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Hey, if we do a Cardboard float, I'll join the committee. Could we call it a wreck?
Stanford does not travel to Atlanta for football until 2028. In an ideal world that will coincide with Tech's homecoming. Tech has a history of declaring homecoming for a big conference opponent. It was #4 Miami last year, often was a top ranked Va Tech, etc. The Wreck Parade is something to see. Or at least it was. Like all those of us of a certain age, it no longer holds a candle to what it once was when we were young. Today: bicycle contraptions. Yesteryear: A very real and very true to the original replica of the Deathmobile. The DUs ran that one out to hearty applause my undergraduate years and I think when I was back five then ten years later with wife then kids in tow. It is an easy wreck to make. Just a car and some welding. One year they did cut the cake and did a nice job of it. Our national title year, someone drove a white Ford Bronco and ran an RC helicopter from it the whole route.
Our house had a nice run when I was there. One classic win and two fixed-body wins. Plus an all but the trophy with the greatest contraption of all time.
There were (and I assume still are) three classifications to enter.
1. Classic Car. That 1966 Lincoln Continental could be entered. The only rule is it needs to be more than 25 years old. Shoot, I could enter this year by just throwing the top down on my Honda S2K and rolling down Fowler. My sophomore (or junior) year we won because someone knew someone that had a 1926 Auburn Boattail Racer. I overheard one of the judges in the staging area laying eyes on the perfect restoration. "Oh, this one's over."
2. Fixed Body. That 1966 Lincoln Continental could be entered if it had the turret and teeth added. And some theme bling. "A vehicle which features a display designed and built by students and reflects the Homecoming theme. These vehicles are driven by machine power, and are most similar to parade floats. It may be towed by or attached to a car or other vehicle, or may be a car or other vehicle itself that is 70 percent covered in decorations. Allowed decorations include banners, pomp, streamers, etc as long as decorations adhere to the Entry Regulations above." So the key here, as we learned between my freshman and sophomore years, is reflect the Homecoming theme.
Freshman year we entered a VW Beetle, split in half and rejoined with a big spring we made out of steel pipe and angle iron. Super cool right? Nothing.
Sophomore year we took Bruce's car, beat the **** out of it, welded a cam to one of the rear wheels, took Jeff's car, beat the **** out of it, and built a steel A frame with a steel pipe pin to hold Jeff's car on top of Bruce's car and ran an angle between the cam on Bruce's car and the frame of Jeff's car, which had the wheels removed. Viola, a giant chomping monster. Having learned the previous year's lesson, we made a Duke Blue Devil out of chicken wire and used the Homecoming display leftover pomps to flesh it out. I made two sets of shark teeth out of rebar with white painted plywood inserts (and some dripping red blood of course). So we rolled down Fowler with a chicken wire Blue Devil being eaten to death by a car. Literally. By the time we passed the judging table, it was in shards, with blue pomps strewn behind us. I had the honor of riding in the bottom car holding the requisite dead man's switch. Jim was driving and Tom (a goddam pledge no less) rode in the top car. He bore the brunt of the champing action for the hour it took to run the route. First place! Then I raced back on foot to the contraption. More about that shortly.
Junior year, we still had the steel spring, so we drove up to Knoxville for the Tennessee game, picked up Alumni Pete's VW and drove it back in the pouring rain and once again split it in half. This time, since the theme was TropiTech or something like that, we painted it green camouflage and instead of a chicken wire Blue Devil, we used brown, green, and yellow pomps to make chicken wire palm trees. Only difference from freshman year were those stupid palm trees First place! Senior year we got lazy and ran it again with different graffiti, but they were on to us by then.
3. Contraption. "Similar to fixed body entries, these vehicles are designed and built by students and follow the Homecoming theme! However, these entries are complete human-powered, so creativity and engineering skills can easily be showcased!" Those ********! No wonder it's lame now.
Our contraption was not human powered. No, it was barely human controlled. Back in the day, the only rule for contraptions was no direct drive train. Freshman year I helped some of the torching and welding, but the night before the parade over a keg or seven when it was clear this was not much more than some assembled junk on the side of our house, Mark volunteered to stay in town over the summer and really take charge of it. Sophomore year, Mark kept his word. He was not only a ME, but a real mechanic. Our contraption was called "The Walker" and was modeled after those Star Wars killing machines. I do mean modeled. Mark had a working scale model, with two electric motors. Oh, the design was sound.
Imagine a machine welded from, uh, "surplus" structural steel wide flange beams (heavy wide flange beams) with each set of articulating legs powered by twin big block V-8s One was a Pontiac 421 ci Super Duty, the kind used in drag racing, the other I don't quite remember, but it too was big and badass loud, I remember that. Cooling water supplied to heavily modified radiators, with a full size enameled steel bathtub between engines, welded to the frame and situated so the center of mass worked. Yeah, this puppy was heavy. (Turns out to be our downfall.) With four pairs of dual wheels as feet, one pair could be steered, and we had eight hydraulic brakes, servo-controlled. One set of legs moved by giant pistons (like a train engine), while the back legs are braked. Then the front legs are braked, the rear breaks released, and the back end of the contraption catches up with the front. A giant caterpillar.
We worked like mothers to have it ready, sacrificing midterms. I was working on both cars. The Lamb Chops behind us had to give up on their wreck that year and adopted ours, which was great because they had some good welders and more importantly, the only way for us to get the wreck off property. Some lack of foresight there - super narrow driveway between retaining walls. At about 5 am on Saturday, we carefully pulled the Lambda Chi fence down and I kid you not, walked the contraption under power several blocks to the holding pen behind O'Keefe, where they now play volleyball. It was early, we were loud, and judging by the astonished onlookers, that was the winner. Hands down.
After running the chomper to finish and getting it back to the house, I had plenty of time to get to the parade start and watch the beast walk its way out onto the route. Loud and proud! Bruce (of donated car fame) was having the best moment of his young life. Screaming at the top of his adrenaline-fueled lungs. Mark and Bruce were the only two allowed on wreck, sitting in back to back captain chairs running each engine's governor, mostly to be stupid loud. A bunch of us hovered around like real yellowjackets, with fire extinguishers and gas cans, far more concerned about running out of fuel than putting anything out.
My god, this was the best wreck ever. Just need to take that left turn onto Fowler and gun her home for the win. Walking over in the morning, she worked like a beast, negotiating turns, curbs, uneven grass, anything in our way. But that last left was too much. Crack! What was that? Tie rod on the front pair of legs. We just lost the ability to steer. Another rule was that if the wreck was not completely under its own control, it was disqualified. So we all muscled her straight, roared both engines, scared little children while amazing the adults (and most of the little children), and she walked under her own steering-free twin V8 power, all 900 horses of it, past the judges to earn a spectacular DQ. I think the Fiji's stupid bowling ball powered contraption won that year and what gives? It sprayed bowling balls all over the place that had to be put back by pledge minions assigned that task. How is that different from a broken tie rod?
Then we fixed the Lambda Chi fence, went to the football game to hear our names called twice as winners, knowing that but for a tie rod and/or set of welds that just couldn't take the extra torque making that final left, it could have been a clean sweep. Duke always beat us in Homecoming back then, but I think I was passed out in the stands from the lack of sleep and overabundance of JD from whomever my date was.......Sarah.......who hid the flask. Still, the memories of people going nuts in the parade crowd watching several tons of American steel, pistons, and a big ole bathtub walk down Fowler on 8 old bald tires (so much screeching just operating those brakes), beats any old trophy that would just be stolen out of the house anyway.
I am a little pissed that they've done away with the last great Ramblin' Wreck Parade though.
![[Image: Deathmobile-dust.jpg]](https://static1.hotcarsimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Deathmobile-dust.jpg)
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