Time seems to fly when you’re having a lot of fun. It’s hard to believe that it was five years ago when we met, but I remember the day like it was yesterday.
I can still remember Amanda’s first car, a Proton, and how she scared the absolute bejeesus out of me the first time I got in the passenger seat. Picture this, old car, old suspension, crap tyres, automatic gear box, front wheel drive, and a 90 degree turn attempted at over 60km/h without a hint of touching the brakes. I laugh now, but boy, was I furious at the time.
I can also remember the day Amanda bought her first “real” car. An R32 GTST. It was also her first manual. It was my job to teach her how to drive it. As you can imagine, we had a very long night that night. I can still see the look on Amanda’s face when we stopped to take photos after her first drive.
A combination of disappointment, anger, and fear washed across her face as she stared at the expensive piece of machinery in front of her. I don’t think Amanda knew I was looking at her, but I could almost hear the dialogue she was having with herself,
“I can’t drive this thing. What have I done? I’ve just wasted a lot of money. What am I going to do? Wil won’t stop yelling at me.”
(I wasn’t yelling! HONEST!!!)
I think the thing that freaked her the most were hills. Both the fact that manual car’s roll back on a hill start, and that the gearbox doesn’t automatically kick down if you’re going up a steep hill.
So I took her to an empty car park that I knew of. It was perfect because it had a long straight bit of road, very wide, with 3 inclines and flat areas in-between. It was here where she learnt where the friction point of the clutch was, how to hold the car on an incline using the clutch and throttle only, and where we took maybe 5000km’s off the life of the clutch.
Amanda picked it up incredibly fast. Before we knew it we were attending track days. Amanda even hit the track before I did. Oh, and as testament to how well she can control a clutch, an acquaintance of ours told her she’d never be able to move his car without stalling it (it had some dicky on-off twin plate clutch). Amanda took off without even a bunny hop. The look on the car owner’s face was priceless.
We’ve been through so much together. So many firsts. We’ve both matured alot too since knowing each other. (Well, I think I’ve matured :p ). Here’s to many more years, and more growth.