CODY - The breakfast talk here this week hasn't focused much on the Hells Angels, but rather on the scores of police officers their presence brought, and the number of tickets those imports have handed to cars with County 11 license plates.

Tales of citations and stops for going 3 mph over, 3 mph under, driving with a cracked window and more permeated conversation after conversation.

But the car least likely to get ticketed this week just turned left into the Buffalo Bill Historical Center without signaling, and idled in a handicap spot after a Hells Angels member flagged it down.

"He wanted to ride," said Jim Facinelli, the driver.

On Wednesday night, the car did donuts in the dirt as a man wearing a bright orange state penitentiary jumpsuit clung to the hood. Another wearing neon green zebra-striped pants and a oversized foam cowboy hat held tight from the roof.

As of Thursday, police had issued no tickets to the cherry red 1976 Cadillac Eldorado, the one with the steer horns on the front and the PA system in the back. The one that goes around Cody for five hours a day, petitioning tourists to head on over to the Cody Nite Rodeo.

The biker who wanted a ride could have one, Facinelli said, though his Hells Angels buddies said they had to go.

"We'll ride later," he promised.

Facinelli, a 37-year member of the Cody Nite Rodeo's board, volunteered to take the wheel of the "Mo" Betta Rodeo Co.'s prized promotional possession after several years away from the job. He threatened to quit last summer if they didn't fix the air conditioning.

The owners granted his request, and now he lolls down Main Street at a pedestrian's pace.

"The locals don't like it 'cause it drives too slow," admitted rodeo clown Timber Tuckness, who took the reins earlier this week.

But it sells tickets. Facinelli guessed people take about 500 pictures of it a day. He gives lifts to anyone who asks, as long as they can muscle open the ornery passenger-side door.

But it runs good, he said, as long as you give it a couple of quarts of Penzoil every week.

"Oh, it's a honey of a car," he said. "And the gals, my God."

The car speakers this week trickled old-timey country music from a Dan Roberts CD. The tunes ambled at a hop-along pace. So did the Eldorado.

Facinelli touted some local high school rodeo riders - he retired after 40-plus years teaching agricultural studies at Cody High School - as he moseyed back downtown from a $65.03 trip to the gas pump. The speedometer read 21 in a 35 zone. A barge of a Crown Victoria passed him in the right lane.

"The locals, they get so mad when they're behind you," he said.

A couple hundred police officers haven't stopped the Eldorado's routine - just everybody else's. Facinelli said one of the Nite Rodeo cowboys got pulled over for going 3 mph under the limit. Another, Tuckness said, received a ticket for driving a Missouri-plated vehicle while working in the state of Wyoming.

Still, the Eldorado drags through downtown at 14 miles below the speed limit.

"The world-famous Cody Nite Rodeo," Facinelli said plaintively through a microphone wired to the sound system. "Ninety nights of rodeo in the Cody country. Rodeo action, folks, right here in Cody, Wyoming."

An officer who'd pulled over a pickup on Eighth Street pointed a demonstrative "slow down" finger down at the concrete as a biker passed. To the Eldorado, squad car drivers lift index fingers off their steering wheels, friendly hellos.

"So far I haven't had anybody bother the car," Facinelli said.

On Thursday, the announcement from the police spokesman said the law enforcement presence, at the request of numerous citizens' comments, would drop 50 percent.

And if the lower numbers don't bring comfort to the town's drivers, Facinelli advertised a potential release for some.

To the Hells Angels and the other downtown tourists, he spoke of a potential biker barrel-riding contest to take place Thursday night.

"Now they can go as fast as they want," he said.