In which I fire back.

[Midorikawa]

So a while back, my exhaust system busted on my way to work, right at the connection between manifold and the rest of the exhaust system. It was a break that required a weld to repair, so I just had to limp it home with the exhaust pipe held off the suspension system by a clothes hanger (and people laugh at me when they see a stack of wire hangers in my trunk. HA!)

I'm driving slow so as not to attract police attention, since there's no muffler currently, and my slant 6 isn't exactly quiet, when some jackass comes roaring up behind me in a huge penile extension of a truck. I'm in the slow lane, I have my emergency lights on, and I'm going 10 under - again, limping home. The freeway is abandoned, and he could have passed easily.

Instead, he starts honking, and flashing his brights at me impatiently. I ignore him, and keep driving. After about a mile of this, he pulls up to my window, flips me the bird, and starts cursing at me. See, I'm a gearhead, and know my car REALLY well. I know that if I let off the gas a bit, the lack of standing pressure from a functioning exhaust system causes a REALLY loud backfire.

Asshole: "FUCK YOU YOU SLOW FUCKING DRIVER! GET OFF THE-"
Duster: *BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG*
Asshole: *yells in surprise, and speeds off*
Me:

Yeah, it was a chance, and I shouldn't have messed with a road rager, but 1) I'm armed, 2) my exit was coming up, and he seemed the type to follow you. I'm not driving all over town with my car in that state attracting attention trying to get him to go away so he doesn't follow me home, and 3) I figured it'd be enough to startle him out of his idiocy and leave me the hell alone. I was right. :-)

[Shalom]

First of all, I want to know WTF was this guy's problem.

Regarding backfires . . . I worked once with an awesome pharmacy tech. Biker chick, retired R.N., didn't take sh@t from anyone (a bit of her: when one customer tried some kind of scam to get something he wasn't entitled to, she looked him in the eye and said "Now look. I have 28 tattoos on my body, and not one of them says I'm stupid"), a pleasure to work with. She told me once that when she had to stop riding her hawg, she got an early '70s Chevy Nova with the 350 V8 in it. Now there was something wrong with the carburetor, I don't remember what, such that if you got off the gas too quickly it would backfire. She was meaning to get it fixed, but hadn't had the chance.

So once she was driving home from South Jersey, and this anonymous dickhead was tailgating her on the Parkway. No matter what she did, changing speeds, changing lanes, whatever, she still wound up with him on her butt. She had no idea who the hell he was, but he was obviously stalking her.

So she bides her time, until she gets to the Irvington overpass, which is the only tunnel on the Parkway. Slows down just a bit, so he was only a few feet behind. Pushes the clutch, gooses the gas just a little bit, and snaps her foot off the pedal.

BLAM!!

Flames shot out both tailpipes. Echoes reverberated through the tunnel.

The guy backed way the hell off. She never saw him again.

[protege]

I've never done anything like that...but I took care of a tailgater quite interestingly one winter day...

I'd gone over to my office to pick up a couple of things. Namely an extra door, and a large sheet of wood. Both of which I was bringing home to build an N scale model railroad on, plus a workbench. Since I couldn't get that stuff into my little Corolla, I borrowed my mother's Saturn Vue. Despite its size, the interior of the Vue is pretty cramped. Enough so, that I had no choice but to wedge the wooden items inside, tying them in place, and then tying the tailgate down. Not the best situation, but oh well.

Most drivers were pretty damn nice, even though I was going well under the speed limit on the highway. Until I got past downtown, and almost onto the Liberty Bridge. This one bitch (and I'm being nice), in a beat-up white Pontiac was right on my ass. Close enough, that if my load shifted...it would have landed right on her hood

Well, about 3/4 the way across, the inevitable happened. That is, I hit a bump, the tailgate went off...and the bitch hit the brakes, nearly getting rear-ended herself I knew things weren't going anywhere, so I kept going...across the bridge, through the 'tubes, and pulled off the first place I could. I tied the hatch down again, and bought some extra straps while I was at it.

Anyway, from the second the tailgate flew up to the time I got into my borough, the Pontiac stayed *very* far behind me. Can't understand why

[wheeitsme]

FYI: Safety note:

Just be careful, folks, not to start you backfiring car with someone behind it. My mother ended up with a permanent carbon "tattoo" from someone who did that.