[vreihen16]

I was doing my driving shift in a nameless desert state out west during the Cannonball, er, I mean One Lap of America. Our team was doing a huge public awareness press campaign for an under-recognized illness all across the country during the race. We had to wait for over an hour to meet a TV news crew from ABQ, that was flying out by helicopter into the desert just to interview us and was running late. That delay put us in danger of missing the next race track's gate-in time a few states away, plus messed up our other scheduled TV/radio/newspaper interviews that day and evening.

Trying to make up some of that time, I was pushing a buck twenty plus on a two-lane road through the desert with 10+ mile visibility and not as much as a telephone pole for miles. The only vehicle on the road was a tractor-trailer coming towards us. Unfortunately, there was a nice occifer tucked in behind that truck. When the V1 started screaming, I stuffed the brakes and looked down at the 122 MPH reading on the speedo. The rear of the car started to come around from braking too hard, so I had to lift off of the brakes to get it settled and then stuffed the brakes some more. Long story short, his radar finally got a lock on me at 25+ over the speed limit...which was still fast enough for a mandatory handcuffed ride in the back of a police car in their jurisdiction.

When the nice occifer asked where we were in a hurry to get to (in a car covered with race/sponsor decals), I told him about how we had to wait for the TV news chopper all the way from ABQ and it put us behind schedule for our next press appearance. Our team's spokesperson pulled out the reporter's business card from his collection of interviews given during the race as proof of what surely sounded like a made-up story. He then started his awareness pitch for the illness that he was dying from. TL;dr we were on our way in a few minutes, no handcuffs.....