THE MAGIC ROPE

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If you're alone, you'll just have to muscle the vehicle along . . . but it's best if someone else can help by driving. When the cable is very taut and the auto is just starting to move, the driver should spin the wheels fast enough to help progress and reduce friction. (Don't do this, of course, if the car is simply digging itself in deeper.) When the machine moves forward, the cable will go slack, and the driver must then hit the brakes to keep the vehicle from sliding back while the winch operator catches up.

So much for the come-along. Which brings us to my favorite little-known and highly effective device: the magic rope. I met it myself back before I had the come-along, when Babe—my old three-quarter-ton pickup—maliciously put her left front and rear wheels into a muddy ditch a mile down an abandoned road. At the time I wasn't especially concerned, since nearby friends of mine had two four-wheel-drive Land Rovers. A few hours later, though, when one Rover pushing and the other pulling still hadn't budged ale Babe, I was getting worried. I felt pretty sure that a tow truck would do no good, even if I could get a driver to go back to where my pickup was bogged down . . . so I called Robbie, a local guy who has unstuck more vehicles than the Triple-A.

"Come and get my rope," Robbie told me when he'd heard my story.

"No rope is gonna get Babe outta there," I said, surprised that the expert would suggest anything so inappropriate to the direness of the situation.

"This one will, it's special," Robbie laughed . . . and, since I had nothing to lose, I went over to his place and picked up a contraption like the one shown in Fig. 2.

The key to this setup is the nylon rope, which doesn't jerk like a chain . . . but is elastic, like a rubber band. The result is that the towing vehicle can drive away from a stuck car or truck at some speed . . . and believe me, that helps. Why? Well, suppose you eased a truck up to a brick wall until the bumper touched, and then pushed. OK, now imagine hitting that same wall at 50 mph. The difference, of course, is momentum, and the springiness of nylon allows you to harness that energy.

To use the magic rope, be sure any tangled cords are untwisted, back the rescue truck up against the immobilized auto, and attach one end of the line. Then coil the remainder of the rope so it will feed smoothly, and fasten the other grab-hook to the towing vehicle. All that remains is to drive the already mobile machine away. With old Babe, the first try—at 5 mph—rocked her back and forth, and after the next run—at 10 mph—I was on my way home.

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