I've got the pedal to the metal...

Which is not at all the same as having the petal to the medal, which is when CF vets who got their Libya medal pin a couple of rose petals to their "operation Unified Protector" medal just to say they're sorry.

Sorry for destroying Libya.

Ya, sometimes when you're spreading freedom and democracy, bad shit happens.

But I digress...

I'm turning onto the Alzheimer Highway and I've got nothing but clear lanes ahead of me.

Put the pedal to the metal!..

And so I did.

The best place to figure out the top speed of your car, back in the day, was out on the Hanlon Expressway. At least before the Hanlon Expressway was a through road.

You'd have to pull off at Clair Road, but before you got there you had a two or three mile run of four-lane straitaway.

That was always an opportunity to keep the pedal to the metal for a couple of minutes, instead of the usual fifteen seconds or so...

I owned a few vehicles that made the best of that stretch of the Hanlon.

How about a 1967 Chrysler New Yorker with a 440 4bbl having enough time to get up to 5000 rpm, which was about 140 miles per hour.

Four thousand and eight hundred pounds of sheet metal and brocade upholstery hurtling down the Hanlon at 140 mph?

Why not?

I had a couple of 340 cars that easily topped 140.

The most memorable trip was when my old pal Kipling and his wife of the time were having a marital dispute in my 340 Dart just as the speedometer touched 150.

That was nasty... all I could think of was the fact that I'd not got around to new tires yet... the latest round of legal bills had put the kibosh on that.

So there we were, Kipling and the Missus having a fist-fight in the back seat, while I've got the pedal to the metal, touching nearly 160 mph on that stretch of the Hanlon, with the steel cords peeking out of those fibreglass radials.

Ya, I know. That's some crazy shit.

Luckily, after she delivered the knock-out blow, I was able to get off the gas a bit.


But it's way later now...

There's no hurry.


You can drive as fast as you want...


Or, you can slow down and enjoy the scenery...