The Night of the Hurricane (a really long stupid story)

CarMichael Angelo

my rearend will smell so minty fresh,
15 Year Member
Nov 29, 1999
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Birmingham, al
The Night of the Hurricane (a really long stupid story) BUT NOW WITH PICS!!!

CHAPTER 1
The Build​


After getting out of the Army in 88, I ended up in Birmingham, AL. I had my fill of Midwestern winters and Alabama was a pretty state. While it still got a little cold, it rarely snowed. That, plus the fact that Birmingham was only 4.5 hours away from to the Gulf of Mexico made it a place that we decided to live in. So there was enough diversity and diversion to keep my wife and I happy.

When I got the bug to build a car again, it had been 7 years since my last.
I knew I wanted to build a Ford, but wanted something other than a Mustang.
I chose a 79 Mercury Zephyr as my new project. It was clean, straight, rust free, and most important for me, it was different. Just what the doctor ordered.

The car ended up pretty cool. Two-toned black and white, Mini tubbed w/ M/T sportsman Pro 12.5 x 28.5 rears, with a set of skinnys up front, Weld Drag stars, Camel colored Fiero bucket seats w/ the rest of the interior color keyed to match. It had an owner ( me) built C-4, a 3500 stall converter and a narrowed 31 spline 9” rear w/ 4.56 gears and a rebuilt T lock diff..

I decided on a 351 as the power plant. Alternatively to the body choice, I was familiar w/ the engine, and since it had been such a long time since I had a hot rod, I didn’t want to take on an engine that was new to me.

The engine actually ended up a .030 over 351 w/ a street grind solid roller cam,
(600/600 w250/255 degrees duration at .050) TRW 12:1 forged pistons, stock crank, stock rods( prepped w/ all of the typical techniques to help make them hi performance) , and stock, ported C9AE heads (also done by yours truly) w/ 2.02/1.60 Chevy valves.
I had a good job at the time, but there was definitely a limited budget. It was also 1990, and while there were a few suppliers building cranks and rods for that engine, they were expensive. There were no off shore companies building rotating assemblies for under 1000.00 at the time.
So,….just like it always had been in the past,… Ford guys either had to spend more money, or if you were like me, learn to work with what they had.

I took delivery of the engine in late June of 1991, The machine shop had had the engine for an entire year. I wasted no time getting it home, and promptly proceeded installing it into my freshly painted Zephyr. I borrowed a defective chain hoist from my machinist and had to rig up a hoist and beam to install the engine. After some finagling and reinforcing of the beam ,and after getting cracked in the face w/ a 2 x 4 only once, the engine was sitting in the bay in a little under an hour. I started it later that night.

It sounded good. Open headers cackling ,and a solid roller cam “cricket chirping” along at 1000 RPM. FINALLY! the car had some serious attitude. It looked and sounded fast. The only drawback was the name Mercury had given it……….Zephyr.

Zephyr,……. that name had to have a meaning,….I looked it up.

zeph·yr/'zef?r/Noun
1. A soft gentle breeze.

For Christs sake! A car name that meant “soft gentle breeze” How Gay is that?

So I changed it.

Instead of a soft gentle breeze, I decided on the opposite:

hur·ri·cane/'h?ri?kan/Noun
1. A storm with a violent wind, in particular a tropical cyclone in the Caribbean.
2. A wind of force 12 on the Beaufort scale (equal to or exceeding 64 knots or 74 mph).

Now this was more like it! I went to a local vinyl sign shop and had four small decals made up for the hood, trunk, and both front fenders so there was no mistaking what kind of wind somebody was getting ready to mess with.

The car’s first official cruise was July 4, 1991. I went by the Supershops and noticed the standard cluster of dudes hanging out in front, so I figured I’d stop in and check it out.

I wasn’t there for a ½ hour, when a race pimp approached me to see if I’d like to race it against a small block 1970 Nova owned by this little Vietnamese kid named Dominic.
Not one to back down from a challenge, and wanting to see what I had, I agreed to the race.

I promptly got my ass handed to me in the most serious way. I watched that Nova literally walk away from me like I was out for a Sunday drive. Turned out that the “small block” was actually 468 cubic inches, not exactly what I was told it was. It was also rumored that any race with that Nova, you could bet that you got sprayed as well.

I vowed that this wasn’t gonna happen again.

I bought a set of bare World Windsor cast iron heads and had my machine shop transfer the valves and springs from the stock heads to the new ones. Before assembly, I cleaned up the bowls and port matched the intake and exhaust and threw those babies on the car. Subsequent road tests felt like is was faster

Significantly faster.


CHAPTER 2
Storm Warning!​


Having been beaten by Dominic, it seemed everywhere I went, there was always somebody asking if this was the car that got killed by Dominic? This was starting to really piss me off, as this one race had managed to sum up the car as a typical slow assed Ford messing w/ a typically faster Chevrolet. I decided that I needed to dramatically change the situation, and not just w/ one race.

Since everybody now seemed to know me as the owner of the car that got beat by Dominic, I decided to issue a blanket challenge to all comers.

I got on the computer and made about 20 of these “flyers.” I issued them to the two speed shops in town, my machine shop, a couple of parts stores that let me post my flyer, and handed the rest out to as many that held out their hands.

This is what I posted:

HURRICANE WARNING!​


The National Weather Service has issued a Hurricane warning for residents driving Chevrolet products in the following counties:

Jefferson; Shelby; Blount

While not a threat to residential or commercial property, individuals driving General Motors products should take all precautions to avoid being hit by their own doors once they are blown off by the Hurricane.

The NWS predicts that the Hurricane will likely make landfall at 10 PM Central Standard Time, August 4, 1991. the projected path puts the Hurricanes’ touchdown in or immediately around the parking lot of SuperShops in Pinson.

To avoiding losing your doors, affected individuals are advised to stay home and hunker down. The duration of the storm is predicted to last for a minimum of 3 hours. You can leave your place of safety after that.​


The above Warning is a joke.

There isn’t actually going to be severe weather on Saturday night. But there will be a Hurricane in Birmingham just the same.

So if you feel froggy, add some tape to your McFly glasses, straighten your bowties, and bring your junk to Supershops on Saturday night 8/4/91

P.S. NO power adders! If you don’t have enough motor to beat my poor little Ford, motor to motor, then you really should stay home.​


It took about a week before I started getting the feedback.

One of the patrons at the machine shop was a Jefferson County Sherriff’s deputy. He had advised my machinist ( Roy) that wherever this race was set to go down would be promptly shut down in force by the department …..In force.

I ignored that as typical cop talk and proceeded w/ my plan.

I made sure that I was ready and left the house at 9:00 PM, and stopped by Roy’s house. I got there at 9:30 and hung out for about 30 minutes, ( I made sure that I was gonna show up at my party a little late, so as not to be the only guy standing around waiting on whoever might show up). Having just got back into cars again, and spending all my time building the car for the last year, Roy was the only friend I had made in the car guy circle so far. ( I wonder why)
We left his house at 10:00 and headed out to Super Shops (that would put me there at 10:15,….just about right).

We were both floored at what we saw.

Hundreds of people. Maybe even a thousand
SuperShops’ lot was packed. The three adjacent lots were packed. Every where I looked there were lots with parked cars pouring out of them. There wasn’t even standing room in the SS lot, nonetheless I pulled into the SS lot and parked right in the middle. The Hurricane had just parked right in the eye of the storm. And all around, as far as you could see,…………Chevrolets.

People swarmed all around. I got out immediately opened the hood and trunk to prove to everybody that I didn’t have any nitrous “tricks up my sleeve” .I was almost immediately confronted by a drunk guy that turned out to be a friend of “Lindy”. Lindy had a corvette w/ a stupid body kit typical of the era. The Drunk guy said “ Are you the guy that said I need to straighten my bowtie?……I got a bowtie you need to straighten for me“, and he pointed to lindy’s vette.

I said “ Yes I’m that guy, (Duuuuurrrr) I guess you want me to race that?” I walked over to the yellow car and after looking at the thing sitting on BF Goodrich Radial T/A tires, I said “as it sits?“ Drunk dude says “Hell yeah! Just as it sits!“ I agreed. “You’re first.” About one minute later, Lindy shows up, and after learning that his friend has just offered his street tired corvette as my first race, Lindy promptly backs down, pointing to the sportsman Pro’s that grace the back of my car. “He’ll kill me before it even starts!” Lindy turns to me and politely tells me to ignore his stupid drunk friend and that his car isn’t here to race tonight.

O.K. No problem, I’m sure somebody else here is looking to race.( Ya think?)

Dominic is there, We agree to a rematch. I walk around in the crowd asking out loud “ who’s here to race tonight?“. I was amazed that out of all of these people, and out all of these cars, that the only ones to step up besides Dominic was w/ a 66 Chevelle, a 64 Nova, and a 74 240z, all w/ the requisite SBC. Just as well, four races in a row were enough for the evenings festivities. The standing around lasted about 1 hour. I had to listen to the experts “talking” among themselves (much like you do at a car show, with the people actually ignoring the fact that you are standing right there within easy ear shot of hearing every word they spoke)

One guy speculating that the 351 was in fact a BBF, that it was way too wide to be a small block, another doing his damn best to find my hidden nitrous system, most of them trying to figure out whether or not Mercury actually made a car that was named a Hurricane. You’d think the car was from Mars. I must’ve got asked “what kind of car is this”? about 10 times.

The other racers and I got together, It was agreed that we’d meet at an industrial complex outside of town known as Meadowcraft. Not being familiar w/ all of the street race “hotspots, Roy assures me that “it’s not that far away, and he can get me there“.

The problem started to present itself immediately after that.

How were we gonna get out of here to do the deed without dragging the entire three parking lots of spectators right along with us?. It was decided we’d sift out one at a time and rendezvous at Meadowcraft.

I’m the last to try and sneak out.

I start the car and begin backing out, when all of the sudden, I am confronted w/ this huge blob with his face stuck in the passenger window. “ What???? You start all this crap, and now you’re just gonna leave without even one race?“ This catches me completely by surprise ,as I hadn’t seen this guy until just now. “Where the hell were you when I walked the lot asking who was there to race?” I ask. “Ohh Nooohhh! You won’t let anybody run nitrous….. I don’t run anybody if I don’t run nitrous” the blob in my window spits back at me. “What the hell do you have!” I ask, the conversation decidedly getting louder by the second. “ A Chevy! A little S10 Blazer!” Blobula yells back. “Well no duh, there isn’t any other car in this parking lot except this one that isn’t a Chevy!” Now I‘m getting pissed. “There isn’t any nitrous on this car, Chevy boy! If your junk can’t make it down the track without it then like the flyer says, maybe you’re better off watching”! It’s becoming quickly apparent that this isn’t gonna end anytime soon…..“Tell you what, bring your junk to meadow craft and you can be #5.…Now get the hell off my car and let me back out!!!!”
With that he steps off, and we back out.

Chapter 3
Have You Driven a Ford Lately?​

The trip to Meadowcraft was a 20 minute drive via way of the back roads. It would’ve been faster had I taken the main route, but remember, I was trying to be stealthy, and sneak to the destination. Having lowered the tire pressure to14 lbs in the M/T tires in anticipation of a poor traction surface, no front sway bar, and twisty, hilly, poorly lit roads made the trip slower than normal.
When I got there, I was dismayed to see that loud mouth racer #5 had made sure that the entire spectator contingent hade made their way to Meadowcraft as well, and the throng was just now pulling into and gathering around what would become the finish line of our industrial park drag strip. I pulled to a stop where the other 4 cars had stopped at the start line, and met Dominic’s newly designated driver. He told me that the street was like ice, and traction was non-existent. He advised me that I might wanna make a test pass just to see for myself.
I told him that I’d be right back to do just that, just as soon as I dropped Roy off at the finish line.

Once back at the start line, I took my by run. I didn’t hold back. I needed the psychological benefit for the others watching the car run just as much as I needed to get the feel for the road as well. When I crossed the finish line and turned around, Roy tells me that all the joking and yukking calmed down quite a bit when I came whipping by at 100 plus. So I had that going for me………….which is nice.
Good,…all things being supposedly equal, the other cars would be hurt by the lack of traction just as badly.

Everyone had went over my car w/ a fine tooth comb looking for underhanded “equalizers”. It now became apparent that I hadn’t done the same for any of the cars sitting at the starting line. That was my first order of business before anybody was gonna race anybody.

Dominic was first. It was his car that I wanted to beat. I didn’t care how the race went down after that, as long as I didn’t lose to this thing again. I checked it over thoroughly, the only evidence of nitrous I could find on his car tonight was an empty bottle bracket. I was satisfied that the only gas his big block was breathing tonight was the same as mine………….air.

The race was flagged, and both cars left side by side. I kept waiting for the thing to start walking away, only this time it stayed right there beside me, all the way to the end. When we crossed the finish line it was dead even. But on the street as we all know, the “photo finish” was determined by the number of guys you had in your corner. Since I had 1, It was determined that I lost,……but just by a foot. Roy saw it differently, and it was decided that at the end, after the other 3 races, I’d rerun Dominic for a 3rd and final time.

A voice booms out of the throng, singing the words to the current Ford commercial at the time “Have you driven a Ford lately!” It was of course racer #5. I ask “does anybody know that loud mouthed son of a bitch over there”? to which I get no response to, so I decide to move him up to racer #2. I cross the street to issue the challenge.

“You’re next!” I say, “how come you are not up at the other end with the others?” “OHHH NOO, I don’t even need to waste my time, you done got beat by the slow junk” To which I replied “I’m sure Dominic would be interested in hearing your thoughts on how slow his junk is.” Other words are exchanged, and it quickly becomes apparent that this loser has no car at all, and that he is just a bag of hot air. What I am also becoming quickly aware of, is that this is no longer about cars, and is starting to get personal…..real personal. I am being moved back into the crowd, in the next couple of minutes I have decided on a new nickname for racer #5. Fat***r. We’ll just call him the FF for short. The FF has started something that I hadn’t anticipated and now has an “assistant” attempting to trip me by lunging at my ankles. I manage to stiff arm his helper to the ground 3 times and I realize that this is going to turn out really bad, really quick if I don‘t do something right now. The only friend I had is somewhere out of my line of sight, and I don’t see one friendly face, and there is a sea of faces around me. So in the spirit of the moment and since we’re talking about faces, I decide to punch the FF right in his. I won’t lie, FF saw it coming and he moved away so he didn’t catch it all, but he got it nonetheless. Immediately afterwards, I realize that there are a couple of guys actually holding me back. They are also doing the same for the FF. At that instant, the owner of the 240z shows up and confronts the FF for starting this **** in the first place. He hits the FF again in the face, only this time he gets it all, and promptly decides to take a nap. I wrestle free of the restrainers and walk by the now crumpled up FF and shoot a glance at his assistant, no longer interested in trying to trip me up. The Driver of the 240z asks me if I am alright, and I tell hem that I am, He apologizes for the way things have gone and tells me that the FF is a loud mouthed piece of **** and that he doesn’t even have a car, he thanked me for giving him a reason to finally shut him up. I told him he was welcome, and whenever he needed another excuse to put the FF to sleep, he didn’t need my permission.
It should be said that the driver of the 240z competed in regional “tough man” competitions. All in all, this had turned out as well as I could have expected.

The 240z tough man (Terry for short) wanted to run me next. I told him I had no conflict with that, but by the time we got back to the car, Roy (who asks me where I’d been) lets me know that somebody w/ a scanner had just said that the JCSD was on its’ way to this location this very instant.
Terry didn’t seem to care about that, and wanted to speed things up and get it going before things did heat up any further. I told Terry that things needed to cool off for a minute for me (all things considered) and I did not want to get caught in the act of drag racing that evening so why not wait a few minutes and see whether the rumor was real or not.

No sooner did the last word leave my mouth than the sky started to glow blue. At least 20 cop cars are making their way down the access road to the place we were sitting.

That was all I needed to see. All of the spectators scatter like roaches,Roy got in, I start the car and I proceed to slowly make my way to the only entrance to industrial park we were all now trapped in. I am almost to the head of the road when we are stopped by the full force of the Jefferson County Sherriffs’ Deputy. I shut off the car. The man approaches and asks for the requisite license and registration. After which he sends several other deputies down the now ½ mile long line of cars sitting behind me to gather up the same stuff from everybody else. We have a front row seat. Roy gloomily sums up” that he thinks we’re gonna get to spend the night in jail,” but I reassure him and tell him to look at the now hundreds of licenses that the main sherriff deputy dude was holding and said, “no way are these cops gonna spend the rest of the night writing hundreds of citations, besides they saw nothing.”

Luckily I was right, the JCSD issued us all a verbal warning, they had us pick up our licenses as they called out our names, mine unfortunately, was last to be called as it was the first to be collected in his hand. He leans in my car and asks/says “ You’re the guy that started this junk tonight aren’t you”? I think about it for a few seconds and decide to come clean in my best respect for law enforcement tone “Uhh no sir, I just wanted to see what all the hub-bub was about”.
“Don’t let me see you out here again, or I won’t be so generous” “No problem sir, too many crazies out here anyway, we’re going to go straight home!”

The storm ended at 1:45 AM when I placed the pad lock through the hasp on my garage door. The JCSD that was a customer told Roy that next week that they had collected over 600 licenses that night . Despite the fact that there were so many people out there, nobody went to jail, no citations were issued, and only one person got hurt. Only instead of getting hit by a flying door, he got hit by what must’ve seemed like a Mack Truck instead.

That weather event started my friendships in this city. Most of which I still have to this day. While not then, I now know everybody that was lined up against me. I never got a rematch w/ Dominic, as he sold the car shortly afterwards. I eventually took the Hurricane to the track where it ran 7.70’s N/A. Eventually I cobbled a powershot N2O kit together and it ran 6.90’s for the remainder of the time I owned it. I drove it there and back every time I went. While a 6.90 is slow by today’s standards, in 1991, for a street driven car, it was fast
 
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I like this story best, while not as comical it was still good. Sounds kind of like fast and furious but the only import you mentioned happens to be one of my favorites... so therefore not gay.
Thanks, it took forever to write it.
My wife asked me whether or not I was writing my life story,...."No, just another night in stupid town"
I made no reference to a 240 being gay,... I like the 280 ZX personally. Only the stupid zephyr name was slurred.:D
did you see the storyline crossover one of the earlier stupid stories?
 
Yeah I caught that i was thinking why the hell is he going to use a beam hoist set up again after the last time.

I actually meant that all of the import stuff in the fast and the furious was gay. but relating your story to a fast and the furious kind of thing might say that im calling your story gay. newp.

To be honest I love all of the Z cars for the most part (even the ugly ass ones from the 90s)
 
I remember the crowds that use to hang out on Friday and Saturday nights at the old Supershops back in the day in B'ham and Huntsville. I always had a better time at the one in Huntsville as they had a better place to go race(Smith Rd.). Speaking of Smith Rd there was a few times Huntsville PD and or Troopers would radar for whoever was racing. No way in hell would I ever run another car with the law at the end of the road but the people that lived closer must of had balls of steal and I was a Etowah Co deputy and didnt care to lose my job. Great story,I enjoy them.
 
Yeah I got pics

Good story...got a pic of that car?

Yeah I got a pic of the car.:rolleyes:

But, let me qualify that first.....

I was gonna see if I could find these to include w/ the story but after looking through hundreds of photos, had given up on them as lost forever. They after all 20 years old. But after you asked I decided to go up and look again (only this time I looked through hundreds of negatives).

And as usual, just as I was about to give up again, there they are. So I took the negatives and had them converted so that I could answer yes to your question.

It is one of the coolest cars I ever built. (If I don't say so myself) :D

Turns out, that actual negatives copied over to digital actually only yield the equivalent of 2-3 MP. so they aren't the greatest.

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Again, the pictures are terrible. But if you look you can just make out the nameplates on the front and back of the car.
 
That is an absolutely siiiiiiiiick car! What did you do with it?

BTW, we need a sticky for well-written car stories. I think madmike is going to be the sole author for that one, though, haha.

Thanks, It feels good to impress someone that already has a great looking car....It got sold within a few months of me learning that my wife was pregnant w/ our first. ( Big Mistake) The guy that bought it told me he put a cheater plate and had it going 9.90's at Commerce GA.:(

After he was born I learned that life as I knew it didn't end after all.
But now that we had him eating up (literally)all of the "disposable income" The problem was scratching enough money together to build the next one.
 
Thanks to all of you. It's good to know that me getting punched, smacked, frustrated, humiliated, and of course having had a great time has had a positive "side effect" through the telling of the crazy assed stories.

I thought that those pictures were lost. Once I found them I would've posted them whether or not they were attached to any story. I really liked that car. That was #2 Fairmont/Zephyr. There was still two more after that!:nice: