Subj: The Tony and Larry Show, Part 4
Date: 6/5/2001

The Tony and Larry Show, Part 4

Thursday March 8:
TD: Since we didn't arrive until 3 am this morning, we decided to sleep in a little later. I continued driving for a short time since it was still my tank of gas. I'm sure Larry had poisoned my mileage results with his driving on my tank last night after claiming I was a Corvair, you know, unsafe at any speed. We refill with 17.3 gallons yielding 25.63 mpg. (LG: Hey, no boasting here, I'm just thankful to be alive)

LG: This part of the trip was one of the most uneventful legs. It was pretty much smooth sailing and it was time for me to get 500+ miles on this tankful which would yield over 30 mpg. Tony was pretending to be nervous so that I would pull off and get gas before reaching 500 miles. I held off till I knew 500 miles would be a gimme and then pulled off at the next exit to get fuel. As I pulled up to the gas pump, for some reason I decided it wasn't an appropriate spot and drove around to another pump, which unfortunately put the filler cap to the high side. By the time I realized what had transpired, Tony had opened the cap and started filling. A squabble broke out about the angle of the car but did not deter Tony as he continued to pump fuel. The pump clicked off at 16.3 gallons which would have calculated to over 31 mpg, but Tony being in charge of the "official pump", continued to pump fuel. By squeezing the pump lever and pulling the nozzle slightly out each time it clicked off, he managed to get in another 13 clicks of gas which equated to another 6/10ths of a gallon into the tank and quickly put the cap on before it boiled out. He reached for his calculator and with a smile on his face he proclaimed, "It was a valiant try, but you fell short". With agitation in my face, I asked, "What do you mean?", to which he responded, "You only got 29.95 mpg". It was now Tony's turn to drive. I was sputtering how he started off with at least a gallon more in the tank then he should have, had the car been on level ground. He ignored all this and just drove with a smile claiming how he would get more miles than I did on my last tank. At first it seemed that he would be able to succeed with his boast, but then I felt what I had felt with all the other times he drove, a slight on and off with the throttle that earned him the nickname "Throttle Jockey".
(TD: I wasn't that bad, unless I was really tired)
(LG: Let the gas mileages speak for themselves)
(TD: OK, so Larry accelerates like an old lady, it's just too boring to accelerate so slowly in an NSX! so I accept my lower gas mileage as a trade off for more fun)
(LG: We are talking about holding constant speed, not acceleration)
(TD: But I clearly wasted lots of fuel during starts and passing -- it's just no fun to pass someone slowly)
(LG: Larry just shaking his head states it's time to move on.)

TD: I continued driving for a few more hours and we put up at the Comfort Inn in Bulls Gap, TN.

Friday March 9:
TD: This was another boring leg. Since we did no sightseeing for the last couple days, Larry asks if I've been in any caverns. (LG: If he can't fall off one, maybe he can get lost in one) I hadn't, so he suggested that we stop at Luray Caverns in Virginia. At Luray I enjoyed the tour through the caverns. I took pictures, as I did throughout the trip, to record the interesting features within the depths of the cavern. At the end of the cavern tour, we were taken to a car museum featuring horse drawn carriages to antique cars. After the antique cars there was a homemade fudge counter near the exit. I wanted to buy fudge for a chocolate lover at work and also some for myself, some of which I decided to share with Larry.

LG: When Tony handed me the bag of fudge, I thought what was left was my portion which I quickly ate. It tasted very good. Later on the road, Tony asked for another piece of fudge, which I responded, "Another piece, I ate all the fudge. Wasn't the rest mine?" Turns out that I ate 3/4 of the fudge and Tony only had a small piece. So I offered him a slice of his own dried pineapple. This did little to curb his desire for his fudge; I was still in the dog house.

We stopped for our last refill, did Tony make his 500 miles, did he get over 30 mpg? Somewhat. Sucking on fumes we limp into a gas station just short of 500 miles on the tank. He drives around the pumps a couple times to get 500.0 miles on the trip odometer. He pumped 17.8 gallons which yielded 28.09 mpg. So it seems Wonder Boy with his stuffed gas tank still can't get more miles then I get, or more gas mileage. (TD: Who the hell is Wonder Boy???)
After the fill up, I tell Tony he should "bring the car in" (to my home, the final destination), so he continues to drive instead of swapping after the refill.

TD: Just under 300 miles later we arrive at Larry's house and decide to service the car, then I will return home on Saturday. Friday night Larry graciously treats me to a Mobil 1 oil change including a genuine NSX oil filter! (LG: and don't forget the crush washer) As usual, Larry's projects take longer than anticipated. The oil change wasn't completed until Saturday afternoon. (LG: OK Tony, tell the rest of the story.)
Oh, did I forget to mention that the rear beam rod assembly was bent preventing easy access to the oil filter.

Saturday March 10:
TD: Larry removed the beam and brought it to a shop to press it back to its original shape, using Miled's bent rear beam rod as a guide. (PS. After he had also straightened that one)
While reassembling the car we noticed that one of the rear tires had a nail in it and both rear tires were now bald. Larry claims from my high speed throttle jockey driving. We washed the car and vacuumed as much of White Sands out of it as we could. I then left my NSX in Larry's trusted hands as I drove my Accord home. Of course this further enhanced his delusion that it was his car and not mine.

LG: The car had been here about a month before Tony was able to pick it up. I had become so accustomed to seeing another NSX in my garage, that when he came to pick it up and took my keys..... it was as if I went through another divorce and went through NSX withdrawal for two days.

LG: This concludes the Tony and Larry Show. We had a lot of fun doing this adventure together. I asked Tony what possessed him to ask me to join him, where prior to our tech session, we had only met at NSXPO2000. He responded he had no idea! (TD: in looking back, I think at the time I may have had some chemical imbalance, forced on by a lodged gas bubble, messing with my mind; or was it my turn in the barrel to give Peter and Miled a needed break from Larry. OK, which one of you is next to volunteer to baby-sit Larry for a week?! Maybe Aaron or Larry B? -- actually I think Larry and I struck up a good friendship during our New Year's Eve at Times Square adventure and our tech session on my car in January.)

But did it save Tony money?
TD: Depends how you figure it, total expense -- no; It cost about $100 more than if I had it transported. If you figure the fun and vacation (LG: and all the trinkets you bought) that went along with it ... then it was well worth the expense. The only scary part was how much we have in common and worst yet is how similar our thought patterns are. My saving grace is I just think about things, but Larry acts on them. (To approximately paraphrase Senator Kennedy's speech recounting what his brother Bobby had said: "I see things as they are and ask why, Larry dreams up things that never were and says Why not? I can do that!")

Larry G. and Tony D.

Luray Caverns
Luray Caverns
Luray Caverns
Luray Caverns
Horse Drawn Carriage
Antique car