"Make up your mind, what's it going to be?" I said with a smile, "race or not?"

"How much time do we have?" asked Glenn.

"I'd say about 30 minutes."

"Let's find out."

"Smith," I yelled, "what time is it?"

"11:35"

"That's enough," I said.

"OK what are the rules?"

"No rules, we drive out to the old Wallace farm, line it up on the straight part of the 125 and let her rip. The first one back here is the winner. "

I really didn't think my boxy four-door Dodge could beat his sleek, flat eight, two door Pontiac, hard top convertible. Besides the bigger engine, he would have better wind resistance as well. My plan was to out drive him on the curves of old 125 and make him run off the road on to the berm in fright when I passed him.

It was five miles out to the Wallace farm to the starting point. Taylor and I didn't say a word on the way out, and I'm guessing, the four in the blue Pontiac were just as quiet. How powerful could an ego be? I could just see the headlines now. "Six, first-team football players from Jefferson School, ended up in the Harris County jail for racing on old highway 125 Friday afternoon, but nobody gave any thought to how stupid it was."

As we got closer to the starting point I was thinking, I know he can beat me on the straight away and the road between the Wallace farm and the high school was pretty straight until you were a half mile from school. What you faced then was in God's hands, and no amount of skill was going to bring you home from the curve going uphill before the last straight stretch. There was no way you could see if one of the Cadiz Mining Company coal trucks were coming in the opposite direction. That's where I had to take him, he'd be so scared he'd probably slam on his breaks and go over the side of the road into the cow pasture.

As we reached our starting point, Taylor rolled down his window and held out the red flag which was our starting signal. When both cars got turned around and were side by side, Taylor waved the flag and we were off. As I suspected, we were bumper to bumper when I tried several times to get past him, but his Pontiac was too much for the older Dodge on the straight away to be able to get around him. With engines pushing their maximum RPM's, four seniors in the Pontiac and two in the green Dodge had frozen faces staring straight ahead. Glenn was still ahead as we roared past the entrance to Sullivan's farm which was a mile from the end. Suddenly, my back tire flipped dirt and gravel in the air when I veered off the side of the road. The only way I was going to beat him, was to pass him going up the hill and around the blind curve. If a coal truck was coming on my side, as they often did, we would shake hands with the front end of a Mack diesel, and all of us in both cars would surely die. They'd probably never find us. We wouldn't have a chance to get off the road and out of the way. We probably wouldn't even know what hit us.

Taylor was in the passenger seat of the Dodge when I floored it and started around Glenn's Pontiac.

"No Fred, God sakes, No," he screamed as he was jumping into the back seat, as if that would help.

I glanced at Glenn as I went by his blue, flat eight, Pontiac. He had the look of fear and death on his face as I hit the blind curve at 70. I held my breath. It seemed like it took an eternity, then I saw it, the road was clear ahead, blue skies and white clouds were all around us. It was a bright sunny day, but we were all walking. I saw Glenn, Montgomery, Nitz, Norris, and Taylor.

The headlines now read, "Six Students Dead on 125!"