I was going to link to the old thread but I can't seem to find it now.
Last August, my girlfriend and I went camping for a week in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Hot Springs, NC. My mother had asked me to give her a call on one of our first nights there so she'd know we made the trip OK. Shortly after my girlfriend went to bed, I decided to head up to the payphone to call home. It was starting to rain a little bit, so I decided to drive the car up to the payphone so I could stay dry while using the phone (I had thrown back a 12-pack over the previous 5 hours, but figured that since it was 1am, and I was only driving the equivalent of 2 city blocks at no more than 10mph, I'd be fine).
As I was pulling alongside the payphone, a pair of headlights appeared out of nowhere right behind me. The guy had his high beams on, so I could only tell that it was a large truck, but couldn't make out the color or the model. It kinda creeped me out, so I decided to drive back into the camp, but the truck followed me. I figured (hoped) that he was just going to pull into one of the campsites, so I followed the road a half-mile to the turn-around at the end, but he stayed behind me with his brights on.
I kept going back towards the entrance, and as I was debating whether or not I should head out onto the public roads (keep in mind I was pretty well lit at the time) when the truck gunned its engine and almost rear-ended me. I sped up and turned out onto the main road through Hot Springs, while the truck kept getting closer to my bumper. On the way in the day before, we passed the nearest police station in Newport, TN, so I figured I'd drive there and hope they didn't arrest me for DUI.
Unfortunately, because I was nervous as hell, and driving way to fast for conditions (both road and sobriety) to keep from being rear-ended, I missed the turn and instead continued onto one of the access roads into the Pisgah National Forest. This was a desolate, winding, two-lane road, with no buildings or intersections for over 30 miles. I had no map, no cellphone service, no weapons, and knew nothing about the area. Oops...
For the next half-hour, I drove as fast as I possibly could, occasionally taking 15 mph turns as fast as 40 mph (on a wet road, in a Dodge Neon). Sometimes the truck behind me would drop back a little, but for the most part he stayed less than a car-length behind me, and occasionally tried to rear-end me. Right before the sharpest curve I saw on the road, he went into the other lane and pulled the front of his truck alongside me as if he was going to try to run me off the road. I tore around the curve as fast as I could (If anyone had been around, they probably would have heard the squeal of the tires a mile away...), hit a long straight part of the road, and just gunned it.
He finally backed off a little, as I accellerated close to 100 mph, and then dissappeared a few minutes later. I slowed down to a more sane speed, and went another 5 miles or so before I felt safe enough to stop. I got out of the car, puked all over the road, and searched the trunk for anything to use as a weapon but didn't find anything. I finally got brave enough to turn around (I had no map and knew I'd be driving all night unless I went back the way I came).
Luckily, I didn't see him again on the way back. When I got back to the campground, I stopped at the payphone to call 911, and then went back to the cabin.
I have no idea why that guy started chasing me; whether it was kids taking a game way too far, nearly a
Deliverance-style mountain party, just some crazy redneck, or whatever. I'm just lucky he finally gave up and that I didn't kill myself driving drunk on wet mountains roads at sometimes more than triple the speed limit.
I had a bad feeling from the start, and I happened to have my camera in the car, so I got it handy as soon as I first turned back into the campground in case I had the chance to snap a picture of him or his car. I tried to take one of his truck while he was chasing me, but the glare from the headlights is all that showed up. The one that did come out doesn't show much, but it's funny as hell to tell the story and then mention that I have a picture
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