Just had a bit of an adventure tonight. I was on the highway to drop a friend off at home. Because of the power outages from the recent storm, some of the lights on the highway were out. Being in the front of the "pack" I switched on my high beams to do myself, and everyone behind me, a favor. This dude in a 2009 Camry flies by me and then gets in front of me (he didn't cut me off). So I switched off my high beams. I guess the dude thought I flashed him because he got really aggressive. He slowed all the way down so I tried to get around him and as I was doing that, he'd try to run into my car.
So I hit the brakes, got behind him, and tried to pass on the other side (keep in mind the speed limit here is 55mph). He tried to hit me again, but this time I was successful in passing him. He immediately pumped his high beams and began tailing me like crazy. I didn't want anything to do with this situation, so I downshifted and hit it.
I hit 100mph, and he was still following me very aggressively, I let him start to pass me on the left and then I slowed down, hoping to get him in front of me so I could exit without him knowing, but he also hit his brakes and tried to hit my car again. I'm not going to lie, at this point I was kind of scared. For all I know some meat-head with roid rage and a pistol was trying to kill me (I'm quite negative in these situations).
I said a quick prayer, told Kate (my car) that its time to wake up, and really hit it this time. Roid-Rage Camry Driver followed suit. I hit 100mph again on a straight and started revving my engine loudly at the local police hideouts to attract some attention, no luck. There was a little shopping center to my right, so I slowed down, popped it in second and got off the highway. I could hear the fat Camry squealing tires behind me, trying to follow me through the turns.
I realized this dude was really trying to follow me to the end. Lucky for me, the power in the area I had just turned into was out. I knew the roads well, and Steroid-Camry-Man was still behind me trying to kill me, so I clicked all my lights off and went at it. Hard left, hard right, full power on a straight, hard right again. I avoided using the brake so I wouldn't give away my location, because I could see his high beams slowly getting dimmer. One more hard left and I screeched into the parking lot of a populated target.
At this point I knew I had lost him, my friend confirmed that we'd lost him 2 streets down the road. This was by far the scariest experience I've had while driving on the roads. This was also the hardest I've pushed my car on populated roads. Had there been more traffic, I could have easily slipped away, but there weren't to many cars on the road so my choices were few. Kate listened to my every input and command without hesitation. No loss of traction, no fear of losing control, no problems accelerating. She did what I told her to do, and what needed to be done.
Maybe I was too drastic in my actions, but I didn't know what else to do. Like I said, this was the scariest road situation I've ever had to deal with. Sure it was probably just some dude trying to piss me off, but after he tried to run me off the road 3 times, I didn't want to chance it, especially with a passenger. Luckily, my knowledge of the technicals of racing (thanks to you guys actually), cars, and the little auto-x experience that I have gave me a little advantage in my escape.
So thats my story for tonight. Kate did good, I'm very pleased with where the car is right now. Annnnd heres a picture for good luck: