OH, another story of VX awesomeness that I just remembered.

A couple of years ago I was trucking down the highway on my way to work, moving with the flow of traffic in the left hand lane. About a half mile ahead, at an intersection, the light turned red and I saw everyone's brake lights start to come on. I lifted off of the gas to let the VX coast and I was getting ready to start braking when I noticed most of the cars in front of me start to fish tail and swerve all over the road. I was thinking that there cars where just not as awesome as the VX and that Vicki (the VX) would have NO problem stopping where their inferior modes of transportation were floundering.

Um, I was wrong. When I stepped lightly on the brake peddle nothing happened; no slowing down, no nothing. I stepped on the peddle harder and I still wasn't slowing down, but the rear end did start to swing around to the left (drivers side). It really surprised me because the anti-lock wasn't kicking in; the VX was just sliding along at about 40 mph. Nothing like a little black ice to ruin your day. As Vicki's was starting to spin almost completely sideways, I could see the rear end of the car at the stop light coming up pretty fast. Luckily there really wasn't anyone around me, and I saw some snow on the far right hand shoulder, so I checked the right lane really quickly (out the passenger side window, I might add, since I was sliding sideways) and GUNNED it. The TOD kicked in, and all four wheels started spinning and finding a little bit of grip on the ice. Vicki shot forward across the right hand lane, narrowly missing the car at the stop light in the left hand lane, and headed for the shoulder. As I was crossing the right hand lane I turned to the left to straighten Vicki out, and we where almost back to straight when we hit the shoulder. I know it might sound strange to some, but depending on your tires, there is much more grip in snow than on ice. Once we made it to the shoulder I hit the brakes and brought Vicki to a nice safe stop.

Needless to say I had to sit on the shoulder for a little bit to gather my nerves back up and wait for the shaking to subside. I also needed to change my shorts....OK, not really, but it was probably close.

I just know that without the TOD, the power in the engine, and the snappy handling of the VX I would have plowed into the car in front of me.

Long live the VX!!