These Are the Most Stressful Driving Experiences You've Ever Had
Christmas Eve, 2009. Driving from Houston to Tulsa. The forecast is iffy on the timing, but there’s a big winter front coming and it’s probably going to ice in Oklahoma.
Choice of car was a problem – my F350’s tires were well past their sell-by date and did not have adequate tread depth, while the ‘99 Mustang Cobra (with autocross-prepped suspension) was on fresh street tires. High-performance summer street tires, but fresh. Decision was made to take the Cobra with the goal of getting ahead of the front, and once I was at my folks’ place, whatever, I was there.
I was going okay until a Texas DPS trooper, who had earlier been unable to get a radar lock on me as I crested a hill on TX-19 a good 20mph+ over the speed limit (which was 75 mph) because I executed a huge delta-V move as soon as the V1 screamed, pulled out behind me after my gas stop in Sulfur Springs.
Kept my cool, just cruised along, as he went from behind to passing me on the left, to being in front of me, then pulled onto the shoulder. “If he pulls out behind me, I’m screwed”. He pulled out behind me and lit me up. Turn signal on, hand in the air, pull over, shut the car off, window down, keys on the dash, hands on the top of the wheel.
He walks up, sees a 40-something in a U Tulsa sweatshirt, and… the bright red 3″ Simpson harness I was wearing instead of the stock seatbelt (the car has a racing seat), and his face fell. Never even asked me for ID. He’d pulled me over for a seatbelt violation and lost his primary enforcement reason for stopping me. After a brief conversation about my travels, he asked about my front license plate – I showed him where it was Velcroed to the passenger sun visor, and he sent me on my way.
And then radioed another trooper to tail me with radar blazing for the next 20 miles, all the way to Paris.
ANYWAY, that wasn’t the stressful part. I got to Henryetta, OK, normally about an hour from the folks’, and as I pulled away from the last stoplight on the nort end of town, I heard the tell-tale “ping-ping-ping” of sleet pellets on the car. At about 60 mph in 5th gear, I tested the traction by goosing the gas pedal. The traction control light lit up on the instrument panel and the computer cut 3 cylinders.
Right. Ice. Backed it down to about 30 mph. As I went through first Okmulgee and then Glenpool, I was starting out from the stoplights in 2nd and upshifting directly to 5th as soon as the car was moving. Lugged the hell out of the engine, but it worked.
The car was on ice skates. Dull ones. The slightest breeze would move it around in the lane. 30 mph felt like I was pushing my luck. Meanwhile, Tahoes and the like with TX tags are blasting past me at 70 and giving me dirty looks. That I’d later pass more than half of them after they’d found one of the ditches was small consolation. The brain was on full alert the whole time, no relaxing, no distractions, just regretting so many decisions I’d made earlier with a very little bit of background processing while everything else was focused on maintaining some semblance of control.
Two and a half hours after first hitting the ice, I made it to the folks’. Dad opened the garage door, I pulled in, turned the car off, he closed the door, and I sat there for a good 10 minutes trying to unkink my back muscles enough to be able to lever myself out of the seat.
And then didn’t leave the house for 3 days except to shovel the driveway.
No damage to the car. No permanent damage to me. Just something I never want to do again. I keep the shoes on my trucks up to code from then on so the Cobra can stay in the garage when things get stupid weather-wise. And in Houston, on those rare occasions we get ice, I just don’t leave the house.
Spending two-and-a-half hours driving on ice is not my idea of fun, but doing it in a Mustang Cobra on high-performance summer tires? That sounds like hell. But sometimes, you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do.
