in the car who started it all even knew what had happened behind him!

The guy I almost hit in the left lane pulled off and asked if we were okay and my fiancée’s  comment was, “Just like an amusement park ride…”

She still married me. I think it was for the car…