Hey DML, I just got into work after a nice little street race. See,
over the past few months I've been seeing this punk kid with a
mid-eighties Mercury Capri. He's got it all jacked-up in the back, the
exhaust is noisy enough that I'm sure he's deaf, and it's painted all
black. At risk of insulting a few, it's basically the epitome of the
'redneck hotrod.' (I grew up in a redneck town--and proud of it,
dammit--so I know what I'm talking about.) Anyway, he's always pulling
stupid lane changes during the commute and getting away from me, but
today, traffic was lighter or whatever and somehow I found myself at the
'head of the pack' with him. So we roll to a stop at the redlight, and
I know he's going to punch it. I want to see what my bone-stock '98
5.2L 4x4 will do so I'm prepared to take it up through the gears
(5speeds rule--OK, the lag Jon has mentioned is not the best for this
sort of thing). The light turns green and I chirp the tires. Whatver
he's got for an engine in their is pretty loud, but as I shift through
4th I know I have him. Honestly, I only get about half a car length on
him before we're up to 75 mph and my 4x4 Dak's aerodynamics start to
take over, but I think that's pretty damn good for 2.5 ton stock 4x4 CC!
I also had to back out of it because the next light was coming up and I
needed to be in the right lane. It's good that I did too, because when
I looked over to my left at the light, I noticed a cop waiting at the
light, too. It's good to be lucky.
Besides that story, I've got to briefly share my latest 4x4 excursion.
I took it up over a mountain pass west of Las Vegas. The road started
out as a regular dirt road (as they often do right?), and after I got
over the pass and started down the back side of the range, the road kind
of dove into a rocky 'wash' (dry streambed--for anyone not familier with
SW terrain). Anyway, it was really tight in a lot of places. I crawled
along and made it with no body damage to the Dak. I even had the right
rear in the air at one point. Oh, a couple guys riding dual-sport
motorcycles had gone by me at the start of the trail and they happened
to be stopped when I came to the end. I wish I could have captured the
look on their faces--don't think they expected to see that my truck
could make through such close quarters.
Well, bonus to anyone that has read this far. My point is that I love
my truck and kudos to Dodge for building such a great vehicle. Now, to
start those mods . . . . One last thing--all my mudflaps stayed on even
though I heard 'em scraping.
Later my DML buddies,
JY
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