To Do List

Saw some guy on TV about a year ago talking about a book he'd written suggesting that everyone should make a list of things, little defining moments (like bungee jumping off the Eiffel Tower, or driving cross-country in a convertible), they want to do during their lives.

Good premise, bad execution ... I couldn't even get through reading the author's own "to do" list, and lost interest because his to-do's seemed pretty dull. Or at least they were too personal to him to have much impact on me ... stuff like walking alone on an Australian beach at sunrise, for example.

Limiting the list to adrenaline-surge experiences, this is what I've got at 7:23 AM, presented without regard to importance or urgency:

Fly the "Crazy Horse" P-51 Mustang.


I checked this one out after I got my private ticket and ended up balking at the price. But today an hour at the controls costs even more, something like $3,000.

Uh, think I'll pass. Maybe next time.

Solo the Atlantic in a Single-Engine Airplane
I talked to a small-plane ferry pilot once and came within a hair of getting him to let me ride along on his delivery of a Cessna twin to Europe.

He went on to tell me about the time he'd been grounded at the airport in Reykjavik, Iceland for several days because of weather, when suddenly a Cessna 152 came down through the clouds ... and somehow managed to land during a 5-minute lull in the nearly gale-force winds.


The guy had flown the 1100-pound airplane by himself ... with an extra gas tank where the right seat and luggage compartment used to be.

On July 6, 1994 Vicki Van Meter, age 12, became the youngest pilot to make a transatlantic flight. Vicki flew a Cessna 210.


Let's not dwell on that, and go to the next.

Drive A Sprint Car In A Dirt Track Race

Ok, this looks like some good stuff.

Sprint cars weigh 1100 pounds, have 84-inch wheelbases, 850 horsepower engines, get 1 mile-per-gallon of methanol and slide around dirt tracks at up to 140 mph.

When I was a kid sprint cars didn't have wings. Those big dumb-looking aluminum sheets add down-force to corner faster, and supposedly increase driver protection during roll-overs, but I never got used to how they look ... and wish they were illegal because they're so ugly:


Sarah Fisher started driving winged sprint cars at age 15, before moving to IndyCars and finally over to NASCAR.


Maybe racing dirt track sprint cars is unrealistic. But I'd at least like to be in the stands for the Knoxville Nationals.