My Brush With the Law

I was eighteen and I had a Mustang GT. I was not very responsible with it. As the saying goes, I drove it like I stole it. I got MANY a ticket in that car. I got a summer job just to pay for all the tickets I was getting. This is a story of which I am none too proud.

One day, my water pump blew so, being a tinkerer, I decided to pull the entire motor, clean it up, install a hotter cam, a new oil pump, some new aluminum cylinder heads, and I port matched the intake. Oh yeah, a new water pump too.

When it all went back together the car felt way stronger than it used to. It should've because the expensive combination I installed was designed for way more horsepower. I brought the car to Deer Park Avenue in Babylon and hung out with some friends there.

A friend of mine, who everyone called Lips because of his giant lips, had a modified late model Camaro. He always used to trash me and my Mustang but always in good fun. He was a likable guy despite being a complete asshole.

At about 2am, we were on the way home and he pulled up to me at a light on the southern "dark" side of DPA (a straight stretch of highway with no lights). We could see that there was no one for miles. He gave me the nod and revved his engine; I laughed at him. This being my new engine's maiden voyage, I wasn't thrilled about pushing it but my teenage g-lust took over and when the light turned green I feathered the throttle enough to take a commanding lead off the line. Plus he had beaten me pretty badly with my old motor so I had a vendetta.

Here's the parts I've unfortunately neglected to mention. One, my car had street slicks on it. Slicks are bald tires that are designed to get a very sticky bite on the pavement so you can launch really hard without spinning your tires. Two, my registration sticker had lapsed and I forgot to re-up it. Three, my exhaust was extremely loud and very illegal; no cats to speak of. Four, we were right next to a fire station that had a bunch of police cars parked in it.

This being the first time I launched my car with the re-built engine, I was pleasantly surprised with how fast it was. I kept a car length lead up to about 140mph when we both backed off. I heard a loud noise from under my hood and I immediately knew that the fan shroud had fallen off and the flex fan was grinding on it. I pulled over to the shoulder and before I could pop my hood, four police cars came flying up behind us. One officer pulled up next to me and said "DON'T GO ANYWHERE." He pulled over two of the people behind us that watched the race and they all boxed in Lips' Camaro. He had slightly pulled over to see if I was OK and congratulate my on my win but then started to try to run.

The cops were shot-out-of-a-cannon pissed. One of them was so worked up he came over to my car and just started tallying up every violation he could think of. He gave the people who were watching us four tickets each. He gave Lips four tickets. He gave me four tickets but wrote them out last and when he gave them to me he said, "My hand got tired so I won't nail you for the tints, the unsafe start, the radar detector, and the speeding. Get a ride from your buddy over there, you're not driving this car on my streets." When I asked why you would've thought I insulted his family. He screamformed me that my car was not safe and not registered. I got in Lips' car and we all went back to the parking lot where we were hanging out prior.

Despite them being so frothing mad, I stayed calm, apologetic, and respectful. I think, for some reason, it pissed them off more but that wasn't my intention. I knew I was in big trouble and I just wanted to avoid having a raging cop pop a blood vessel whilst mid-rant on my hands. Looking back, it really was kind of ridiculous and unprofessional how angry they were. They certainly got their point across though.

My friend Steve, the one who bought The Abomination from me, was also following us in a 1980 BMW he bought from my Dad. When he saw the police he floored it and kept going. The police left him alone because they had us. It's a good thing too because as far as I know, Steve didn't have a valid driver's license.

We waited in the parking lot lamenting our complete pwnage at the hands of the Suffolk County Police Department and examining our tickets for some kind of flaw for the better part of an hour. We went back to my car on the side of the road in Steve's BMW to see if there was anyone there. It was all by itself so I got in and high-tailed it out of Suffolk County before any more cops or a tow truck showed up.

We all pretty much got the same misdemeanor speed contest ticket. I got an unregistered vehicle ticket, a bald tire ticket, and a loud exhaust ticket. The one and only smart thing we did was we all hired the same awesome lawyer, Frank.

After many months of adjournments and nonsense, Frank managed to have all the tickets dropped to an unreasonable speed ticket. This was a three point speeding ticket with a $150 fine. The prosecutor was telling us we were facing a $3-4,000 fine and community service but it turned out that Frank was a friend of his. I never bothered to see if he was lying or not I just knew that I didn't want a misdemeanor on my record. The $600 it cost me in tire-mounting funds to arrive at this deal was more than worth it.

In the end, we were all really stupid but really lucky. I wish I could say I never sped on public highways after that but it wouldn't be true. I did, however, keep all my racing on the track where it belonged. Street racing is bad, mmmmk.