April '05 - Coming back from a drift event in Ocala, FL... us SFL guys were caravanning down in about 5 cars. 300+ mile trip. At the time I was driving my black e30, which if anyone remembers, that thing had no front end and I was driving it like it was all gravy.
We were on the Turnpike, a 2 lane highway, and using both lanes. 50 miles into the trip. We're cruising at about 90 when a white Chrysler 300C shows up but doing at least 120. We could've been nice about it and let him pass, but after tailgating us, we decided to fuck around with him. We basically boxed him in and were cruising at 40mph. I was next to him and my friend in the passenger seat noticed that his passenger was writing down something... probably tags. We didnt think much of it, and as soon as the toll came, he passed and we just kept doing our own thing.
Then we hit some construction and they closed off one lane with cones. Some people started slaloming through the cones, while the rest just watched.
Later on, some people started being smart and passing on emergency lanes. That's when crap started getting out of control because if I got pulled over with them, we'd all take the same damn blame for everything.
Couple miles later, I'm leading the pack since I"m the only one with a radar detector. Cruising at 90-95 the radar goes off right before a bridge. I slow down and call the guys on the 2-way radios. One genious with no radio in his car used his CD player and headphones. Flew by under the bridge @ 100+. Turns out the FHP had another car pulled over on the onramp. Lucky us.
Probably a good 200 miles into the trip now, people start getting bored and throwing food out of the window, trying to hit the rest of us. Since I have no front end, my oil cooler gets creamed with a muffin. The guy who put that muffin on my oil cooler pulls next to me to tell me about his accomplishment. Driving rear view mirror to rear view mirror, with another one tailgating us, we drive right by a Florida Highway Patrol doing 90. I look in the rear view mirror and surely lights come up and I see him doing the U-turn.
Fuck.
I pull to the right already and most people line up behind me, just waiting. One genious just downshifts and makes a run for it. The FHP reaches me and cuts me off, slowly driving me to the breakdown lane. Someone behind me tried to be smart and swerve to the left lane and try to pass. He caught up with the cop quicker than the cop could go block him on the left lane.... so this kid ended up forcing the cop to swerve back to the right, going straight off the highway and into the dirt.
And we all pull over. I am the 3rd in line (out of 4) and the cop parked behind the last guy and started walking from car to car. I just pulled all my info (license, registration, insurance) and put them on top of my dash along with my keys.
The cop comes over from the passenger side ready to start ranting like "You know exactly what you were do.." and he sees all my information and quickly rephrases "You've done this before huh?". I just handed him everything and he started "Well we got a call about you guys about 200 miles back, we have had reports of reckless driving, etc etc" and mentioning probably every moment that I have mentioned in this entire post.
When he asked my story, I explained that when he saw us, my friend was trying to tell me that there was something in my front end. As the cop moved to the next car in front of me, he looks back and sees the muffin... waves his head and keeps walking foward.
I had no idea wtf was going to happen. I was ready to get the cuffs.
After a 1/2 hour wait, the trooper comes back to my car and hands me my license and says "You are all the most deliquent drivers I have probably ever seen in my life. It is clear that none of you have the capability of driving together. Now I will let you go, however each of you will be leaving in 10 minute increments"
After waiting our share we all went and met up at the next rest stop. Every single person gave a different explanation to the cop as to what we were doing. None of our stories matched AT ALL.
In the end, no tickets we issued. We were the luckiest motherfuckers in the world. To this day, the only thing I can imagine is that the cop didnt have the resources or the will to have 5 cars impounded and take us away.
Morals of the story:
Only caravan if you know exactly who is caravanning with you.
Anything you do on the highway will look 10x more obvious when you are caravanning.
- Erick
