Deceiving The Beast

*First run in late May 2008; since it seemed a good precursor for the last tornado chase season, here we go agin...*

Note: The first storm chase opportunity came sooner than expected, and defied conventional logic: big tornadoes moving N/NW, close to the foothills. I may have gotten one funnel cloud in decay phase, nothing more :( The storms did better, direct hitting Windsor, CO and Parkersburg, IA. Both of which will recover; strong as a tornado can be, the human spirit's pretty feisty in small town America. Now on to the relevance of the photos...

The first thing one will notice here is the structural, aerodynamic, and philosophical design differences in the two photos. Both vehicles are not of one mission: one is a multi-purpose vehicle, with just one of it's various missions to pursue a good tornado photo*. The other is geared solely toward that objective.

From there, the specifics diverge a tad.

One vehicle is roughly 2200 lbs; the other is 16,500. One vehicle is front-wheel drive; the others is ten-wheel drive. One vehicle cost the owner $14,000; the other is costing it's owner(s) several hundred thousand dollars. One runs on regular unleaded gas; the other runs on diesel. One gets 35 mph on the open road, and even better with a 100 plus mph tail wind; the other gets 3 gallons to the mile...maybe.

One is equipped with all the latest nothing for storm chasing, save for the driver's car radio, fallible eyes, and highly questionable judgement; the other is equipped with all the latest meteorological tracking features, including wind-and-roll-resistant cupholders for four.

One can outrun any almost any storm that exists if the driver gets some sense before it's too late; the other has no intention of doing so. One plans to get close, shoot and scoot; the other...plans to do what the owner(s) claim has never been done before: photograph a tornado from the inside.

*snort*

Sorry, dudes: Dorothy and Toto already claim that distinction; ever seen The Wizard of Oz?

Houses, witches on bikes and brooms, flying monkeys...we already know some of the really weird crap that inhabits the inside of a tornado. Even Twister has been there and done that, as Bill Paxson and Helen Hunt got the ultimate blow*** from a CGI F-5.

Several hundred thousand dollars, dudes, and you've already been trumped.

Of course, if my angle of pursuit is incorrect, or my positioning in a storm's path is inopportune, I may beat the Tornado Tank to the 'perfect photo op'. With that possibility in mind -- despite earlier claims of being able to outrun trouble -- I decided to explore adopting some of the philosophy of the owners of the Tornado Tank, and figured a little 'armoring up' wasn't a bad ideer.

So I tried an experiment on my five year old Ion (*2010 makes it now seven years old*) : I lovingly layered it under sheets of kevlar armor. I reckoned that ten layers would give it sufficient protection in the event of a tornadic direct hit.

Initial tests were proof positive: the car was relatively impervious. And totally immobilized.

Unless I want to have a U-Haul truck tote my armor plating to east of Elizabeth, CO, and spend a couple hours or so strapping and fitting it on, and then just hoping that a tornado might form up and run right over the top of me. Which it would have to do once I'm armored up, because the car ain't goin' nowhere with all that armor on.

And the odds are almost as good of a tornado picking where I sit completely immobilized, as my buying a winning*** powerball ticket.

Then it hit me****: the most important -- and historically crucial -- difference between my storm chase vehicle and the vastly more technological and pricey version pictured above, would be in the disguise I give my armoring job: I make my weighted-down Saturn look like a mobile home.

*TOING*

I'm guaranteed to bring every tornado within a supercell thunderstorm down on me with that ploy; the Tornado Tank doesn't look enough like a trailer home to get much more than a passing "hmpft!" from a meandering leviathan. But an Ion, dressed out to resemble a double-wide on a wind-swept plain, with a nice bullseye drawn on it's roof, is a mesocyclonic magnet.

The end of May and June are just around the corner, and I might just beat the Tornado Tank to the punch.

Long as I have a long, downhill head start...or my Ion's disguise fools a mischievous tornado into a false sense of eagerly anticipated trailer park mayhem. Stay tuned...

* since G(overnment)M killed the Saturn product line, this won't be a future advertisement

** this is sometimes a family-friendly blog, I hadda remind myself...

*** well actually, I think the tornado's got a better chance

**** with my luck, prolly not...