The Signum was a pretty nice little car, actually. Practical, not bad looking, and with enough horsepower that you felt reasonably comfortable on the Autobahnen. I just got spoiled shortly thereafter by inheriting my Dad's old M-B, and decided on future trips it was worth an extra $200-$300 to have something fun.…

Damn. The Germans build good, sturdy cars, but even they have their limits. That was a massive hit.

Like I said above, I was used to the tach-free Corolla I learned on. It didn’t take much to be more powerful than that.

Ouch. That said, this was the early ‘90s, and both Mom & Dad had *very* high standards for driving, even on an automatic. Among other things, they refused to have me take driver’s ed—-because it didn’t teach you enough.

Grabby clutch it was. I loathed that stupid Corolla I learned on. It was evil, and not just because it didn’t have a tachometer.

I actually usually drive any manual without shoes, just because of the trouble feeling the pedals. Regrettably, I screwed up my left knee (and lots of other joints) waterskiing as a kid, so I’ll never be as smooth as I like on the clutch.

So there’s this odd little phenomenon some people experience due to a trick of genetics called frisson. It is an actual, physical chills-down-the-spine reaction, sometimes referred to or described as a “skin orgasm”. It’s triggered by certain types of music- think something like Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”

Well, there was this incident at the Olympics.... She probably wasn’t moving quite as fast, but that was still a *bad* crash. Yet she came through without massive injuries, relatively speaking. I believe she had 3 small fractures in her vertebrae, plus a concussion and the expected bumps & bruises. Considering how bad…

911s are everywhere,from LeMans to Dakar to the 24 Hours of LeMons. Happens when the design’s successful enough to be made for over 50 years, particularly when there are slightly batty Germans behind it. :)

Nope. That said, the classy folks will often offer help rebuilding if they can, at least in the amateur levels, and I’ve heard of pros doing something similar. One that sticks in my mind is some years back, when TK was still with Andretti Autosport, he was involved (and may have caused, I don’t remember,) an accident…

Stationary yellow is standard protocol for any car going off-course. The yellow is out to basically tell other drivers that there is a potential hazard coming up, or at least cars (and parts of them) may not be where they usually are.

Oh, I remember that one.... that was ugly, even for Sebring....

Last I knew, a local yellow meant watch for an incident there, not prepare to cope with epic stupidity. Seriously.... guys like this are part of the reason there’s always plenty of beer at the workers’ camping area in the evening.

And the corner workers aren’t just standing out there for the hell of it. They’ve been known to be kinda useful for this sort of thing....

Yup. Former corner worker here who spent most of her time in the keyhole at Mid-Ohio. As far as having enough time for a certain car to get moving again, remember workers spend the majority of their time just watching the cars. Even new people generally have a pretty decent idea of a certain car can do speed- and…

I thought the C112 looked familiar, but couldn’t think from where. Then I remembered that last time I got to the M-B Museum, there was a small side exhibit of their “supercars”, from the Dr. Porsche-designed SSK up to the new (at the time) SLS AMG. Unfortunately, I’m a lousy photographer, but here’s some pictures with…

Screw the purists. Mercedes-Benz cars are meant to be well-cared for, but also to be driven hard and not treated like a delicate flower. (Much the same as Porsches.) M-Bs are at their best when they’re running hard, and designed to be durable as hell.

Like I said, I’d had my liscence for only about a year or so, and we never did have any problems. It was just *not* a reassuring feeling, and I was careful to keep the car below a certain speed (don’t remember what) by spacing out getting on the brakes. Also, Dad was meticulous about his cars and had very high…

I’l admit that back in the early days of my driving experience, I always kept an eye out for these when going through KY & TN on the way to/from Florida. Probably just new driver paranoia, but we had an ‘87 Buick LeSabre—great car, gave us zero problems until the transmission basically imploded years and many, many…

The issue is that in recent years, we’ve now had repeated incidents where it *is* a problem. Just because it doesn’t happen every other race doesn’t mean it’s not a concern that needs to be addressed.