These days, especially if you live in rural areas like myself, you see snowmobiles zoom by at breakneck speeds.

Why? There's a thrill about it.

I was at an area mall after Christmas where a bungee device had kids flipping around in the air. I wanted to try it but wife and daughter said no. It would have been a thrill.

I remember sledriding on the hill leading down to the lake at Conneaut Township Park. Sled and myself separated after the first big hill but I landed rather hard on soft snow. It took me a few seconds to realize I still have feelings in arms and legs.

Why did I do it? For the thrill.

Heck, even Bill Wyman, former bassist with the Rolling Stones, released a CD a few years ago called “Just For A Thrill.”

Getting those thrills can be expensive (the mall ride or a snowmobile) or just dangerous. Also, if you don't like Bill Wyman, his CD won't give you a thrill anyway.

Let me tell you about my new way to get a thrill. I can only do it every four or five months, but it works.

I call it Extreme Gasoline Savings. It is not for the faint of heart.

It all starts with some heavy holiday shopping. Before buying many gifts at various stores, we stopped at Giant Eagle supermarket to buy gift cards. The cards are recorded on our Giant Eagle account, offering us increasingly more off the price of a gallon of gasoline at the supermarket's Get Go stations.

This month we discovered we had better than $4 off on a gallon of gasoline and some of that discount would expire by Feb. 1. Since gasoline mercifully hasn't hit $4 a gallon again, that meant a tank of gasoline for free.

Well, we won't let that expire.

This is where Extreme Gasoline Savings comes in. During summer, I can fill the gas can for the mower as well as the car with the free or reduced Get Go gas.

But this time of year, the mower doesn't get much use and I don't own a thrill-seeking snowmobile that needs gasoline.

That left me getting the most out of my fillup by making sure the car was as empty as possible.

This is where the thrill part comes in. The closest service station to my house is in the Saybrook Plaza, about 14 miles away and three miles from the Star Beacon.

Leaving work one day, I noticed the gas tank needle was still very visible above the empty mark. No, that would not do. I needed a dryer tank.

So I drove home to south Conneaut.

The next day meant a visit with my pals at the Animal Protective League in Kingsville, a 14-mile round trip. After leaving the APL, my gasoline tank was BELOW the empty mark. Now I wanted a thrill, but I didn't want a guarantee of running out of gasoline on I-90 and sitting there an hour for AAA to show up.

So before going home to shower and eat, I stopped at one of those service stations in Kingsville and got a whopping $1.20 worth of gasoline, figuring the extra 20 cents will assure that after I left my home for work, I would make it to Get Go.

So after getting ready for work and exchanging sweats for a dress shirt and tie, I pulled out of the garage to notice a yellow light at the fuel gauge. I had only seen the light once before in the eight years I've owned the car. It meant I was dangerously low on fuel despite the service station visit.

Crap!

I wanted a nearly empty tank when I got to Get Go, not an empty one on the way. So it was back to the service stations in Kingsville. I was smart. I bought $1 worth of gasoline, but this time at a different station. It got me. .44 of a gallon.

Then I discovered something I truly had not thought about. Putting $1 worth of gas in your tank is almost a worthless gesture. It didn't even take the yellow light off my fuel gauge, not for a second.

In a short span of time I put $2.20 worth of gasoline in my car and my reward was a yellow light saying, "Buddy, get to a service station."

So I took a breath, headed back onto I-90 in Kingsville, bound for Get Go. The yellow light seemingly grew brighter. The gauge needle went lower and lower below empty. I got off at the first Ashtabula exit onto Route 11 to Route 20. There I waited and waited for the light to turn green, staring over at Lowe's. Turn green because I'm yellow, I thought.

Then I continued the long haul down Route 20 to Saybrook. Were there always this many lights? Did they add some? Is that the Saybrook Plaza on the left? No, I hadn't even passed Pizza Hut yet!

Finally, I could see the Get Go sign. The gas gauge so low it could win a limbo contest. At least with the station within eyesight, if I ran out of gasoline, I could push the car.

It reminded me of an old Buster Keaton commercial I saw on his DVD set. Filmed in the 60s, Keaton grabbed the gas pump nozzle and stretched it like a mile away to pump gasoline from where his car ran out of fuel. The commercial was for Pure gasoline, by the way.

But soon I was at the pump. I was so excited, I stepped on the gasoline, but was in fifth gear and the car stalled. .

The car started and I inched to the pump. I started pumping. I didn't skimp with the experience. I cleaned my front and back windows with Get Go cleaning solution, too.

When the pump finally shut off and I eked out those final, precious drops, I discovered I arrived at the pumps with from two-tenths to just over a gallon of gasoline left in the car. (I'm still not certain how much gasoline my car holds and different Web sites give different amounts.)

I prefer to think it was the two-tenths of a gallon.

The idea is more thrilling.

Lebzelter is special sections editor. E-mail him at bobleb@starbeacon.com. Read past columns at bobleb@starbeacon.com.