Hooo boy, Philly.... ED STORY TIME!!!!
I just involuntarily shuddered with the memory of the last time I passed through that town
on I-95, must have been 30+ years ago....at night.
On our way to a NeHOA meet up north somewhere (maybe Chicopee?), headed towards GW
bridge, running a '68 Super Bee (a real one) with a 440, 3.91 gears and an undersized radiator
in summer....so we went at night.
As we got towards Philly, my friend in his T/A Challenger rolls up beside me and yells "don't stop
for the next 10 miles....FOR NOTHING!"
I thought "well, that's nothing to be alarmed about...."
Little did I know what was ahead.
Next thing you know, a series (as in many more than one) of cars start appearing along the highway,
stopped on the shoulders. Nothing unusual there, right?
Well...
ALL of them were up on blocks and MOST of them were either actively ON FIRE or were smouldering
from recently having BEEN on fire. Like a scene from a bad movie, one right after the other, there
they were, surreal on the southbound side of the interstate.
Needless to say, I wasn't feeling the "brotherly love" much right about then.
My death grip on the steering wheel intensified and I remembered my friends' advice as we got on
towards NYC.
All the while, my eye never left the temperature gauge on the dash, as it was a particularly warm night.
We got close to the GW bridge and I damn near panicked:
Traffic was backed up in all the lanes we were in (the ones for the top deck of the bridge)!!
We roll to a stop and I'm eyeballing the temp gauge HARD now, as it slowly climbs higher....
Finally, it became very clear that the car was about to boil over and there was no relief in sight
in the traffic.
Well....I freaked, visions of burning hulks dancing in my head.
I shot a quick glance over past the dayglo orange plastic traffic dividers separating our lanes from those
for the lower deck of the bridge and noticed very light traffic was flowing fine over there...
Shot my friend a look of "I'M OUTTA HERE!" and he tries to wave me off.
I was having none of it.
GANGWAY!
I turn hard right towards those plastic stick things and nail it, making my own path right through them
and onto the lower deck lanes and didn't look back for the next half hour.
When I was finally convinced that half of NY's finest wasn't chasing me, I pulled off and released the
death grip from the wheel. The Bee had cooled back down with the all moving, thank God.
Car didn't look any the less for wear from collisions with traffic barriers, either.
A few minutes later, my friend comes slowly in behind me, a shocked look on his face.
"Do you have any idea how many of those things you just flattened?" He barks. He's actually mad at me!
"Nope. Don't GAF either, Tom."
"Do you realize cops came out after you from the bridge?" He asks.
"Nope. Don't GAF either, Tom" I reply again...
I literally had run the Bee as hard as she would go all the way across the bridge and for a good ways
afterwards - you know, like a cat with its' tail on fire.
"Fire" being the operative word there...
