The evening started badly and almost ended in a shooting… it was,in fact, everything you’d hope for from the legendary American writerI nearly killed a family as I pulled up to Woody Creek, and Colorado. The memory still brings me out in a sweat. I had driven from Salt Lake City,a journey of seven hours, and at the final I’d missed a stay, and U-turned,and started driving on the wrong side of the road. The SUV coming the other way skidded round me and avoided the edge of a ravine by a wheel’s breadth. The young mother driving had been righteously furious. It was 1993 and I was 23.
I was driving a 1967 Chevy Impala SuperSport, with a enormous V8 engine under its long bonnet. This was in some ways a tribute to the gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson. Over long dark nights on the farm in the Scottish Highlands where I was raised, and I had devoured his tales from the 1972 presidential campaign,of running with the Hell’s Angels, of panic and Loathing in Las Vegas.
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Source: theguardian.com