Asphalt sleighing (feat. Brother Dudu)
My brother proudly told me yesterday that along with his friends they discovered “asphalt sleighing.” “Ne-am dat cu sania pe asfalt, ba,” he said. I asked him if there was any visual proof (like other Romanian provide) and he sent me five videos that chronicle this new night-time Romanian practice.
How did they do it? Well, one dude in the group apparently has had this desire to have his sleigh pulled by a car for a while; he also claims it’s an original idea. So, they waited for night fall, drove up to a deserted road next to the Targu Mures zoo, took a metal sleigh (which down the a snow slope are more dangerous and faster than wooden ones), tied it to an old Volvo hatchback and rolled along.
Below is an screen grab of my brother in the “hot seat.” Click on it to see the video and click here to see the whole package. I circled the sparks that fly like crazy — although you have to watch the clip to get a sense.
Alright, alright… here is more proof:
April 29th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Boy, that’s stupid. Especially at those high speeds. If your brother and friends keep it up, it won’t be long before one or more of them dies. But that’s just a hyper-safety conscious American talking.
As a teenager, my dad used to go “ice skating” on the streets of Evanston, Ill. (outside Chicago), in which you would hold on to a car’s rear bumper and slide on the slick ice and snow that covered the roads. He stopped joy-riding once one of his friends was killed doing the stunt. The car stopped abruptly, the guy slid beneath the car’s carriage and was crushed.
April 30th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Gosh, Joel, that’s a horrible story.
Seriously, though…this does look really dangerous. I hope they think it’s worth it.
It would definitely make for an interesting news story.
April 30th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
My God that’s crazy!
May 8th, 2006 at 5:49 am
Heh, the sparks definitely give it an air of danger. I’ll admit that I used to do something very much like this back when I was a restless teenager in the United States. We generally rode on those plastic McDonald’s trays until they melted and the shouted for the driver to stop before there was nothing left to stand on (sometimes took a minute depending on how loud the music in the car was and/or how much he might have been drinking).
And then there were the winding canyon roads, where we’d drive a highpowered sports car through the twists and turns at very high speeds while one of us would lay down on the roof clinging on for dear life by only his hands… cheered on by a laughing friend or two inside the car. Yeah.
So, I don’t think the sledding idea is particularly original. BUT! But it may be original to them, in the sense that they didn’t get the idea directly from another person.
Have you see the video of the two guys who put their sports car on cruise control? They climb out of the sunroof while doing probably 40 or 50. No one is in the car, at all. No one. They slide down the back of the car and hang on to the tail, while skiing with only their shoes… and then when the road is coming to an end, they scramble back onto the car and desperately jump inside the sunroof to bring the vehicle to a stop. There’s a video of it somewhere online. Probably YouTube or GoogleVideo.
So, that’s even worse than what we did as kids.