One time, back about the late '70s or so, I had a handful of cars here and there and was (always) low on money. One of them was a recently “parked” '68 Cutlass that was missing it’s exhaust from about a foot and a half back from the exhaust manifold, and waiting for the funds to replace it.
2dr, inline six, muncie four speed, '70 GTO suspension, 7" rally wheels, decent goodrich tires or similar. Bucket seats and 3 point belts. Actually it was a low option F-85 that came with a six and three on the tree that I fixed up for the girlfriend.
So, as mentioned was out of money–I mean out–but wanted to go to the beach and it occurred to me that the Cutlass had most of a tank of gas. So off we went, looking and sounding much like one of the Lovelady’s sportsman cars.
As I passed New Smyrna Speedway, the back gate was open, so, of course, onto the track I went. There were a few trucks here and there, but no one seemed to be too excited, so down went the pedal and down the back straight I went.
Here is the deal–I had been around racing a bunch, watched stuff come in on two wreckers a bunch, and knew what New Smyrna could do to a car.
As big as NSS seems, the turns were tighter and more banked than anything on the street, and certainly inspired confidence, so I went faster.
But those transitions, man did they toss the car at the wall.
After gaining speed each lap, after about 4 or so I realized how the deal was going to end, and both wisely and uncharacteristically pulled back out of the gate and headed back on to 44.
Have been thankful ever since that I got myself, an equally wild young lady, and the car out of there in one piece that day. As with many occasions, someone was watching over me, no doubt.