Recently there has been a couple of related threads that were deleted by the people who had started them. These threads were not deleted by Cliff. Why these people deleted the threads is known only to them. Of course, when these threads were deleted, everyone's posts disappeared, not just the posts that were contributed by the person who had deleted the thread. I've always felt that this was wrong, but it hasn't been until now that I've decided to take the following action.

I retrieved the threads from my computer's cache memory and have re-posted them here. Why have I done so? Two reasons. First, I had contributed to both threads and it ticked me off that someone else (other than Cliff) had deleted my posts. Second, and more importantly, the subject matter is relevant to all of us, and I felt there were worthwhile contributions made by many people that should still be available to any person who wanted to see them.

The posts are presented word for word as they originally appeared. (There is a slight possibility that I may have missed a post or two at the very end of the second thread. This could have occurred if anyone posted after I viewed the thread for the last time before it was deleted.) I am not coming from a position of pretending to be "holier than thou", as I have done some pretty stupid things myself while driving in the last 27 years. My only wish is that there might be something here that will make someone think twice before they possibly kill themselves or another innocent person.

I am not interested in debating the pros and cons of what I have done or said. This is not about winning or losing an argument...

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***Topic: i was a bit naughty last night***

Voyd - posted 04-08-2000 04:14 AM

first off, let me say ive wanted a Fiero all my life, and now that i have one, im making damn sure its well taken care of. im 21, but i dont beat it and never push it that much. i just cruise mostly.

with that said, i was naughty last night. it was about 4am and i decided to go out and get some chips or sumthin from the convenience store. the road is deserted except for this 1 car, which i think was a Bonneville or a Pontiac 6000. it was real dark and heavy rain was pouring down so im not sure. now, the car pulls up beside me and the passanger opens his door and makes a gesture at me. it was a bunch of 16 yr olds who just got their license having a good time probly. normally id never take someone on like this, its childish. but it was 4am, and i had had a bad day previously. so i keep up beside them and then just shoot off. they were left in the dust pretty much. being the reckless teens they are i knew they wouldnt let me down and they came speeding up. now i kept pushing it past 120km/h down the empty boulevard. knowing my area, theres always a cop or 2 late at night checking out for wannabe racers. so as the teens were losing ground on me ,i pegged my 140km/h speedo (i know it can do alot more). i then suddenly let off and braked somewhat hard. they shot past me like a bullet...and just as i had suspected, a cop was right at the next intersection. luckily for the teens, the cop was already handing out a speeding fine to someone else. they would have been busted.

[This message has been edited by Voyd (edited 04-08-2000).]

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stimpy - posted 04-08-2000 11:55 AM

Oh my... be prepared for some finger shakin and tongue waggin! There are those on this forum who do not approve of inspiring excessive speeds in a carload of teenagers in heavy downpours at 4 a.m. Go figure! I understand that confession is good for the soul, but there are some places that talking about some things can really put you in the hot seat.

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Voyd - posted 04-08-2000 01:18 PM

well, you are right, but they would have done it to someone else had i not taken them up on it. heck they probly had been doing it all night previous. i did them a favor by embarrasing them.

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GT Bastard - posted 04-08-2000 01:36 PM

That's funny... I thought you were going to say that you threw him out of the car and beat him down...

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Standard - posted 04-08-2000 03:11 PM

That would have been my first course of action.. don't want to risk damaging the GT..

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RFMike - posted 04-08-2000 04:18 PM

All right, I'll step up and be counted.

I don't know which part of this story is stupidest.

Is it when you tell us first that it is real dark and heavy rain pouring down? You have to know how dangerous those conditions make high speed driving.
Is it when you say you had a bad day previously? is that supposed to make it OK?
Is it when you say you shot off, knowing they would follow? I'm assuming you know you goaded them.
Or is it when you set them up for a ticket at 140 kph? Doesn't matter that they didn't get one.

As for anybody elses's viewpoint defending this, we've gone down this road before.

Cruise around long enough to come across a bad fatal accident. Stop to give help to any survivors. I don't think your outlook will be the same.

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Patrick - posted 04-08-2000 04:55 PM

You say you were doing these kids a favor by racing them? Why didn't you just guide them into a power pole while you were at it? That way you could have done their families a huge favor also. How so? Well, after these young kids were bagged and buried, their parents wouldn't have to worry about them getting into trouble anymore. Maybe as an added bonus you could have lost control of your Fiero and also done your parents a favor.

You were driving at high speed on wet pavement and enticing a car full of teenagers to do the same.

You call this being a bit naughty?

Wake up.

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stimpy - posted 04-08-2000 05:40 PM

Told you that you would catch some hell.
Just for the record, I think street racing a bunch of kids hyped up on Mt Dew and chiba in a heavy downpour in daddies car is about as bright as toasting bread in the shower!
Then again, I have done some stupid sh*t when I was younger and amazingly killed neither myself or anyone else. But I certainly am not going to tell the world about it. I just can't believe that you could be surprised tht you are trapping heck.
Tsk tsk.

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GT Bastard - posted 04-08-2000 07:12 PM

Whooooooaaaaa..... I guess Voyd sorta had that coming, but we've all done stupid things at some point in our lives. I dunno, I guess I hafta say that the kids in that car KNEW what they were risking. I highly doubt any of them had objections to going on that high-speed shirade. Just like Voyd KNEW what HE was risking. My only concern would be other drivers on the road that are innocent.

peace and chicken grease....

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Formula - posted 04-08-2000 07:38 PM

If none of you speed then why do you like sports cars. Unless you just like to look at them you know youve went 70 mph in a 65 mph zone. I personally wouldnt drive my fiero that fast on a wet road but if a ford tempo pulled up beside me and taunted my car then I would take off the line like a bat out of hell and teach them a lesson. I wouldnt keep speeding up though. Just tap your brakes 3 times and they'll get the point.

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Voyd - posted 04-08-2000 08:38 PM

ok whatever. im gonna delete this post. seems like theres only a buncha tight assed people here that cant take sumthin lightly. the "risk" i took was no greater than any other "kill" story ive ever read on this site. most likely these kill stories happened in broad daylight where pedestrians could be there. in my case the road was DESOLATE. not 1 other car in sight anywhere. it doesnt matter if i raced them or not, they had most likley done it previously that night, and were looking for more "victims". has anyone ever gotten out of their car, stepped in the street right next to your car and taunted you, only to drive away before u could react? i guess not.

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***Topic: Uhh, could you tone it down a bit?***

stimpy - posted 04-09-2000 09:22 AM

I have been trying very hard to keep good humor in the reading some folks diatribes. However in a recent thread started by Voyd, someone suggested that in so many words that the world may have been better off had Voyd wrapped himself around a lightpole during a street race.
I cannot recall the last time this person started a thread, probably before my time. Instead, recently, this person is content to shout others down or spew out obviously sarcastic comments (just kidding )
I do think there is a happy medium between voicing concern and making someone out to be an idiot.
I think it would be appropriate to move away from the shout downs and make this a kinder, gentler forum.

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GT Bastard - posted 04-09-2000 01:56 PM

I know what you mean! I thought that response was pretty harsh... I tried to stick up for Voyd a little. I don't really agree with what he did either, but that's no reason to b*tch him out like that. Who knows, maybe that member was just having a bad day....

later all.

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Patrick - posted 04-09-2000 06:31 PM

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black... Gimme a break Stimpy. Can you honestly keep a straight face when you read your opening post here? (For anyone who doesn't know the history between Stimpy and myself, well, consider yourself lucky.)

For Stimpy's benefit, I've included a link to a thread that yes indeed, I had started. It was about the deletion of threads (not just posts) by forum members and my aversion to this option -

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/000925.html

I feel that this is a prime example of why it's bad practice to allow forum members to delete an entire thread. I admit that my message to Voyd was harsh, but it in NO way suggested that I wanted him to hurt himself in an accident as is being implied by Stimpy. I was trying to shock Voyd out of his acute case of denial and hopefully make him realize the folly of his antics. I don't appreciate Stimpy's slant on my comments, but considering the source, I'm not surprised.

GT, thanks for the benefit of the doubt, but I was not having a "bad day" yesterday. No, the bad day occurred around forty years ago when I was just a little kid. I can still remember hearing the long screech of skidding tires and the sound of multiple impacts as two dragracing cars broadsided a third car trying to cross the street just down the block from our house. Our neighbours had to put blankets over the dead people that had been ejected from the cars. It was difficult to tell if the bodies were from the cars that were racing or from the car that was only trying to cross the street. The scene was absolute pandemonium as the people who survived the crash were in various states of massive trauma.

Another "bad day" I had was around 25 years ago. Same house, same street, only this time it happened right in front of our house. A 16 year old kid on a motorcycle who only had his license for a month came racing down the street at high speed and broadsided a car crossing the street. His helmet struck the driver's door head on. And I mean head on. I didn't realize there was so much blood in the human body. When the medical team removed the kid's helmet it was all I could do not to throwup right then and there. I'll spare you the finer details.

After deleting the original thread, Voyd started another one bemoaning the treatment he had received from several of us. For anyone who's not up to speed on all this, here's that thread -

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/001769.html

So yeah, my words were rather harsh to Voyd in the original thread. I don't think I've ever voiced my concerns in a "kill" thread before, but the scenario painted by Voyd was so dangerous that I felt it was necessary to speak out. The LAST thing I want is for Voyd to wrap himself around a lamp standard. I'm only sorry that more people couldn't have read the original thread before it was deleted.

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stimpy - posted 04-09-2000 06:58 PM

History? It ain't like we dated Patrick. You make it sound so melodramatic!
Since you want the recognition that comes with announcing that you are the individual that said these things (while at the same time denying that you did) I will address you in open post naming names.
As far as contributing to the forum, yes, back in JANUARY you did start a thread. Huzzah! I read it and it seemed like a pissing and moaning marathon that provided neither entertainment nor enlightenment. There, just an unsolicited review. And yes, it was before my time.
Very rarely do I see anything informative with your name attached and the drive -by comments are no more entertaining then the ones coming from another member that you have gone on record criticizing.
Now as far as your rant against Voyd, I don't think anyone who posted along his streetracing thread thought that that was a Nobel Prize-winning idea to dragrace on a wet night. Voyd included. I think that is why he deleted his thread. But I don't think anyone else felt the need to go to such lengths to berate him. Now, most people have not had the benefit of experience that you have had in seeing the potential tragedies of streetracing. But do you go off on everyone who isn't as smart as you? I can't see that that would win you too many allies in life.
I have never suggested nor will I suggest that you condone something that goes against your values, but do you think that there may be some way of expressing said values without making someone feel reprehensible? The kid made a mistake, probably went home regretting it, why not just rap the knuckles with a ruler and get on with it?

[This message has been edited by stimpy (edited 04-09-2000).]

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RFMike - posted 04-09-2000 08:14 PM

I think we could discuss this in more civil terms, without name calling. Stimpy, you might think this is hypocritical from me, after my post on Voyd's exploits, but its not. I was also sending a wakeup call to Voyd, and I in no way indicated that I thought we would be better off without him.

My grandfather once said to me, in a heated discussion, "Mike, if your wrong, no amount of arguing is going to make you right."
This applies here. There is no way you can paint Voyd's actions as acceptable. I have nothing more to say on this subject.

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Patrick - posted 04-09-2000 08:25 PM

Stimpy -

Announced my involvement because I want the recognition? Yeah, like it's difficult for anyone to figure it out after reading Voyd's second thread.

Denied that I said something? Hardly. I simply refuted your interpretation of what I said.

Voyd regrets what he did? I've seen no evidence of that at all. If anything he's just upset at being chastised.

Winning allies in life? I certainly don't need or would want you as one.

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stimpy - posted 04-09-2000 09:36 PM

Mike, honestly, I don't think that the post that I did have the opportunity to read was over the top.
And by no means have I ever applauded or condoned the story Voyd related. I think it was very sobering the terms you put it in. Likewise with Patrick relating the horrifying experiences earlier in this thread. I don't know if it got ugly after your initial post cuz the thread got deleted. But I don't think you are a hypocrite as you did not call anyone names. I don't think anyone has, have they? (really, I'm asking) I am getting truly tired of the hateful tone put down by some people who don't agree with others.
Patrick-Voyd never used your name, neither did I. Unless you have a longstanding reputation of being a "tight-assed individual", I don't see anything as being obvious to anyone but yourself. I was hoping that you would take my opinion as that and leave it alone. Really, chill out!

[This message has been edited by stimpy (edited 04-09-2000).]

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Loki - posted 04-09-2000 09:48 PM

This reminds me of Gary's Customs and V8Archies heated talks on the fiero list........Its old....

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stimpy - posted 04-09-2000 09:51 PM

Halla-freakin-lujia Loki. My thoughts exactly.

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GT Bastard - posted 04-09-2000 11:08 PM

Let me try and shed a bit of light on the subject... I know a man who was involved in the Vietnam war. This man has a tremendous hatred towards vietnamese people and their culture from his tramatic experiences in the war. The point is.... I don't believe people should hate Vietnamese, but I don't blame him for his hate. I haven't experienced what he has gone through, and I feel that if I had, I might hate the vietnamese as well. I think that Patrick is an emotionally scarred individual from his experiences, so I'm not blaming him for not seeing things my way. If I had seen what Patrick had, I might feel exactly as he does. Just something to consider...

later all,
Geoff

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Patrick - posted 04-09-2000 11:41 PM

That's pretty funny Stimpy. You respond to Loki's statement like you have nothing to do with all this nonsense.

Read your first two posts in this thread and tell everyone here that you don't see the "hateful tone" that you are "getting truly tired of".

And you have the gall to tell me to "chill out".

Geoff, thanks for trying to see something from another perspective. There might be some weight to your theory, although I don't believe I'm an "emotionally scarred individual". However, I've certainly been made aware of what can happen when man meets metal at high speed. It ain't pretty...

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Ozzy - posted 04-10-2000 12:18 AM

Think we need to put you 2 guys in a burlap bag!!!

Is it all really that important? I think we ALL make our fair share of mistakes do we not??

I don't want to draw any negative attention here so I'll bow out thnx!

Ozzy

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fieroshop - posted 04-10-2000 12:39 AM

I agree with Ozzy and I think that everbody concerned should chill out. You are acting like little kids. IF I CAN'T PLAY WITH IT I DON'T WANNA PLAY: BAAH

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That was the end of the two threads.

If even just one kid reads this and then decides against street-racing someone else (especially on wet pavement), then all this hassle was worth it...

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[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 04-13-2000).]

I always knew that Patrick was the best at finding links to past threads, but WOW!! this tops them all. Good job Patrick. I think that I will leave the topic alone however. Ozzy's thread says it all.

I dunno man... I get the feeling that this is just going to attract more negative attention. But congrats on finding these!

Hey if people want to race thats ok, because its thier decision. I know I love to street race and will not stop till the day I die.

Has anyone tried deleting this thread!?

Patrick,
Perhaps you should go back and re-read your response to Voyd's first post before you claim, as you did in response to Stimpy's post, that you never meant to suggest that Voyd wrap himself around a light pole. That is exactly what you suggested when you said "perhaps he could, as an added bonus, do his parents a favor as well".
This is not my fight and I agree with most of what you had to say, but, when you have committed a wrong, at least have the nads to pony up for it. You have some good points and rationalazations as well as reasons to feel the way you do. However, hostility and beratement is not the way to influence others. Be more positive and understand; those who ingage in dangerous endeavors will
eventually have to answer for their actions.
You have personaly wittnessed the price one can expect to pay. Try to relate that to others in a more compasionate manner and more will listen.

Thanx, BAM OUT!

Well, I've been trying very hard not to get involved in this discussion. I hadn't even read the original thread before now. But after reading Patrick's first reply I must agree with him that he never suggested "that the world may have been better off had Voyd wrapped himself around a lightpole during a street race". I'm sorry guys, but that isn't even close to the point Patrick was trying to make.

Now I don't want to play judge here on Voyd's actions. The right or wrong of street-racing is a discussion I really don't want to get involved in. But I do see what has happened here and that Patrick's remarks have been completly mis-understood. His remark was more a "man, you could have killed yourself!" and not a "man, you should have killed yourself!". There's a huge difference.

Now on the other hand, as I see it Patrick has misunderstood Voyd as well. Voyd said in response to Stimpy:

"well, you are right, but they would have done it to someone else had i not taken them up on it. heck they probly had been doing it all night previous. i did them a favor by embarrasing them."

This to me suggest that Voyd sees that what he did was wrong, but that his actions probably stopped these kids from any further racing, because them loosing embarrassed them. Patrick's response was:

"You say you were doing these kids a favor by racing them?"

Actually, no. He said he did them a favor by embarrassing them. Again, there's a huge difference.

So this is my take on the story: Voyd had a bad day. He's even further agitated by a bunch of kids in a car who pull up beside him and make some gesture to him. Then he makes the mistake of actually racing with them. But not for the racing itself (he clearly states that he never "beats [his Fiero] and never push it that much"), but to teach these kids a lesson. He knows that what he did was wrong, but it might have saved these kids from worse.

Patrick reads this, but his personal experiences makes this, understandably, a horror story. And in his own subtle way he tells Voyd what could have happened.

This is the part where everybody gets involved, (mis)interpret it in their own ways and throw in their 2ct.

Voyd, a bit startled because he's being taken for the irresponsible person he probably isn't, also reacts strongly. He tries to defend himself, and at the end deletes the thread.

To make a long story short, all I see here is an example of how easy it is to misunderstand what is actually being said. It's always difficult trying to get a message across when all you have is your keyboard to do it with. There's no way you can get intention across without intonation, or facial expressions. There just aren't enough smilies for that...

This will be my only involvement in this discussion. I have said my stuff, I have given my opinion. I could be completely wrong, or could be hitting the nail on the head. I don't know and to be honest... I don't care. I believe their must be thousands of other, more pleasant things to discuss.

Cliff, you're a GOOD man!

Excellent dissertation Cliff.

William T. Thorn, III

Ditto to Scott, Cliff and WT III.

Ok, here's the straight goods...

It was the word favor that I was keying on in my whole response to Voyd. That is why I emphasized the word favor by italicizing it every time it was mentioned in my post.

A ) Voyd said he did those 16 year old kids a favor by embarrassing them.

How did he embarrass them?

B ) He embarrassed them by beating them in a street-race (doing over 140 kph in the pouring rain at night on a public road).

The first line in my post to Voyd was a question. I was questioning his use of the word favor. Keep in mind that I wasn't quoting Voyd directly when I asked -

quote You say you were doing these kids a favor by racing them?

I was simply combining elements of points A and B into one sentence. I found Voyd's reasoning to be totally ridiculous, so for shock value I took it to the next level. It's important to understand that I was only trying to outdo Voyd's comments with totally outlandish statements of my own to show the craziness of both his statements AND mine. I did not want Voyd to actually guide that car full of teenagers into a power pole. I did not want Voyd to actually lose control of his Fiero. Quite frankly, I was rather shocked to discover that a few people felt I wanted grievous harm to come to Voyd. Why would I post something like that? Where would that get me? Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Now that it's clear where I was coming from, hopefully my response to Voyd will now seem less repugnant to those who felt I was being way too harsh -

quote You say you were doing these kids a favor by racing them? Why didn't you just guide them into a power pole while you were at it? That way you could have done their families a huge favor also. How so? Well, after these young kids were bagged and buried, their parents wouldn't have to worry about them getting into trouble anymore. Maybe as an added bonus you could have lost control of your Fiero and also done your parents a favor. You were driving at high speed on wet pavement and enticing a car full of teenagers to do the same. You call this being a bit naughty? Wake up.

I wanted my post to get Voyd's attention. I guess it did, and then some...

Cliff, I'm sorry if all this might appear to be much ado about nothing, but I think there have been some very important lessons learned here. Obviously there's been some views expressed about street-racing, but there's also been an opportunity to discuss the misinterpretation of posts and the mistake of jumping to conclusions. You're bang-on when you stated -

quote ...here is an example of how easy it is to misunderstand what is actually being said...

We all have the right to disagree with what someone else has written, but none of us have the ability to positively state what the other person meant. If any of us are in doubt about the meaning of a post, let's just ask the originator about it and keep the guesswork to a minimum.

Having these threads available again has at least made it possible for anyone who is interested to go back and see for themselves what was originally posted. Thanks Cliff for acting in such a fair manner and allowing all of us to speak our minds.

I never thought that you implied that Voyd should cause harm to himself or anyone else. I don't know how anyone could think that.

I can understand how you wanted to scare him. I knew a girl in highschool that had a Mustang LX 5.0. One night she was driving fast, like she always did, and came over a hill in the road to see a watertruck sitting in her lane. She saw it and slammed on her brakes, but as she crested the hill her car naturally got lighter and she hit it going about 60 MPH. Needless to say this pretty girl isn't very pretty anymore. She has a limp and many scars that will be there to remind her the rest of her life. She wasn't racing, just doing a stupid thing. Fact is that anything can happen and probably will.

This is why I pay $15 to autocross or $15 to drag race at a controlled, safe environment.