JALLEN wrote:joe817 wrote:JALLEN wrote:
I once went from the old Airport south on I-35 to Hill's on S. Congress at 120 mph.
Yeah? When was that? In 1963?
Not as many cars on the highway back then as there are now.!
1964, actually, when I was young and foolish, in Gus Oldham's GTO, when you could still see the Capitol and the Tower from the rise at Onion Creek. I-35 had not been open for very long, a couple of years maybe, and Austin was a sleepy little college town of ~250,000 unless the Lege was in session.
Yes, remember THAT Austin. It was a great place to live and grow up in. Not bad all the way up to the late 70's. By the mid Eighties it was too big and too changed for me.
Plenty of places 'back in day' to take your vehicle and 'stretch its legs', some safer than others. I had a 1969 Jaguar XKE roadster when I was college there. I had just gotten it back from Continental Cars...where I had them put a new set of Pirelli tires on it, all new Koni shocks. Had them re-jet, re-needle and synchronize the Dual Stromberg carbs and tighten the valve clearances to British specs.
Eager to test the upgrades...I decided to take it out on a Sunday morning to check the acceleration and top speed. I had never actually taken it to full redline in 4th gear. I figured Highway 71....Southwest of town would be a good place, since it would have little traffic and there is a nice mile long straightaway just before you cross the Pedernales River bridge.
I lived in Northwest Hills at the time, so it was a bit of trip to go out to 71...but sure enough, there was almost no traffic.
I pulled over on the straightway, waited to see that no traffic was coming then nailed it. Shifting just a bit over redline through the first three gears, I had almost topped out in 4th when I came to the one gentle bend in the highway before the bridge, I met a DPS cruiser going the other way! His lights went immediately on. Couldn't believe it, just my luck! I shifted the Jag into neutral and coasted to a stop down the highway.
Already had my drivers license out. Sat there waiting, expecting the cruiser to come barreling around the bend at any time.
A couple of minutes pass and no cruiser???????? I was just about to pull onto the highway and leave when here he comes, at normal highway speed, pulls in behind me. Trooper gets out (older gentleman) and walks up to my vehicle. The first thing he says is: "I can't believe you stopped, why did you stop?"
I told him "I was speeding, I got caught". He said...he would never have caught me if I'd had kept going and just turned down any of the ranch roads around here. Said he debated even turning around to see IF I had perhaps stopped. I told him what I was doing and why. He didn't seem upset by it....but pointed out how dangerous it could have been if I had a tire blowout or something.
He asked If I knew how fast I was going, I told him no, I had been looking at the highway and the 'tach' and hadn't yet looked at the speedometer. He took me back to the cruiser to show me the readout on his radar. 141 mph. He said because I had been cooperative he would write me up at 90, said it would make a BIG difference in the ticket. Very nice trooper!
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