Sorry to vent to the masses who may/may not read this... and to those that probably could care less what I type here.

I was out enjoying a nice Michigan evening tonight (Saturday) with my cleaned up Neon. I had just installed my shift light (Raptor Performance.com) and was minding my own business, with quick starts and such to activate the light to see if I had spent my money wisely.

So as I sat on the infamous Woodward Ave. (do some research, it was one of the great hang outs in the muscle car era)... anyway, so I am sitting in traffic, 4 lanes wide of cars all stopped at a stop light. Mind you, I am minding my own business... tunes were up at a near ear splitting level and the windows rolled down to let some of that fresh 60 deg. air in while I waited for the light to go to that ever important shade of green and for the cars in front of me to begin the procession... I hear something... something just audible over the blaring yell of Sevendust. I hear it again and it clicks......

"Excuse me, excuse me" yells the women next to me as she is rolling down her window.
I look over confused and notice her eyes are fixed down on my car and specifically my rims/tires. My 1st thought is - I am about to answer a question about my new rims or some other such thing... but the tale continues...
"Why are you driving that import piece of sh*t!?" she blurts out with the slight stammer of someone who has had too much to drink for the evening...
I am stunned... taken back... the puzzled look on my face must have said it all...
I immediately bolt back with "It's a Dodge lady, it's made in Belvedire [sp], Illinois, it's not rice b!tch!"
She just blankly looked at me, I knew the words coming out of my mouth were taking longer to sink in than the ones she had thrown at me...
I continued - "if you're going to make fun of it, at least get the facts straight!"
Finally the wheel had begun to spin in her feabile ignorant mind and her slurred and I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I response was "well, it's still a Dodge, and that sucks"...
As the light turned green and I began to pull forward, still highly aggitated from her remarks - - the broad has the nerve to try and play nice by exclaiming "I was just messing with you, you looked like you could take it"....
The last words out of my mouth were "yeah, that's helpful"...

I ended my night of cruising early... I decided I didn't need any one else having their way with my already broken emotions...
It looks like the bad guys had won tonight...

sadly... this is far from the first time this has happened... and I mean far from it... you can only take so many "stupid neon", "stupid import ricer", "your car sucks" comments from people... at car shows... at cruise nights... and now just driving around on a nice Saturday night...

On the way home I had some jerk-off in an old Infinite Q45 or whatever those old early 90's Infinities were ride my bumper and try to aggrevate me... had I felt like filling out the insurance paperwork I am sure I would have brake-checked him and gave tonight a big middle finger...

sorry to rant... I'm just tired of hearing this ****... and yes, I know I shouldn't care what other people say... but let's see how you take it time and time again...

 

Yup, these cars can be a**-hole magnets. Seems as though people get mad when they realize someone else was smarter than them in buying a $21,000 rocket that will put cars that cost much more in the dust. So they do the only thing they know how to do, they dis the car and the driver. Then they go back and brag about it while waiting to appear on Jerry Springer........

Dusty

 

the real kicker... this woman was in a beat up Silverado... oh well... I feel a little better now at least... ha-ha...

 

You have to understand though, that any car that looks like rice is gonna catch ****....it dont matter if its a Dodge Neon or a riced out Honda.....

The problem is, the Neon was an established rice mobile before the SRT-4 came out....and it never changed people's minds because not many people outside of the Dodge/Racing scene know about it. I'm talking generalization. I'm sorry your getting bashed man, it just shows idiots and stupidity. You have to remember though, people back in the muscle car era got the greaser and loser names too.....so its not anything new.

Keep your head up....but also remember that not everyone feels that way. Stupid people make normal people view people in a different way. If all you see is a bunch of idiot fools riding around in 24" rimmed cars...your at some point going to view anyone in a car like that....regardless of who's behind the wheel.


I happen to like your car.....so **** on what they think!

 

Yup, you are what you drive....not what people THINK you drive.

Dusty

 

Okay, let's address what this really is, because this isn't about your car. This is a societal thing. Take this from someone who is older (not OLD, but older). LOL

In society, we have lost something over the past 20 years or so.....and that is civility. I don't know why it happened or exactly when it happened, but it is gone.

You see, it seems like everything now is a "notice me" society. People just scream for attention, and in doing so, they want to find any reason to tear someone else down. Your car was just the tool that they used to take a shot a you.

I see things now where people just berate people for their haircuts, they music, their clothing....doesn't matter, because people will use anything to say something to someone to try and make themselves feel better about who they are.

It's an "extreme" generation now. It's extreme sports....extreme fighting challenges....extreme thrills.....the more excess anything is, the more it is glorified. People feel, it seems, at liberty to just vocalize to everyone their displeasure at anything they see. In essence, loud, obnoxious, trash talking behavior is glorified in today's society.

I wouldn't take it personal, and I am convinced that it has nothing to do with your car. It has to do with who they are.

 

And unfortunately "they" make up approx. 90% of society. Man, I catch flak from the masses on a pretty regular basis about my so called rice. I just put it off on the fact that they are jealous of our SWEET SWEET RIDES!

 

I forgot to ask, how do you like that new shiftlight? Was it a pain to install?

 

i really cant relate with you on this one... ive been called numerous things because of my car and it really doesnt bother me at all. my only visual mods are wheels and big intercooler (which no one notices anyway) so its not rice in anyway.

ive been to a few multi car meets which were mostly hondas and mustangs and most of the honda guys talk mad ****. the last one i went to there was a group of 3 hondas and a v6 marrow when i was pulling in one yelled "look at the stupid f***ing neon". so after parking in a spot not around anyone i walked over there with my friend that came with me and went up to the guy that said it and asked "dont like neons?" and he gave me a smug look. so i looked at his car for a second and then was like "well you want to run?" and then his excuses started so i stoped him in the middle of his second excuse with "thats what i thought bitch" and moved on to the mustang group which were all pretty cool guys.

I was there two weeks before that and there was all hondas and a few acuras and one rt neon. i got there a little late and there were a bunch of people so i came up to the closest group and asked so whos the fastest guys out here? and the little high schooler pointed at a small cluster of crx's. so my friend and i made our way over there to see if they were cool and to my suprise they were douches.
me "so i hear you guys are the fastest of the group?"
the older guy "yep"
me "you want to run?"
him "what you driving?"
me "that neon"
him "na man i cant..."
so i ask the guy next to him with another red crx
me "what about you?"
he started laughing at me "run that neon? yeah for 300 bucks"
me "really?.... lets go"
him "i would but i dont have 2nd gear"
me "sounds like it will be an easy 300 for me then" at this point my friend is laughing at this little guy
before his friend could say anything a guy comes up from behind me and says "ill race you in my stock integra for 20 bucks. want to look under my hood?"
me "no lets go"

turned out he had a fully built gsr motor but it didnt matter much killed him really bad took his money and went back and all the guys were laughing at me because i guess hes the quickest of the group and they figured i had lost. the integra driver was to much of a puss to come back to the meeting spot and there reaction when i took the 20 out of my pocket was pretty good.

im not a money racer but i like to run everyonce in a while just for fun and really the only reason i typed all this was to show you my outlook on having this car. most people in my area dont know what it is and talk mad ****. so i take the **** and down play the car and if someone is full of them selves enough to run me then make them look like the biggest douches and hopefully there friends are there to see it.

 

good observations... I would tend to agree (though I am not "older") ha-ha

Winniep - I posted another thread on the shift light. For the Cliff Notes version - - yes, it went in pretty easy and works great!!! I just need to find out where I am making good power to set the light (now it's at 5600 rpm but I shift prolly closer to 5800-6000rpm buy the time my brain says "SHIFT STUPID!!")