Did you really drive *that* quickly 'back in the day'?

[irocfan]

I was out the other day with Mrs Iroc and I commented in passing that the me in my 20's would have driven down this stretch of road like my hair was on fire, then I looked at the speedo and wondered if that was actually true. I was by no means speeding but the sense of speed was missing due to the fact of the car being just streets ahead of the clapped out, old pile-of-poo I used to drive around in 30 years ago in terms of NVH and performance. I may have driven faster down that road as an irresponsible idiot - or it just may have felt like that as the cars then didn't cosset you in the same way...

I know when you're in your late teens/20's you're immortal and so are more inclined to take risks (plus the down-side of binning your car whilst financially painful is nowhere near as painful as stacking the new car many people now have) so I guess stupidity is a given in our younger days but I do wonder if (on the whole) we were quite as stupidly fast as we thought...

[irocfan]

HustleRussell said:

I'm afraid so. My first car was a 60bhp Clio and I would use all revs through the gears and max throttle wherever I could. I remember going for a drive and decimating a pair of budget front tyres double quick. I came back and ran my hand over them to see how they were holding up and cut my finger on a stray steel wire. I spun it once. More luck than judgment but I didn't crash it properly or injure myself or anybody else.

To be fair this has reminded me of when I friend of mine told be to take his X1/9 out for a blat on a particular 'circuit' he had close to home - I came back and smoke was pouring from his brakes. Possibly one of my prouder driving achievements!