"... Flirtin' With Disaster"

"I'm travelin' down the road, and I'm flirtin' with disaster" - thank you, Molly Hatchet!

This is what I've been doing the past few weeks in my car. Lately I've had to take some trips of 200+ miles and would become bored. I found myself pretty wound up after spending an hour listening to Aerosmith, ZZ Top, Traveling Wilburry's, Eric Clapton, Molly and more. While on a four-lane, easy access road, a car passed me doing over 90 mph. Granted, I was doing 70, since the speed limit was 60 but, as if in a trance, I could feel myself pulling out, catching the car and tucking in behind it for the next 50 miles.

I did stay back a couple hundred feet or so, my theory being that a cop would catch the guy ahead of me in his radar first, and I'd be off, Scot-free. Now this isn't the first time I had done this. Actually, it really isn't all that uncommon. I once drove the 120 miles from Billings, MY to Sheridan, WY in under an hour. Granted, it was 2:00 a.m., the highway was as straight as an arrow and I was driving my cousins new Datsun. The speedometer was "broken", so I just settled into 5th gear, 5500 rpm, and away I went.

Back then Montana didn't enforce the Federal speed limit, and speeding, no matter what the speed, earned the driver a $25 fine for "wasting a natural resource". The danger then was not getting caught; it was losing control. As a side note, when driving that fast, when you see taillights ahead of you, you better get into the passing lane quickly ... they come upon you pretty quickly!

Yesterday, while driving to a meeting in the afternoon, I tried to pass a car that wouldn't let me pass. I bet you know what I'm talking about ... a real prick behind the wheel. We sped up, side by side, until we reached 110 mph. I signaled and prepared to turn left, while he had to quickly slow down due to a slower car in front of him. I looked at him and, with our windows rolled down, laughed hysterically. During this great big show of manhood, I had not a care in the world about what happened. Mania raised her ugly head, and her name was ... Mario Andretti"!

On my headstone they could have carved: "So Who's the Fast One Now, Eh?"