Slip Slidin' Away: How I Crashed a Geo Metro and Lived to Tell the Tale

Descent into the Columbia river gorge on I 90 during summer

A few miles East of Ellensburg, WA, on the long winding descent into the Columbia river gorge, the little car, too small to run smoothly in both sets of the deep ruts that the semi trucks had worn into the pavement of Interstate 90, rolled from groove it had been following on the left side of the lane and dropped abruptly into the groove on the right. The lateral movement of the car within the lane was not great, maybe a foot or two, and I accounted for the motion with a simple counter of the steering wheel as I speed steadily along through the dark winter night.

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  • Brian Uchida Laguna Seca, corkscrew, (drying track off in rental car prior to Superbike test session), at speed - turn 9 big Willow Springs racing a motorcycle,- at greater speed (but riding shotgun) - The Carrousel at Sears Point in a 1981 PA9 Osella 2 litre FIA racer with Eddie Lawson at the wheel! (apologies for not being brief!)
  • Mister It wasn't helped any by the horrible fuel economy for what it was... something like 22mpg city, iirc.
  • Lorenzo I shop for all-season tires that have good wet and dry pavement grip and use them year-round. Nothing works on black ice, and I stopped driving in snow long ago - I'll wait until the streets and highways are plowed, when all-seasons are good enough. After all, I don't live in Canada or deep in the snow zone.
  • FormerFF I’m in Atlanta. The summers go on in April and come off in October. I have a Cayman that stays on summer tires year round and gets driven on winter days when the temperature gets above 45 F and it’s dry, which is usually at least once a week.
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X I've never driven anything that would justify having summer tires.