Just remembered this and though I would share. I was sitting at a lite and an older Cavalier with like 4 people in it, pull up beside me from behind to try and pass me before the 2 lanes merge to 1. The light turns green ( I have my GF in the car) they get the jump, cause I was looking over. I mashed the pedal, well the my car backfired thru the intake and almost cut out (at the time I hard a severly burnt plug wire, that I didn't know about) once the car got going again I shifted into 2nd and was flying by them. It was funny, cause they wanted to try and get in front of me, and killed me off the line after my car almost stalled and I flew by them. Just thought I would share.

 

Nice. My best firend has a 2002 Cavalier. He tried racing someone in a Neon with his Cavy and got stomped. Cavaliers are nothin' to brag about so I think those people in your story must have been drunk or something. As for the backfire I know what you mean the engine almost cuts out and it seems to happen at the worst of times.

 

Last month mss and I were coming back from a bar and I was driving his crappy 86 cavalier and some fruit in an 80's civic hatchback tried to race us. I only raced up to 55 and I beat him by like 4 or 5 lenghts. Which I couldn't understand because his cavalier is the slowest car I've ever driven next to my moms old K-car. Then we got caught at a light but we couldn't race the kid because there was a ford probe in front of us. This was our first chance to get a good look at the car. It had a huge fart tip, it was slammed to the ground with stock wheels, and had a 5" tach and shift light on the dash. The kid threw a few revs at the probe and when the light turned green the probe just crapped on the kid then to make matters worse we passed him too. So he pulled off the highway about 1/2 a mile later.

 

That's funny stuff, kinda like trying to race a trans am in a Taurus

 

I'll race a trans am in my taurus probably won't win but it's fun.