Need for speed on open highways?
 

Anyone ever get a very strong urge to just floor it on an open highway? I get it every time I drive on one. Like really strong. Luckily I'm really practical and cautious and have only done it once or twice when it was completely empty and only for a few seconds. But man, I'd liken the impulse to OCD or something.

It only happens when the streets are completely empty or nearly so. Anyone else like that? Oh and I don't just mean going 10-15 over, I mean I get the urge to do like 120mph+ (never gone that fast though). If you have done it totally post it so I can live vicariously.

PS I get these urges totally sober.

This is what the track is for.

Go-carts? Not gonna cut it :P

FYI: Turns out they have public race tracks where you can race your own full-size vehicle. It was very popular in Fayetteville, NC.

Rumor has it a Camaro pushing 500+ HP is not a go cart. I saw a guy race a stock Ford Ranger against a Mustang once, too. Hilarious.

...

I get that Top Gun need for speed when I'm on my bike. It only gets up to about 105 (cruiser) but it rumbles real good in the mountains outside DC where the cops are absent and the cars are sparse. I just like how the wind feels... reminds me of hanging out the side of a plane before a jump.

Definite adrenaline junkie stuff. I totally get a chemical reward after a risky bike ride. It's that damn throttle crack, I tell ya.

Cool. I didn't know about such places.

Yeah, they're virtually everywhere on unscheduled weekends all along the Atlantic Coast, from Florida, all the way up until Delaware, I've noticed.

BadNick would probably have loads more hands-on information on this practice than I currently possess, though.

I heard a ringing in my head, thanks Jet.

Yes, driving on public roads must be kept within the law and SAFE for everyone. So don't do as I do, do as we all know is the safe, responsible, right thing to do.

Track days are a great opportunity to get your car on a racetrack and learn how to handle it. Almost every track that I know of has such events although my favorite website that summarized all these events bit the dust. Cost runs about $185 to $250 per day depending on details. I go to these track days as often as possible and I'm really more interested in the dynamics of my car and how it compares to others rather than just sheer top speed...though I know mine has a pretty awesome top speed, too.

My need first arose with me actually behind the wheel in about 1972 when I got my '67 Jag E-Type and had to find out how fast it could go. So very late one night on a remote part of the local Interstate (nobody within sight the entire time) I opened it up to about 150 mph when suddenly the center latch of my convertible roof popped loose and it made such a loud pressure wave I thought the car blew up...so I let off and never went over 150 in that car.

I've also been in the 140 to 150 range in a few other cars belonging to friends.

My current car (modified turbo Supra) I've had over 170 mph and it felt like it was very stable and barely breathing hard and still a lot more left in it when I ran out of road. I did this evil deed one very early morning with nobody visible for miles ahead, on a limited access highway, on my way to a track day at Pocono Raceway.

That's what State Hwy 27 in Western Kansas is for.:) Or US Hwy 60 across New Mexico.:) You can cruise for five or ten or twenty miles at 100+ which you can't do on a track. I'd never drive like that on the East coast,:no: but some places out West you can drive for half an hour, and not even see another car.
I always chicken out at about 120mph, but my SAAB 9-5 speedo goes to 160, and some day I'll get it there.:rolleyes:

Lindy

There are places here where you can drive much longer than that without seeing another car :lol:. Northwest Nevada and Eastern Oregon both have lots of places where there are warning signs when leaving populated areas so that people know how far it is to the next gas station. I've been on a few of these backroads, and the nice thing is that at least in Nevada, the speed limit increases :)

I used to a lot. The fastest I've ever gone was 160-165ish. I've gone over 150mph several times. Once I made it from the south end of Atlanta (airport area) to Chicago in less than 7 hours. Do the math on that one! :eek: Younger, and far more stupid than I am now. The vehicle I had at the time (a 2000 TransAm with quite a few mods to make it faster than the big V8 it shared with the Corvette of those years already made it) was just too tempting to drive slow. Fortunately the worst impact it ever had on me was a ticket for 119 in a 65 that ended up costing me $500 plus the hassle of going to court and begging for mercy. :o

On the highway, no, I don't, but on backroads I do. My first car was a mustang and I grew up in the country so to me it always brings back those old feelings of being able to floor it without fear of getting caught.

I've done it. Ive driven at 125m/h. It was, breathtaking.

Do not do it.

This man speaks the truth.

One word for you:

Autobahn

Only gotten up to 120ish a few times. Either ran out of road or caught up with whatever traffic was out that time of night.

I wish there were more tracks around here. Only ones I've found so far are a couple 1/2 mile ovals. Used to have autocross at a local closed airbase, but they stopped that because the dingbats took the racing to the street on their way home.

Fastest I've ever been is 140ish when I was 16 in my old Volvo. Really really stupid. My brother was driving and he actually got a ticket a mile later..thankfully we had a gut feeling about the next corner and slammed on the brakes so it was only 86 in a 65 ticket.

Sometimes I'll floor it in my Evo and get up to 120ish but it literally takes a few seconds to get that high on a 350 hp turbo. So it's not like you're going a long stretch of mega speed, it's maybe 1/8th of a mile to get up that fast if you're already going 65.

Either way I'm a mega chicken shit about getting tickets so I've only done it like once every 6 months when there's nobody around.

But yeah if it was legal I would be going 100+ everywhere. My car handles so well that if there's nobody around, there's not a whole lot that can go wrong. BadNick is right, if you have a performance car, going 120+ feels like you're going 40 MPH. Absolutely no performance sacrifice for going faster unlike other cars which start to feel rickety and unsafe at those speeds.

Fastest I've gone myself is 90, but I've been in a car that did 120.

I'd have gone faster, but it was on I-94 around 3 a.m. with some cars around. Same with another time I did 90 to go with the flow driving from Wisconsin back to Chicago.

Yes, everywhere I go on the freeway, I have to do at least 80. I would love to go faster, and do sometimes.

I have had the cops pass me, twice now, while I was doing 80.

I grew up in and lived in small towns most of my life so its not too difficult to find long stretches of road with nobody around for miles. It was pretty common for young folk to head outside of town and see how fast they could get their cars going...really for no other reason then it gave you something to do.

But open roads just pale in comparison to a runway. Loring AFB was closed when I was 14 and for maybe about a year afterwards there was little to any human presence on the base whats so ever. Police from nearby towns would maybe swing by once a night and look things over but otherwise you were left to your own devices (which was pretty cool for a lad of 14 hundreds of empty buildings...empty nuclear bunkers, use your imagination). Anyway we'd hit the runway, start at one end and floor it until we'd bottom out the needle. I think the fastest I had a car going a was around 120 give or take 5 mph. The best part was by the time you hit that speed you still had untold amounts of runway left to slow down...or try to go faster. Great times.

highthief- Autobahn is a dream.

Wes- that sounds awesome! Even to just explore.

I've been in the passenger seat of a Porsche that did over 100, and this was on a back country road. Pretty good straight away though.

Personally Ive only been over 100 twice. I used to work nights so id get the urge. One was in my 98 Plymouth Neon got up to around 120. The other my '93 Honda Civic at about 110. Took awhile for both to get there but they did.

2nd Gen MR2s are rock solid stable at 135 on newly opened highways, rumor has it. That's the fastest I've driven. I've been a passenger in 240SX going 150mph on the oval portion of Phoenix International Raceway, before slowing down to 110mph, lighting up the rear tires and throwing it sideways to drift the turn into the infield. Pretty cool I guess if you like that sort of thing.

I have no idea how fast my Valkyrie is. I do know that the driver tops out at 135.

There is a whole lot of nothing in some parts of CO.

sorry, no pictures of my fast ventures on public roads, but this is about 160+mph crossing the finish line on the main front straight at Pocono going clockwise...this was at an SCCA track day which included a twisty infield course plus a large part of the tri-oval that NASCAR runs

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...oconoSCCA3.jpg

Yeah it was pretty cool, the base was like that for maybe about 8 months or so. Teenagers started getting wise to the fact that they could go their and do just about anything and not get caught. It was after people started using the old runway to organize drag racing they really stepped up the police presence out there. But for that brief window of time it was a teenagers paradise.

Anyway I really wanted to respond because I was talking with a friend earlier about past road trips and coincidently he reminded of a trip we took through Virginia where we had the car going about 110 mph down I-81. If I recall the speed limit there at the time (1999) was 80 mph (I could be wrong about that) so most of the trip we had the car around 95 mph. When we realized everybody was still passing us we got it up to about 110, to flow with traffic. Now I may be a little off on the exact speeds since it was about 10 years ago, but I'm pretty sure for a few stretches we had the car well over 100 mph.

EDIT: Okay I don't know maybe we were just REALLY high, which is entirely possible. I got curious after writing this what the speed was in Virginia around that time and I can't find anything backing it up. So take it for what its worth. :)

Lol!!

I pushed my old civic to redline at 140mph driving from Georgia to Ohio. Flew by a cop on the side of the road, thank god he was asleep or something, maybe he just said fuck it.

I've had my Dodge Stealth TTb up to 120, but it registers 160... one day... one day.

Oddly enough, when driving around town, I am usually the asshole doing 35 in a 35.

Took my best friend's Honda Accord station-wagon up to 110 on an Interstate in TN once. She was -not- amused when she woke up. The bad part was that even at 100mph, we were -still- the slowest car on the road!

Luckily for me, I moved to New Mexico. 75mph speed limit on highways, means traffic usually moves around 85-90mph regularly. But its the desert roads....long, straight, no cops for miles - have gotten my car up to 135-140 on some of those. =)

I get the need for speed pretty bad. On I-95 and Hwy 264 here in NC, there's massive stretches of road that are straight. If there's no one near, sometimes I will open it up (with radar detector of course).

I've gotten my turbo 4-cylinder SRT-4 up to 135ish probably 10 or 15 times. Not recently though as I got a ticket for spinning my tires.

And then the time Lasereth mentioned above in our Volvo - got up to around 140 going downhill. Took about a full minute to get up to that speed :)

My SRT-4 takes a fraction of that time.

And what others have said above - 130+ MPH in a performance car feels like 80 MPH in a regular car.

I am lucky enough to own a Corvette. I regularly cruise in the 80 - 90 range. With in seconds I can be over 145 MPH. I do so frequently on I-77 between Charlotte, NC and Columbia, SC. No it is not the smartest thing but the exhaust rumble and the wind is exciting.

I just bought a brand new 2009 FJR1300A (motorcycle)... so to answer the OP. Yes.

I've had my car up to 123mph and it was absolutely amazing, that's as fast as I've ever gone in a car and don't plan on doing it ever again on open roads.

I did get pulled over on my old motorcycle doing 110mph but luckily the situation was explained thoroughly enough and honestly enough that he let me go... the bike was only 5 days old and I was being left in the dust by my buddy on his 23 year old Yamaha standard. =-P

I can understand the impulse, though my only cars have been an old station wagon and a Corolla, so I've never been over 95. I usually drive 5-10 miles over the speed limit, but never really speed unless the roads are empty.

It really bothers me though when people are going much faster than the traffic around them when the road is busy, especially if they are weaving between lanes to pass you. They put everyone at risk, not just themselves. This guy got what he deserved:
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Many years ago I used to do a lot of down hill racing in NH, invariably while driving home from the mountains I would feel an extreme need to drive as fast as I could; however mountain roads in NH, in the winter will keep any sane maniac to a reasonable speed. At the time I had a 1968 Cougar I bought from a mechanic friend, it had a 302cc engine with 351cc engine heads on it, basically the power train, of a Shelby Mustang, as I recall. (That's kinda hazy memory, but I know the engine was referred to as a 302 Boss). In any case, coming out of Maine on I-95, I was leaving the toll both, when in my peripheral vision I spotted some kinda sports car about to pass me. Well this resulted in an impromptu drag race. I don't know how fast I was going when the other driver shut it down, but my speedometer needle was bouncing off the peg a bit past 120mph, and the highway was turning, pucker factor was so high I crapped vinyl for a week. Stripped my speedometer gear as well.

The Boss 302 is an awesome motor especially the one that would be in a '68 Cougar. Back in those days there was less talk about "metrification" but in any case, all U.S. motors were sized in cubic inches, ci, not cubic centimeters, cc. A 302cc motor would be good to power a weed wacker or small-medium motorcycle.

302 ci = 4948cc or ~ 5 Liters

Brilliant! shut down the races on the abandoned airstrip so they'll have no choice but to do it on the street.