Students with automotive skills

Here are students who can do cool stuff with cars. Include good stories to illustrate.

Drive Stick Shift

Evan Miller (maniacally)

Daniel Rooney (erotically)

Brendan Dougherty (smooth as shit out of a duck's ass)

Joe Shoer '06 (that's what she said)

Katie Montgomery (could drive anything from a '82 Toyota Tercel to a forklift, or so she believes)

Jessica Chung (She learned in a week.)

Samantha Peterson (automatics are for women)

Janey Waney Lee (She doesn't even need to say anything.)

Leah Joy Weintraub (In her other life, she actually is a race car driver.) (So she has problems making right turns.)

Lucy Cox-Chapman(Worse than her brother)

Jay Cox-Chapman(Better than his sister)

Helena Harnik (I have two driving licenses, one for each side of the road. Yeah that's right- I can use either hand to shift. That makes me 2x more stick-savvy than everyone else)

Ronit Bhattacharyya '07 (Only ever driven stick shift; now I just wish I could drive on the right side of the road)

Anne Royston '08 (can shift from both driver's and passenger's seat; working on backseat)

Matthew Earle '07 (Double-clutch downshifts saves wear on synchros, but may have caused the expensive timing chain misalignment he just had fixed)

Travis Vachon (Including sketchy old truck clutches)

Clara Hard (West Coast style)

Nick Colella (Has to watch out for moose)

Drive Really Fast In Reverse

Danny Fischler once pulled a k-turn, maxing at around 20mph, across the width of a freeway entrance. With Becky frickin' Burditt in the back seat. Ca-raaaaaazy.

Sweet Jumps

David Rodriguez likes to go as fast as he can when he sees speed bumps and likes to think he gets an inch or two of air in his 2-ton SUV every time.

Change a Tire

David Rodriguez '06 has changed more than his fair share of tires and learned that salt+rust will effectively glue a wheel onto the axle. Solution? Wedge the flat edge of your hubcap-removal tool into the jammed area and whack the crap out of it with a hammer. Eventually, if you're lucky, that wheel will pop right off.

Jumpstart a Car

David Rodriguez '06 has also had his fair share of car jumpstarts and knows not to connect the black plug to red and red plug to black. If you do, you will blow the battery fuse in your fusebox and burn out some expensive component in your car. Through his learning processes, he found just how costly it is to replace the stock amp that powers your stereo.

Jonathan Landsman (who's been zapped)

Leah Joy Weintraub (but only if you ask nicely)

Travis Vachon

Parallel Park

Jonathan Landsman, native New Yorker, has parked in spots so tight that getting in and out depended on using room provided by nudging cars parked in front and behind, counting on the flexibility of their shocks. His record in Williamstown was set when moving into his Morgan East room for the Summer of 2004, when he parked at the top of Spring Street, leaving enough room on either end of the car to fit one finger, but not two.

David Rodriguez is also a native New Yorker and often takes it upon himself to giggle at the non-city folk that have such a tough time parking in huge spots on Spring Street.

Get Parking Tickets

Chris St.Cyr (5 tickets and the infamous car boot to the front tire in first two months here as a freshman)

Evan Miller (6 in as many days)

Jonathan Landsman '05 two in three days in Queens, NYC. Both while at the vehicle, one while inside it.

David Rodriguez accidentally left car parked illegally outside of Mission for days to find 4 tickets upon his return.

Lucy Cox-Chapman forgot that her car was parked at the end of Spring St. for four days and found 3 tickets when she finally remembered.

Get Speeding Tickets

David Rodriguez (2 tickets, 88 in a 55 in Virginia and 91 in a 65 in New Jersey--cut down to 84 by the nice state trooper--within a month)

Matthew Earle ($305 on I-87 south of Plattsburgh for 88, that they know about, in a 65)