One night the two of us were heading up Evergreen Way in Everett. It was on the main drag at about two in the morning; traffic was light and the street lights shed pools of reflecting illumination across the wet roadways. The bass of Tone Locís Wild Thing thumped from the box in the rear of the car. As we chatted, a red Porsche 924 turbo pulled up along side of us. Weíd met this guy before in our cruises around the area. He was with his girlfriend and wanted to impress her. He revved his engine and I revved mine in response.

As the light flashed green, we gunned our cars forward across the intersection. For five miles, through Everett, we jockeyed for the lead, trading it back and forth in a wild chase that used all five lanes of the street.

He led me into one intersection where a black Honda was blocking my path. I swerved into the turn lane and took the lead through a red light. As I neared the next intersection seconds later, we were going around a hundred miles an hour. Brent was laughing like a hyena in the passengerís seat. I could tell that he would love to have taken the wheel.

The light ahead was red and, unlike the previous intersection, I saw that there was cross traffic. I downshifted and applied my brakes and began sliding on the wet pavement, the Mustang began to slew to the side as we hurtled toward the intersection. Blood pumped fear into my veins, and I realized it would be better to reach the intersection in control of the vehicle than out of control. As I released the brake pedal, I steered into the slide. The moment that I had gained some semblance of control, I shifted back up, putting the accelerator to the floor. I saw a narrow gap in the cross traffic and I desperately hoped I could make it through.

We hurtled recklessly through the gap, missing a car by inches. We should have died right then and there, but we hadnít. We were giddy with relief. Still, we raced on. Sliding sideways, we left Evergreen with a right hand ninety-degree turn taken at seventy miles an hour. In my rearview mirror, I could see the street lights gleaming off the shiny red surface of the Porsche. They hadnít lagged far behind us.

Bound north, we took the race onto I-5. As I merged onto the freeway I slid the Mustang across two lanes, cutting off a Mercedes and a Volkswagon. Here, we picked up speed to excesses of 140 miles per hour. It was all out and the Porsche stayed with us. Even the generous curves of the freeway get tight when youíre going that fast. White-knuckled, I clung to the wheel with both hands.

Approaching the city of Marysville, the Porsche pulled up alongside of us and then took the exit into town. We flashed our lights goodbye and slowed the car to a legal pace. As we came up over the crest just a few blocks later, we saw a police car sitting in the hollow of the median. If our race had continued, we would have ended our wild ride in the slammer. As it was, we were lucky that we didnít kill ourselves, or worse, someone else.

After that race, I would have thought that I could have trusted Brent with my life. It is difficult to feel closer to a person than after you have just shared a death defying experience. The irony was that Brent would betray me, and that I would wreck my Mustang, not because I was taking horrible risks like I had that night, but because I had failed to read a truck driverís mind.