Dichotomy Consulting

The year was 1984. I was 16, an automotive innocent, a child of the double-nickel. Having been one of those kids who, by virtue of their birthday, ended up being one of the youngest in their grade, I could only watch as my closest friends got their licenses up to nine months before I could. But now—with the formalities of learner’s permits and driving tests successfully dealt with—it was my turn. I joined the ranks of the wannabe fast and furious.

My weapon of choice was a 1980 Buick Regal. I was fortunate on two counts: one, because it was essentially a free car, a hand-me-down from my dad, and, two, because it had been my dad’s car. My father, one of the most responsible and orderly people on the planet, handed me the keys to what was essentially a new car with 55,000 very law-abiding miles on it. The two-tone copper and brown paint still gleamed, the tan interior (unsullied by stray french fries, sand, or bio-matter of any sort) had no visible signs of wear. The vinyl bench seats shined from weekly Pledge furniture-polish treatments. The stock, chromed “mags” were free of road tar and brake dust. Only white-wall tires blemished its appearance.The tires had to go, so I dedicated myself to wearing those out as soon as possible. My method was to throw the car into violent left and right turns whenever traffic permitted it, whitewalls screaming in terror. This was more difficult than it sounds, and what I lacked in finesse and smoothness I more than made up for with the isometric maneuvers required to remain stationary behind the tiller, the seats being nothing more than a tuck-and-roll Slip n’ Slide. In short order, the tires offered prima facie evidence that they were indeed steel-belted, and my panic-stricken father escorted me to the local Goodyear outlet—stat.

So it was that the “Regal Beagle” now sported 205/70R14 Eagle STs. With those nice, white-lettered tires the car had now acquired—in my innocent estimation—street cred. And, pedestrian though they were, the tires were a quantum leap in performance from the expired footwear. I was unleashed.

Regardless of the creeping red mist, here my Speed Racer fantasies hit a bit of a snag. For the uninitiated, let me bring you up to speed on the state of mainstream American performance around the late seventies to early eighties. A 1980 Corvette with the hottest powerplant available had 235 bhp. An IROC Camaro had 190; the Mustang 5.0 GT, about the same. The proud Yankee performance heritage of the 60s and very early 70s was a quaint memory. At least by then the Mustang II had been relegated to history but the legacy of two oil crises and the declaration of Earth Day meant that all engines were smothered by the still-unperfected emissions control technology of the time.

The Regal, a would-be personal pseudo-near-luxury coupe, was a particularly good example. Its 3.8 liter pushrod V-6 (variants of which GM still foists upon twenty-first century motorists) generated 90 bhp. This is when it was new, and at the flywheel. With its approximately 3,800 lb. mass, that meant that every bowlegged, asthmatic pony was saddled with about 42 pounds. Acceleration was best timed with a sundial. Where was my street cred now?

This would not do.

But my dad, so quick to make sure that I had solid rubber under the chassis, wasn’t about to bankroll my J.C. Whitney catalog fantasies, and my meager after-school wages were somewhat inadequate. So a little ingenuity was in order—an uninformed, foolhardy sort of ingenuity.

What do engines need? They need air, right? Let’s loosen up the bronchial passages! So it was that I spent a Saturday ripping out the cold-air induction ducting and sawing off the strangely inverted-megaphone horn on the air-cleaner housing. I also eliminated the “excess” metal from the lid, exposing the paper on a brand-new, five-dollar filter.

Total power gain: .000001 bhp.

Afterwards, I swore I could feel a more urgent tendency to rev. The sundial, however, was unimpressed.

Undeterred, I decided the exhaust end of the equation had to be altered. Another few Saturdays under the car and it was freed from its catalytic converter, its muffler and, for good measure, its EGR pump. Now, as an added bonus, I could run the Regal on cheaper, leaded gas. But, at my next fill-up I discovered that—those nasty, buzz-kill Buick bastards!—the regular gas nozzle would not fit in the hole conveniently located behind the license plate. I drove home with a nearly empty tank that was nonetheless filled with gasoline vapors and, hammer and chisel in hand, proceeded to punch out the offending metal. The fact that I am writing these words at all is ample evidence that there is some degree of benevolence to this universe.

Total power gain: 1 bhp.

As an additional benefit, the Regal now had the throaty, mellifluous exhaust note of an overloaded UPS truck. The sound alone was enough to convince anyone that I—or their consignment of sweaters from L.L. Bean—had arrived. Still, there was no getting around the fact that the Regal wasn’t getting around any faster. I could elicit tire smoke only by flat-spotting my tires. Clearly, some creativity of technique was in order. And you can probably guess what sort of creativity that was.

Lo and behold, I discovered that, if I revved the engine in neutral and then slammed the column shifter into first, the car would forcefully spin the right rear and produce suitably acrid fumes. This was a revelation, and I indulged in it whenever the opportunity presented itself, much to the amusement of my buddies. I expanded my repertoire with diligent explorations of the car’s performance envelope, using empty parking lots and deserted service roads as my test tracks. I began to experiment with low-adhesion surfaces and would revel in the summer-afternoon South Florida rains to perfect my burgeoning car-control skills. Steering with my right hand—because my left arm was out the window clamped on the door so as to stay in the Teflon-coated seat—I began to develop an understanding of the classic racing line, driving the same back-road circuit over and over, clipping apexes with varying degrees of accuracy. I learned about oversteer and understeer, four-wheel drifts and cadence braking. I learned how it feels when a car spins. Nearly two tons of inadequately insured metal, that had to get me to school and back, pirouetted off the road in slow motion. I came to rest on the shoulder, engine off, hyperventilating and chastened. For the next five miles or so.

And I would of course let loose a cloud of smoke when it struck my fancy.

It was during this journey of self-discovery that I happened upon a much more efficient method of smoke generation. Under hard cornering in tight turns, I noticed that the inside rear wheel would become unloaded and spin under power.  Armed with this data, I proceeded to one of my favorite empty parking lots for a little test. I drove the car in a circle at full lock, pedal to carpet. The inside rear spun and billowing clouds of Akron’s finest filled the air as I went round and round. It was sort of like a doughnut for the “short-bus” crowd.  I had discovered my trademark move.

It was a hit. I attained near-deity status among my cohorts, and I gave many command performances. One afternoon I was hanging out in the school parking lot with my pals. The crowd had thinned, and my buddies and I were doing a little bench racing when one of them mentions “the move.” This particular group was somewhat more diverse than my usual crowd, and it was clear they had to see it to believe it, so I decided to put on a demonstration. With an observer on board, I drove out of the main parking lot towards a set of rarely used, asphalt-surfaced basketball courts behind the gym and across from the girls’ softball field, on which practice was in progress. Once there, I stopped, cranked the wheel to full lock, and floored it. The car went round and round, and the inside rear began to spin. Huge, glorious clouds were spawned. They grew and formed an impenetrable ring obscuring the world—and in turn the Buick—from view. I kept this up longer than I ever had before and then released the wheel and the car bolted out of the cloud, trailing smoke behind. I drove back and parked just in time to see my cloud bank drift across the field lazily, enveloping the girl’s softball team in mid-play. Only then did it dawn me that maybe that hadn’t been the smartest thing to do on the premises of a Catholic high school. Luckily, I managed a hasty, yet low-key, exit. I didn’t even have time to bask in the afterglow.

This is how it came to pass that, in what remains a personal best, I dispatched a set of Goodyear Eagles in 9,000 miles. My father was not amused. It was decreed that, from that day forward, I would have to pony up for my own rubber. I couldn’t afford Goodyears, so I bought what my buddy Jorge referred to as “Scumball GTs,” basically generic tires in a hefty, 235/60R14 size. And before I could really enjoy my new investment, the Regal’s Turbo-Hydramatic three-speed expired, rather spectacularly, in an explosion of oily black smoke. They found a good half-cup of metal shavings loose in the pan. When my dad wondered how such a thing could have happened, I simply said, “Who knew Buick made such crap?”

For all the misadventures, these early driving years were quite worthwhile. For one, those 91.000001 bhp were a blessing in disguise; I didn’t have enough power to get myself into really deep trouble. More importantly, I learned real skills in that car, almost in spite of myself. Skills that served me well in the years to come and have saved my life more times than I care to remember.

By the time 1988 had rolled around, the Regal was on its last stumps. Mercilessly flogged, the chassis was more than a little creaky. With rust bubbles here and there, the car seemed intent on biodegrading. The stake through the heart was a gremlin-infested electrical system. I put a “For Sale” sign on it and waited for someone more desperate than I. With my savings, the only new car I could afford was a Hyundai Excel, so I went right out and bought a Mitsubishi Mighty Max truck which I went on to campaign successfully in SCCA Solo II. That, however, is a story for another time.

And, uh, kids, don’t try this at home.