the crash

I used to be the biggest racer when driving anywhere up until last year summer. Every day my friends, Chris and Enrique (a.k.a. Crack), and I would look for something to do since we didn’t have school yet, and none of us really had a job yet. We would go to the beach sometimes but that got boring after a while. So one afternoon while we were looking for stuff to do, we decided to go to the mall. Since we had gone to the Ventura mall so many times we thought it’d be best to try going to the Thousand Oaks mall. Since it was going to be a long drive, Chris and I decided to invite our girlfriends, so it wouldn’t be that boring and also so it would be more people. We also invited Chris’s sister, Jessica, and her boyfriend, Jonney. After Chris picked up his girlfriend, Lily, and Jessica and Jonney, they met up with me and my girlfriend, Monique, as well as Crack (always the spare tire in our crew) at my house. 

Once everyone was together we arranged who was going in whose car, depending on the weight the car could carry, as well as the performance the cars made on the roads we were going to take. It ended up being Crack in his own car, Chris and Lily in Chris’s car, and me, my girlfriend, Jessica and Jonney in my car. Thus we began our trip to the Thousand Oaks mall.

My friends and I have always had a passion for cars and speed; we like to live the fast life. So since we were going to the mall we thought taking a short cut through the back roads would not only be fast, but fun as well. We had been through the back roads once before so I felt pretty confident about speeding through the little streets and tight turns in between the mountains. Since we had been through these roads before, we also knew that hardly any cars passed through there, and the sun was out, so these things gave us a good advantage. The whole way there we began speeding and passing each other. My friends and I kept going on opposite lanes to try to get next to each other. We kept a steady pace because we just wanted to get there fast.

 Finally, after a good half an hour drive, we arrived to the mall. We wondered through the stores looking at random things we didn’t need in order to pass the time. After we got bored of the stores we went outside of the mall where they have the movie theater. After staring at the movies that were going to be playing that night for a good two minutes I asked everyone if anyone was up for staying to watch a movie. By this time it was around 8pm or 9pm so everyone was tired, and since we still had the drive back home we all decided it was best to go home and get some rest for the next day.

On the way home we began speeding through the long stretches of roads to get to the mountain side short cut, as we like to call it. I led the way on the way back with Monique, Jessica, and Jonney in my car and the rest following in their own cars. Unlike on the way to the mall, it seemed to be as dark as midnight, so it made it harder to see the roads and twice as thrilling to drive on.

Once we got on the same stretch of mountain as we had earlier in the day, we couldn’t see anything anywhere. The guys and I thought it would be kind of fun to see who could race down the mountains the fastest. With the little moon-light that shun upon the trees around and on the cold dark mountains I saw a few turns and drops but this did not make me slow down. As we approached the first drop and turn I could feel my heart racing from the rush that I was getting. It was better than the thrill that you get inside your stomach on a roller coaster. I could also hear everyone in my car yelling at me that we were probably going beyond the speed limit. I kept ignoring them because of the adrenaline that had kicked in; it seemed like too much fun for me to just stop. Right after about the first two turns I could hear Monique telling me to kick back and slow down. I kept telling her that we were going the limit, but she wasn’t dumb.

Going towards the last turn I saw the great opportunity to slide the car at a great speed, so I took my chances. It was a perfect turn, really steep and sharp. I turned on my high beams that way I would be able to get the best view of the dark road. I sped up without really thinking “What if I crash and someone gets hurt?” or any of that.  As I began my last enjoyable slide I realized that with the speed that I was traveling and the sharpness the small turn was, I wouldn’t make it. I tried slowing the car a bit but before I knew it the car was too close to the right shoulder of the lane, where usually there is either gravel or dirt. I didn’t want the brakes to lock up on me so I didn’t press on the brake all the way, but knowing I was too close the shoulder, without thinking about the consequences, I hit the brakes all the way causing us to skid down the turn. This is when I started thinking “We’re about to roll off of the mountain!” luckily we were saved by a guardrail.  

My friends behind me saw what had happened, and like any other person that sees a crash, they pulled over. First, we made sure that everyone was safe. Then, after looking at the car a bit, even though some people were scared of driving back, we decided it was best to drive home and check out the damage there.

When we got to my house everyone immediately got off the cars and came to check out mine. My dad saw us all from the window so he too came outside to see what was going on. He already knew how I drove at time so he got mad when he saw the car. “You were racing and driving dumb again like always weren’t you!?” he said to me. I responded with an excuse so he wouldn’t be as mad, “No, I was barely going five miles over the speed limit.”

In the morning when the sun was shining I looked at my car to see how badly I damaged it. As I looked at the broken headlight, scratched bumper and destroyed fender, I thought to myself, “This is going to cost a lot.” The car had some frame damage along with a crooked hood. That same day a few hours later I called up a buddy of mine to see what we could do about the damage. We ended up taking part of the car apart, and we got the fender off to fix along with the bumper. The headlights got replaced because one was broken and I didn’t like the fact that one light would be new and the other one old. After making my car look decent enough to drive, and seeing how scared everyone was, I decided it’d be best to play it safe on the roads from now on.