Mustang Street Race Teaches a Very Humbling Lesson
Never leave a friend behind, unless you are racing your Mustang and a cop pulls one of you over.
The video above comes to us from the VINWiki YouTube channel and it features an interesting story about street racing in a Ford Mustang from automotive personality Rob Pitts. He shares a story about street racing as a kid and when a cop showed up to spoil the race, his buddy took off and then came back. It sounds like a loyal gesture, but it could have gotten them both in a world of trouble if not for a cool cop letting them off with a stern warning.
Pitts’ 1994 GT Convertible
The story begins with Rob Pitts telling us about the first car that he ever loved. It was a triple black 1994 Ford Mustang GT convertible that he purchased in 1998 with a salvage title at auction. Pitts insists that it “must have belonged to a chick”, as it had makeup spread all over the interior, but it had been “hit harder than Joe Frazier“, leading to the salvage title.
Pitts bought the car, performed the required repairs to erase the effect of the crash, added a new paint job and installed some upgrades. The SN95 GT got new wheels, a cowl induction-style hood, a new camshaft and a set of 4.10 gears. More importantly, he paid big bucks to have a “bulletproof” automatic transmission built that would handle the abuse of regular racing and teenage driving while offering comparable performance to manually-shifted cars.
Once complete, Pitts spent many nights cruising Main Street in Greenville, South Carolina, where he would eventually meet his first wife. He also did some street racing with his drop-top pony car, leading to an interesting story about friendship, a foolish decision and a cool police officer.
Street Racing Faux Pas
One night, Pitts and his buddy Ben were out cruising around; Pitts in his black Mustang GT and Ben was driving a white 1998 Cobra. At one point, they found themselves side by side at a stop light, so when the light turned green, both drivers hammered down. The worked GT gradually pulled ahead to a lead of about a car-length when the flash of police lights lit up his mirrors.
There was a police officer behind them and when they took off, he began pursuit. Pitts quickly pulled over into a plaza and the officer pulled in behind him, but Ben and his Cobra disappeared into the night.
The officer asked Pitts for his license and registration, along with asking if he knew the driver of the white Cobra. Of course, like all street racers, he wisely said that he did not know the other driver and the traffic stopped continued, but a few minutes later, the white Cobra returned.
He explained to the cop that he didn’t feel right leaving his buddy behind, so he came back. In other words, he had revealed the initial lie to the officer, at which point he was also asked for his license and registration. The officer spent somewhere in the area of 45 minutes sitting in his cruiser with the two kids standing with their cars on the side of the road. He eventually returned, handing them their paperwork back, wrapped in a ticket. The officer to told them he was into cars and racing, and that they are welcome to go play around in the middle of nowhere, but not on Main Street in Greenville.
The officer got into his car and drove away, at which point the two guys looked at their tickets. They both received a written warning for street racing, showing that not all police officers are hateful, anti-car guys.
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