Clipped a deer; apparently 97s are deer-resistant.

[The Goat]

Meant to post this last week. It would seem that the automotive gods are angry with me for considering selling my SVX. I was on my way to work last Saturday at about 5:30 a.m. I live off a very windy (read: "fun") road, but on this morning I was just remarkably tired, so I was cruising along at a very reasonable pace. As I round the last sharp corner, here's a deer on the side of the road just watching me go by - I'm thinking to myself, "This would suck, because I'm kinda tired. Nice deer. Stay!" She does.

I take it up to a reasonable 45-50 mph or the last open stretch of road before the main highway intersection, and I see another deer start across the road from left to right, about 50 feet in front of me. I get into the brakes HARD, and the deer keeps coming across...tires don't lock up, but chirp, and the dumbass deer insists on trying to stay in FRONT of my car, actually running across my path and WITH the car, trying to get around me...and I realize in about a half-second that this is going to end unpleasantly.

The deer ALMOST made it across. I caught it in the back right leg with the right side of my front bumper doing about 15-20 mph. Deer goes flying ass-over-teakettle into the bushes on the right-hand side of the road, landing awkwardly on its head and neck. I'm SURE it's dead or crippled. Nope! Deer hops up and scampers away. I'm relieved, then think, "Oh, man - the SVX *has* to be torn up, and I really can't afford a $1,000 deductible right now"...I pull off the road, get out...and there's not a scratch. No dent, no broken light, no scratches, nothing. I'm pretty sure of two things:

1) I was full on the brake pedal, so the nose of the car was probably very low...it flipped the deer up in the air. Probably minimized deer and car damage.

2) If I hadn't replaced the stock rotors and pads with slotted/drilled rotors and kevlar pads, I have a feeling the story would have ended differently - pretty sure the deer and I would have met about 10 mph faster and smack in the middle of my grille.