One cold, snowy night, Bill, Keith and myself decided to take Bill's Camaro and go have a little "fun" in the parking lot of the AutoWorld center in downtown Flint. For those not familiar with the city of Flint, MI, AutoWorld was Flint's multi-million dollar failed attempt to bring tourism dollars to America's worst city. Envisioned as an automotive version of Universal Studios, AutoWorld was a large building that was at one time filled with amusements, museums, and other fun family activities.

Unfortunately no one was interested in seeing a giant building full of car stuff, especially in Flint. AutoWorld and is enormous parking lot were soon abandoned, creating the perfect place to practice the engineerŐs version of "figure skating" i.e. power sliding BillŐs car across snowy surface.

Bill, Keith, and I tried in vain to exert our corrupting influence on Mike. We spent 20 minutes extolling the virtues of doing donuts in the snow instead of studying, but Mike was steadfast in his determination to finish whatever homework he happened to be working on. Eventually we piled into Bill's Camaro and left without him.
We had a blast.
For almost 30 seconds.
Then, mid donut, we suddenly saw headlights approaching through the parking lot entrance. At first we thought it was the police, coming to stop our fun. Instead, it turned out to be Mike, approaching at high speed in his Ford Escort. Apparently he had decided it would be more fun to play in the snow than sit at home studying.

We watched in silence as Mike entered the parking lot, picked up speed, made a long sweeping left hand turn and then... slammed directly into the curb at the other side of the parking lot. We all broke into laugher at our idiot friend who was now planted in the snow on the far end of the lot. It wasn't until he backed up and got out of his car that we realized something was wrong.

The problem was that the curb was 12" high, and the bottom of mike's car was only 8" high. As a result, the front end was smashed in under the bumper. Mike was furious. Our previously cheerful demeanor was dampened considerably after observing the mangled Escort and listening to Mike swear at his car, the curb, and his rotten luck in general.

The impact from the curb had bent the engine cradle until it was touching the ground. He left a gouge in the pavement and a trail of sparks the entire distance between AutoWorld and our house. When he arrived, Mike parked his car in the garage, took 1 look under the hood, said a long series of choice swear words and disappeared in his room for the night.

That weekend he had to have his friend James drive out from Grand Rapids with a car trailer, hitch up his car and tow it 2 hours back home. There is a happy ending to the story: It turned out that a little prying here, some hammering there, and installation of a new engine cradle resulted in a car that was almost as good as new.