The Idiot Factor By John Paulson (Misc. Tech Section)

Have you ever been sitting there filling your vehicle up with gas and the person across the pump from you starts asking you all about it?  Sure, we all have.  The next thing you know that same inquirous person starts telling you about his or her brothers uncles sisters father's grandfather's friends cousin's car that is so much better than what you have.  They begin showing the Idiot Factor almost immediately when they blurt out how they are working on getting this particular car that they plan on making the best thing around.  In the Mustang world a few common signs of these Idiots are when they look at you and say hey man, nice 5 oh and your driving a 99 Cobra, or Yo that's a wicked Cobra man and you just happen to be filling your kid sisters v6 vert up with gas.  We all try not to laugh about it out loud, but deep down inside we are all saying, "Man if you don't know shit about it then why bother pretending to."  as we play it off and say thanks man.  It seems that no one can simply give another a compliment without going into some long drawn out made up story, or without telling you how they have or know someone with something better.

Owning a nice car and being noticed for doing so is great.  We all like it when we pass a group of people and look in our rear view to watch them all turn around to look at it.   When we are sitting at a stop light and the guy next to you misses his signal in the turning lane because he's too busy checking out your ride.  These are all examples of how great it is to be privileged enough to own something as nice as our vehicles are.   I just cannot understand why those that possess the Idiot Factor simply cannot say hey man nice car, and leave it at that.  To me that means a lot more than listening to some boring story while I'm just trying to get gas, a cup of coffee or something along those lines.   Every 5 minute trip turns into a fifteen minute extravaganza when these people pin point out your location. You cannot avoid them as they are everywhere, of all shapes, sizes, colors, creeds, and religions.

Another thing that gets under my skin is the proverbial Fly By.  Most of us have seen the movie Top Gun and are aware of the original meaning of the term.  The Fly By for us performance car owners is a whole different experience.  I'm sure that you have been simply cruising along in your car when all of a sudden out of nowhere comes greased lightning.  This car goes whizzing by you at the speed of light  with all the stickers flapping in the wind, then proceeds to turn on his flashers as he passes by to make you even more aware of that fart pipe he has on the back of his mom's Civic. This is what we all like to call the Fly By.  Unfortunately this occurs a lot more than the accused like to admit.  Fly By's are not committed only by the ricers.  Many other drivers out there commit the performance felony on a daily basis.   For example, a few weeks ago I was traveling from my
mom's house to mine with 2 bikes on a rack hanging off my decklid.  There is this Chevy Exxtreme pickup truck revving next to me.  My 5 year old son is also in the back-seat of my car.  The light turns green and the pickup truck leaves the light spinning like crazy.  I'm thinking to myself, what kind of idiot is this, I have 2 bikes on my car and a 5 year old in the back seat.  What would give this guy the impression that I wanted to race in the first place I'll never know.  The next traffic light was another
story as I made sure he saw the two Huffy's on my decklid. Granted, this isn't the normal Fly By technique but nevertheless it's a fair example of the type of person who would commit such an act.   You never know when you might find your car listed on some websites kill section as you being beaten by some slow car that you can't remember racing.  This is what we call The Fly By Report.  On just about every performance car website you can find a kill section of some sort.   These Kill sections are loaded with stories which the originator claims to be true.  I like to call this the Fly By Report because most of the people who express their opinions in these forums are making false claims.  When was the last time you checked one of these sections out and saw some slow car claiming to beat something that is obviously faster than it?  Did you ever stop and think that that
car might have been yours, and you never actually raced the guy but he simply made a Fly By pass when you were drinking your slurpee.   The next time some car performs this horrid act of nature make note of it as you might find yourself to be a victim when scanning through your favorite sites kill section.

John Paulson