A real-life "Deadman's Curve"......That I came back from!

We've all heard the "Jan & Dean" Classic-"Deadman's Curve". "I was cruisin' in my Stingray late one night, when an XKE pulled up at the light." "He rolled down the window of his shiny new Jag, and challenged me then and there to a drag." "I said your on buddy, but if you got the nerve, let's race all the way to Deadman's Curve."  The next verse is the 'Vette driver talking to the emergency room doctor, and the Chorus-"Deadman's Curve is no place to play, you won't come back from deadman's curve." We all know a dangerous country road where a lot of people have lost their lives in car wrecks, so we can all relate to this song. I know I can. My grandmother lived her whole life in Lynchburg, Missouri which is about 30 miles from Fort Leonard Wood, and about 90 miles from Springfield. The only road through there is highway 32 which was built back in the thirties when Roosevelt unveiled the new deal and built many highways to stimulate jobs. I don't think 32 has ever been updated. If you want to play Ricky Roadracer, it's Disneyland with it's sweeping curves, rolling hills and whoop-de-doos. Except when some old farmer pulls his tractor out of a blind spot in front of someone in a sports car going 90, or you get an old lady doing 30 on the wrong side of the road. Anyhow, the town Doctor whose last name was Tilley killed himself one night when his Model A-not exactly a g-machine for cornering went off the road on the last sweeping turn into Lynchburg about 1937. Until she died in 1991, every single time we rounded that curve, my grandmother would have to comment-"That's where Doc Tilley got killed." "You better slow down." It became quite a running joke in the family. However, This "Deadman's Curve" had quite a history. I remember my uncle's car sliding off the road and ending up in the ditch when I was about 8 years old, and my dad and my uncle pushing my uncle's 1970 Charger R/T out of the ditch and making me swear that I would never, ever, tell grandma, Aunt Rosalie or my mother that they had been hot-rodding and went off the road on that particular curve, because they didn't want to hear about it for the rest of their lives. I also remember the awesome traction that a 1966 Olds Toronado has with it's front-drive transaxle. The Toro didn't have enough grip to keep my dad and his cousin on the road and out of the ditch, but it had enough traction to pull itself out under it's own power. Once again, I was sworn to secrecy about "Deadman's Curve". I had cheated the reaper twice, and I didn't even have a driver's liscence yet. 30 miles the other way is the town of Lebanon where I lived for a while. The high-school driver's ed teacher used to drag the class to a junkyard in Lebanon to see what was left of a 1969 Trans-Am whose driver joined Doc Tilley in the afterlife. Numerous MGs, Triumphs and Porsches also graced this junkyard as vitims of this notorious turn. My cousin even totalled his '71 Mach 1 Mustang there, although he wouldn't admit that to our grandmother, or my aunt. However, in the summer of 1978, my cousins and I beat this legendary curve. We figured out that over the years, hot-rodders from the '40's to the '70's had been hauling ass either from Lebanon, or coming the other way from Fort Leonard Wood. That's 29 miles in either direction. Whether bias-plys, or later radials, their tires were way overheated by the time they hit this legendary hairpin, and no matter how good a driver they were, they'd lose it because the tires would act like they were on ice. We resolved to try it on cold tires. My one cousin got his 1970 "Plum Crazy" 383 Challenger R/T and the other one got his 1970 Firebird Formula 400, and with me riding shotgun in the Firebird first and then the Challenger to watch the speedos, decided to see just how fast we could go around this curve on tires that weren't overheated. Sorry, Mopar guys the Firebird went faster, although both went through 3 times at high speed solid as a rock. The 4th time our tires started to let loose. So we went home and got my aunt's brand-new 1978 WS6 Trans-Am, and it went faster than both of them, obviously because of the excellent WS6 suspension and brand-new tires. As esctatic as we were about this scientific victory, we couldn't tell anyone because we'd have to admit that ( A ) We stole my aunt's T/A without permission and ( B ) were screwing around on the deadliest piece of road in the state. My cousins and I still talk occasionally, and we want to try this experiment again in a Z06 'Vette, or a Mustang GT or a Mazda RX8 or some other sports car with modern, ZR-rated performance tires. I know my one cousin has a Porsche 911. If we ever have this re-union, I'll bet as we burn through there at triple-digit speeds, I bet we see old Doc Tilley giving us a thumbs up. And hear our grandmother screaming at us to slow down. Mastermind