Shifting gears

I took the car to the softball field today to pick Amy up from practice. This meant that I had to drive down Fallbrook Avenue for a few miles, which is a local drag with a 45 MPH speed limit. Most of the time you can't get up to 45 what with all the people who apparently can't read speed limit signs - ah don't get me started. Anyway up to this point I've been using only two of the gears in the transmission - reverse, and second. In second gear it's pretty much like an automatic transmission. Press on the GO pedal and go, let up and step on the brake to come to a stop, step on the GO pedal again to go again, etc. To go backwards, come to a stop, move the shifter to reverse, back up and stop, move the shifter to second, and go. No clutch, ever.

Second gear pretty much tops out at 45 MPH, so I wanted to try third gear on Fallbrook. What the heck, I thought, how about trying starting out in first while I'm at it. So from a stop, start in first, shift to second, shift to third, and cruise just like a normal car with a stick shift. Use the clutch too, to avoid being too mean to the synchros.

It was fine. The acceleration from a stop is a heck of a lot faster than a normal bug, let me tell you. Of course, you may say, I'm using a Zilla controller for heaven's sake, which was designed for electric drag racers. Fallbrook was fairly empty so I took it up to 55 for a minute, tee hee.

Someday soon I think I'll try the freeway...