On 20 Jul 2012 20:42:28 GMT, "DoN. Nichols"
wrote:

On 2012-07-20, Steve B wrote:
My late FIL was legendary in figuring out stuff on the fly. We got off a
job in Venice, LA, and had to make it back to Lafayette, LA. On the way,
there are several long tall Interstate bridges. It was all icy out, an
unusual condition in southern LA. He would take a run at the bridge, and
when he barely made it to the top, he would put it in reverse, and feather
the gas to use the towing vehicle as a brake. Made it over four or five big
tall long gradual bridges doing that.

Reminds me of a curve on the way from work. It passed a
junkyard at the time, and was rather steeply banked. When we had lots
of ice on the road (typical of where I worked. Lots of "Don't go home
yet" as it fell, followed by a "No sane man should be on the roads. Go
home!"), I would wait as those ahead of me would, driving very
carefully, slide off the road to the shoulder on the downhill side.
Once the way was clear, I would accelerate (it was an MGA FWIW) until I
entered the curve at a speed appropriate for the amount of banking, and
smoothly go around the curve. Not too far past that was the entrance to
the big highway, which took me most of the way home. :-)

A man after me own heart! Achieving the proper velocity to negate the
4-wheel drift was superb, centripetally speaking. I did the opposite
in my Javelin, finding the proper speed to put it into a perfect
4-wheel drift to center myself on the circular on-ramp, then I'd have
to slow down for the freeway. Proving my prowess to Mom and my sister
one day turned out badly. My mother got over it, but sis was in tears
by the time we hit the freeway about 15 seconds later. It turns out
that she remembered a car crash and hated squealing tires, even though
this was perfectly controlled. Sest lavvy, wot?

--
Win first, Fight later.

--martial principle of the Samurai