I used to have to see how fast whatever I was driving would go. Young and invincible indeed. Strange thing is that back then I was more afraid of dying than I am now, but I took more risks than I do now. Trying to stretch out whatever time I have left as far as it will go, I reckon. Anyway, I had a mildly modified 73 Duster 340 when I worked in South Georgia - land of long, straight, empty stretches of road. Let it out on one such stretch of road, got it up to 5,800 rpm in high gear, whatever mph that works out to with auto trans and 3.21 rear gears. Went over a mild dip, didn't upset the car, but coming through it the back squatted down and I heard something scrape. Figured it was probably a muffler, no big deal, so just drove on to the next town, where I noticed I was just about out of gas. Pulled into a gas station to fill up. As I did, the gas station attendant warned me that my tank was leaking. I had punctured a hole in the tank. A small one, but enough to nearly empty the tank pretty quickly. The station attendant got a sheet metal screw and screwed it into the hole. That stopped the leak, and on I went. That screw stayed there the rest of the time I had the car, and never leaked a drop.
