road rage, a story from one of our customers Options

[dr914@autoatlanta.com]

To my friends,

As some of you know the story of my Porsche 914, well today I have bad news. A few weeks ago the clutch tube broke loose and I brought it over to AutoAtlanta to be repaired. I had them make a lot of repairs to it to bring it up to 'snuff'. I paid $2630 for repairs and I got it back last Friday. I was in my glory to have my Porsche back and driving it around. As you remember my story of the Porsche, Penni and I had many memories with that car. We had our first date in it, I taught her to drive stick shift in that car, etc, etc, and of course etc.

well today I had to go to the VA Hosp to pick up some meds and on hwy 40 I became the victim of 'road rage'.

It was raining lightly and in front of me was a tractor rig (without a trailer) and in front of him was another tractor-trailer (with trailer). They were doing about 60 at the time and I passed them. The tractor without the trailer blew his horn at me when I passed. I continued on my way and I could see in the rear view mirror that he too had passed the tractor-trailer rig. I could see on his front bumper it said "oversize load". He was coming up very fast behind me. I was still in the passing lane. I flipped on my right hand signal and then moved out of his way to the right hand lane. what happened next was so fast and unbelievable that I still can't believe it happened.

Apparently he was pissed at me and perhaps wanted to 'scare' me. He pulled his rig to the right and bumped my left rear fender sending me into a spin. All I heard was a loud bang. the next thing I saw was the word "MACK" in my driver side door window. I had spun sideways IN FRONT of his truck. Now try to imagine what was going through my mind. the front of my car is now facing the left side of the road, the rear of my car is facing the right side of the road and this tractor rig is up against my driver side pushing me down the road sideways at about 70 MPH. The most shocking thing was that he 'floored' the throttle while he was pushing me. He pushed me about an eight of a mile. The roar of that engine in my ear was unbelieveable and there was nothing I could do. I tried cranking my wheels and I even floored the throttle in hopes that I could get some traction to get away from him. I finally broke away and spun around and around and into the center of the median into the grass. He then hit his brakes and left skid marks AFTER I went off the road, but then he sped away. I, of course, called 911 and reported a hit and run from a guy that tried to kill me.

Luckily for me, I was in a 1972 Porsche 914. When that car was designed they thought of safety. The driving compartment in encased in a roll cage that was built to handle crashes. That was the only thing that saved me from being crushed. I was being pushed for about 20 seconds and believe me, that was the LONGEST 20 seconds of my life. During those 20 seconds I thought I was a goner. BUT, immediately after I broke free and was spinning in the grass, the only thought was that bastard ruined my beautiful classic porsche with so many beautiful memories of my deceased wife.

I will post some photos of the crushed car on the web later. you can actually see the tires marks on the side of my car as he was trying to roll over me. he rubbed a thick layer of his tread marks on the side of the car.

I guess I am lucky to be alive, but without Penni and without my Porsche, I am not so sure if I even want to live anymore.

Bob