Today I spent most of the day driving home from the StarTech event.
This morning I got up at 4:30 AM, showered, packed, and loaded the car up. I then left my hotel, located about 12 miles from the Mercedes-Benz factory, at around 5:10 AM, in search of a gas station to fill up my empty tank (yellow arrow in effect). I found a gas station about 5-6 miles down the freeway toward the MBUSI factory, and tanked up. I left the gas station at 5:29 am by my car's clock.
See as the freeway was nearly empty heading southbound toward Tuscaloosa, and that I would be passing the MB factory in just a few short miles, I decided to do a high-speed fly-by of the MB factory as I passed by. Cranked the car up to around 105 MPH and held it there for a good 5+ miles. Snapped a photo of my speedo (slowed down slightly as I was fumbling with my iPhone camera) and then as I approached the MBUSI factory, also snapped another photo a couple of minutes later. You can see the time stamps on the names of the photos below by running your mouse pointer on top of the photo, without clicking on it.
In any case, just prior to preparing to snap the second photo of the factory exit sign below, I had descended about a mile long hill. As I snapped the photo below, I noticed a pair of illuminated headlights about a mile back at the top of the hill in the right-hand lane. Not thinking too much of it, I snapped the photo and kept on moving, in the right lane myself. Immediately after the photo was taken, I came up on a semi-truck in the center of the 6-lane freeway (three lanes in my direction). I crossed over two lanes to pass the semi on the left side (a proper pass). As I did this, I noticed that the semi was following a normal, civilian Acura sedan by about a semi-truck length behind. They were going approximately 65 MPH from what I could tell. Seeing as the car was not too far ahead of the semi, I resolved to just pass both of them and get back into the right lane as the pass was being completed.
As I got into the left lane to go around the semi, I noticed that the pair of headlights had descended the hill behind me and was now approximately 1/4 mile behind me. And I could see that they appeared to be the distinctive Ford Crown Vic headlights, and then I spotted the familiar outline of a low-profile light bar mounted on top of the car. At this point I was still doing the 100 MPH (indicated, probably closer to 95 MPH actual) as shown in the photo below, perhaps a smidge higher.
I was now in the fast lane, next to the empty space between the Acura and the semi-truck. I looked up again and saw the nose of a gray Alabama State Police cruiser in my rear-view mirror, approximately 2 car lengths behind me. I very slightly eased off the throttle down to an indicated 95 MPH, and DID NOT hit my brakes. As I started to decelerate, I was passing the Acura in what seemed like slow motion. I started looking toward the right shoulder of the road in anticipation of the inevitable blue lights that would be appearing any second. Seconds later, I passed the Acura and got over (at a safe distance in front of him) into the center lane. The State Patrol cruiser now was less than 1 car length in back of me. As I pulled to the center, he started pulling forward on my left, starting to overtake me. I was thinking that he was going to "escort" me over to the side of the road from either the left side, or perhaps even in front of me (which they are not trained to do).
In any case, out of the corner of my left eye, I saw him flash his blue lights as he passed me and then he overtook me and kept going. I guess that was a warning.
I got back into the right lane and throttled down to a more normal 80 MPH. I was very very thankful that I had used the bathroom earlier that morning before showering, or I would have been stopping rather suddenly to change my boxers.
This was perhaps a mile south of the same stretch of road where I'd mentioned that Jono, Brandon and myself had topped 150 MPH the previous afternoon, heading north toward Birmingham....
That was my major excitement for the day. I made it home safe and sound this evening. The car performed flawlessly the entire trip and returned between 18.5 and 19 MPG, including all high-peed runs. Average speeds for the entire trip were between 75 and 90 MPH through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. I burned through seven tank-fuls of gas through the entire trip, including a single tank in the Birmingham/Huntsville/Tuscaloosa corridor just driving to and from and at StarTech events.
Cheers,
Gerry
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