Did I ever tell you about one trip to the PRI show???

4 years ago Tina and I were on our way to the PRI show in Indy and it was snowing from the time we left Pa. I left early so we could stop by her brothers in Pittsburg to drop the kids off for the duration of the show. Of course I got lost in Pittsburg and put us way behind schedule and also was taking a toll on me driving straight thru single file lane thru Pa, WV, OH, IN all 35-45mph on one sheet of ice. Our conversion van was not the nicest or in the best shape to start with but this trip would have its toll on it. I drove from 12noon til 2am and I was beat, and needed to sleep, so Tina said she would drive the rest of the way, she was wide awake. I informed her that you cant drive too fast on these roads , let alone we are sandwiched inbetween tractor and trailers the whole way. So she began to drive and I fell asleep, but it wasnt long before I woke up to the sound/feeling of the van going too fast, I looked up and here she was reaching 55, oh I freaked and said "You cant drive that fast or you will kill us" and off to sleep I went as she continued on at 35...for awhile that is til she soon woke me up to raodnoise at 55 again. I screamed at her "You cant drive like this, the tires are not that good and its all ice out here". Again I fell aslep, and once again I was woke up by the feeling of that giant van flying down the road, I screamed "You can't drive" and thats all I got out when I felt nothing, heard nothing, thats when you know you are sliding on ice, it almost feels as if the van was now going faster now that it was skidding. I watched my wife DRIVE that thang, left, right, left again and I said to her "I TOLD YOU". I know we did one full revolution in our lane in between a truck in front of us and a truck behind, once it went completely around, there it goes for the median, a deep trench between the eastbound and westbound traffic, I tell her to hold on and thats when she did it, she, for some dumb-ass reason gripped the wheel and put her foot to the floor, yes the accelerator foot, oh now its on. We did a second complete 360 down the median and coming up the other side into oncoming traffic backwards. I dont know how we did it but we actually made it thru a break in the traffic, back to back tractor and trailers at 2:30 in the morn. We went thru the traffic backwards at such a high rate of speed that I am pretty sure we never touched any asphault in the eastbound lanes, we were completely airborn thru our last 180 of our spin landing the van down the embankment on the complete other side of the highway, a vertical bank that we landed backwards going down so fast that when we hit the bottom, the back doors of the van blew open and all of our luggage went into the woods. Hell we hit so freakin hard the rear view mirror ripped off the windshield and flew out the back doors into the woods. Oh this is bad, it takes us both a few minutes to realize what the hell just happened. I started to shake thinking that we very well could of been killed. But after I calmed down and stopped screaming at her and she stopped crying from me doing so, we started to wave down help. Uptop on the road, it was a slight decline for the highway, so every truck we tried to stop would hit their breaks and keep on sliding by til the bottom of the hill, it only took 45 minutes to get someone stopped and it took 2 tractor and trailers to tow us up the embankment to the road, one tire was flat and the runningboards were ripped loose and flappin. I was looking for another 10 minutes for the jack when I realize that the much needed parts to it were down at the bottom of the hill in the woods with a majority of our clothes for the weekend. Well I had the clicky, clicky part or the vertical part to the jack but no tire iron or base to the jack and being on a hill it made it damn near impossible to jack the van up without it rolling down the hill and flipping the jack over becasue of no base to it, so we had to push the van with the truck to the bottom of the hill with the flat tire just a woppin. At the bottom I had a brainstorm, which seems incredible to me at 3:30 in the morning, being exhausted, frightened to death from the incident. I had 3 of the kids shoes in the van (wtf were the 3 of them gonna do with the other 3 shoes to share amongst them for the weekend at their uncles, I have no idea???) but anyways I put one slip on under the front tire and the other slip on under the good rear tire and I put the hightop sneaker as the base for the jack, nice rubber sole worked well, lol. But anyways we got it fixed with the help of many newfound friends on the highway that night and off we limped the rest of the way to Indy, mind you we were ONLY 20 MINUTES away. Needless to say I drove the rest of the way to the hotel and I parked the "Family Truckster" in the lot for oversize vehicles and left the frekin keys in it hoping someone would steal it, yea right...Oh well we made it in the hotel at around 4:00 that morning to find out our room was given to someone else since we were a late check in.

Oh well, there is our story. Maybe someday at the races many of us can get together for a game of "Top This" and you will be shocked to see how many of these stories I have, real sh1t that happens in every day in our lives. Unreal : )

Rich Maitre