RE: Nitrous Oxide Spica?

["Brian Shorey" <bshorey@domain.elided>]

> There was a late model spider at the AROC national convention in
> columbus ohio in 97 that had nitrous.  It left long black patches of
> rubber in the parking lot, but I never talked to the owner and don't
> know if it is still in one piece.

I have *never* seen a four cylinder Alfa (or any other car) launch the
way that one did.  Nor have I ever met as much of a wanker driving the
damn thing.  It's impressive what bundles of money from daddy and an
insurance company can accomplish when placed in the wrong hands.

Somebody relayed to me the story of how that Spider came to be.  I won't
go into it here, but it didn't surprise me, having met the driver..

He showed up at the autocross, didn't run until the fun runs.  As tired
as I was, I volunteered to work a corner (the one at the end of the
straight), just to see what that thing could do.

I watched that car mosey around the course, kind of slow, then get to
the straight and light it up, then go back to poking around the course.
Impressive, but not really, if you know what I mean.

I ended up sitting next to the driver at dinner that night.  I mentioned
his run, and he told me he had turned in the 'unofficial fastest time of
the day'!

Right.

I told him I had watched John Hoard do that course, and while his Spider
clearly had an edge on the straight, I thought John was faster overall.

Then he told me that he was doing 130 mph at the end of the straight.

I found this curious, as my modified Verde had only been able to achieve
maybe 70 mph on that course, and told him as much.

To which he responded, in a pinkies up kind of way, that 'clearly you
are driving an inferior car..'.

From that point on I concentrated my dinner conversation on the person
to the left of me.

The kicker was, when they posted the autocross times the next morning,
they posted the results of the fun run too.  And even if you didn't
penalize him for all the cones he mowed down (and there were a few), my
times were better than his times.

In an inferior car, no less!

I tried to track him down for breakfast to point this out, but he didn't
seem interested in hearing it..

Good fun at that convention!

bs
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