[snakeeyes]

Two nights ago I passed a yellow Lambo Murcielago on I10 in rush-hour traffic--talk about a double-take.

I remember being in the tiny seaside community of Aransas Pass, TX--not exactly Seven Mile Drive--with my older brother about twenty years ago, when an orange Miura pulled out of a side street and went tearing down the main drag. Another neck-breaking double-take.

When I was in high school and living in Grafton, Wisconsin (population about 6,000), I was on a rural road one afternoon, coming back from a friend's house, when a silver 427 Cobra came flying past. I'll never forget that car. The license plate said "HSSSSS." I forgot what I was doing and ended up following it for probably 25 miles, until the driver appeared to grow tired of the tail. With a smirk in the rearview mirror he nailed the throttle on a straight piece of road, and I was left breathing fumes and shaking my head. That was an original car--I saw it at Road America about ten years later.

About ten years ago I was in a friend's driveway in Garden Ridge, TX, helping him with some bodywork on his '69 Camaro, when I looked up in time to see an F40 glide silently by. I stood there in amazement while my friend very matter-of-factly said, "Oh, that's Steve Earle. He lives down the street and has a bunch of Ferraris." Turned out to be Dr. Steven Earle, multi-time Ferrari 348/355 Challenge Champion.

Strangest encounter: I was in McAllen, TX on business a few years back, filling up my rental car at a gas station, when I heard the whoop of an exotic engine coming down the street. As I craned my neck to see over the car on the other side of the pump a 50's-era Ferrari coupe passed by, one of the Carrera Panamericana cars with "No Hay Dos" painted on the hood and sides. Must have been headed across the border for the Carrera revival race.

Those are the ones that jump to mind, there are more...

Bob