Poteet Parks the Demon
By noderel:
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Got word couple weeks past that George Poteet got the ride of his life in the Ron Main and Poteet Speed Demon ultra-speed demon. You know, just your average 400 mph grocery getterAs I got the word, driver George was in the third timed mile at Bonneville when the car got in a hiccup and ended up removing the body panels at well over 300 mph. Damn, hate it when that happens! Will try and get more info on the cause.
But I have to admit I have had a cadre of personal “Speed Heroes” these past few decades. Ol’ George is right on the top.
George probably has more 400mph runs on the salt flats than all the other super hot shoes together, and he has been doing it in Ron Main’s ultra slippery punkin seed thingie with some improbably small displacement engines. Which simply goes to prove the efficacy of Ron’s design to cheat the wind. If you wanna go fast, start by making a copy of Main’s envelope. Of course, you gotta have huevos that drag on the ground just like George. It takes a big, big man to brace mother nature the way George Poteet has been doing it.
I have known Ron Main for the better part of three decades, and he has always been dedicated to any project he takes a fancy to, so when he discovered the salt flats it was only a matter of time…time until he met a hot shoe such as Poteet.
And I’ve known George casually for almost as long, first coming across him in street roddding. Of course, both these guys have enough money to play with some mighty serious toys, but there come a place in high speed competitions where the wanna-be heros quickly decide to pull up a vacant chair and just watch. Which is anywhere over about 300 mph. Now, I’ve gone way over that mark, but not right down here at earthworm level. My foray’s with Ma Nature include several thousand foots between my foots and the hard stuff. I got in trouble, I just pulled back on the feet and searched for more sky. George gets in trouble, he gotta get out of it all on his own.
So word sped through our hobby faster than his timing tags that the Mississippi missile had run out of altitude at the salt. The salt that wasn’t because it had been cancelled just the week afore, due to rain in those never totally reliable Rocky Mountain mountains. Anyway, Main and Poteet had only pretended to hide from the moisture, and at something around 380 George made a little ol’ warm-up at ground level. Almost as quickly I had a cockpit view video that has surely made it to world class video share. You find it to get one of the best in-seat high speed runs I’ve ever shared. Awesome.
Tell you what, this is one knee rattling stroll down to the company store! GP has been banging out the big numbers with some mighty small displacements, so as he leaves the start line you are deceived by the seeming ease with which he is into after-burner league. I mean, it is right now, and when you get your turn at the controls, note how effortlessly you go from squeezing inside the Demon spacious office until the tell-tail salt suck indicates that there is still enough water on the course to pucker the tail bone. Then of a sudden you are obviously in the air and out of touch. But of a wonder, no bone jarring bangs and crunches.
In a matter of moments, you come to a stillness that only the heros understand, a time that has no time at all. And you sit very motionless to contempolate the adventure…and wait until you are thinking it is probably OK to check a few bodily vitals. About two life spans creep-zoom past in serious review, kind of like a rerun of your pre-run assessment. Pull out your old high school math work book and calculate just how quickly you have gone from push-truck featherfoot tippy-toe acceleration through uncalculatable rotations to the utter stillness that surrounds you. It is phenomenal. You have been there, where the very very very few visit. Tell you what, George Poteet and Ron Main, you walk with the Gods!