Les, we live just up Hwy 49 north of Rescue. If I had a Lotus, I would have been pushing those turns too.
Around here we have very little traffic control, so I've gone decades without a traffic ticket. I think the last speeding tix I got was on I-15 in a Celica south of Salt Lake City. Guy was using radar and got me and a trucker, a two-fer and made us both get in his cruiser to write us up. The trucker was upset and said he had just been popped a hundred miles back. The trooper just smiled and said he ought to slow down. I was 21 years old and paid my debt to society for going over the speed limit.
Since we're on the subject, I thought I would tell a quick story about being let off without a ticket. I was living in Ocean Beach in 1980, house sitting an older home, and the house across the street was occupied by three young women. One of them had a funky Datsun 2000 and one day I helped her hotwire the thing to start it. Soon enough I bought from her for $250 as an alternate to my flatbed work truck.
The roadster had been butchered. It had Cadillac tail lights which had been fiberglassed on the back, if you can picture it. The roof had a piece of tempered glass ,which I prompted ripped off to become a convertible. I pulled hundreds of feet of miscellaneous after market wiring from under the dash. The car was fast with a two litre engine and a four speed, which was the precrusor to the 240Z I would come home from work and park my truck, throw my surfboard onto the passenger seat and cruise Sunset Cliffs.
One night I was out in my little surf rig, running down Mt. Soledad Road, clearly exceeding the 50mpg speed limit. A traffic light ahead went yellow, and I punched it instead of stopping, catching a red as I cleared the intersection. As I came down the hill to Mission Blvd. a San Diego cop pulled in behind me with lights ablaze. I gracefully pulled over without making a fuss. After handing over my DL and insurance, the conversation went thusly:
Cop: Do you know how fast you were going:
Me: Well, the speedo cable is broken, so I really don't know.
Cop: You went through a red light back there. Why did't you stop?
Me: Well, the brakes don't work very well, so I couldn't really stop.
Cop: {Takes a long look at the funky rig, and my young, fairly innocent face, glistening with a light sweat}.
Cop: Well, I don't know the name of the street where you went through the red light; and I don't want to drive back up there. So, I'll tell you what. Why don't you go home and get off the road?
Me: Yes, Sir!
Epilogue: I moved to Pacific Beach (aka P
, and parked the Datsun out front. My roommates got tired of looking at the no longer running car and pushed it around the corner where it languished. A month later I noticed someone had ripped off the carburetor. Later that summer, someone else left a note on the car, offering to buy it. I sold the car for the same $250 I paid for it. The buyers planned to strip and restore the car, so hopefully it went on to live a better life than what I gave it.