The exact date in 2005 is lost to me now, but the memory is seared into my brain.
It started out as a long Sunday night drive from Northern California. I was heading home to SoCal after a solo turn-n-burn trip to visit my ailing younger brother Chuck in Paradise, a small town nestled in the Sierra foothills 75 miles North of Sacramento.
It would be the last time I'd see Chuck alive, but that's another story.
I was rushing home so I could be at work the next day. The Artist hadn't made the trip because it was too long a drive for her over a single weekend. I'd done it several times over the years, so it was no biggie for me.
My Black '93 Toyota SR5 Xtra Cab was a total Highway Star for drives like this, owing as much to the strong V6 engine as to the long wheelbase and excellent road-going suspension. That baby could ROLL.
Once back on the Southbound I-5 freeway, the traffic disappeared and civilization fell away. I was cruising at about 65mph because the area was a known speed trap and I didn't need a ticket.
As I made the Tracy Cutoff, I could see one or two cars waaaay up ahead of me, so I nudged the throttle and settled in at 80mph. Soon enough, the Cutoff blended onto the main two-lane I-5 Southbound. I was now going about 90mph with a couple of cars about a quarter-mile ahead. I also noticed a car in my rear-view mirror, about a quarter-mile behind.
My sled was cruising along so smoothly that, just for fun, I squeezed the throttle a bit more and was now going 100mph, smooth as butter. Watching the roadway ahead, the two cars in front of me used the inside lane to pass a slower car, so I did the same when I caught the crawler, as did the car behind me.
After a few minutes at this excessive velocity, I realized the cars in front and behind were doing the same speed as me!
Eventually, our high-speed auto caravan grew to six cars, all of us keeping to the same speed, catching and passing slower cars in a nighttime freeway ballet. It was amazing to watch us all sweep around slower cars and trucks, one after the other, at 100MPH!
Now, don't get me wrong - this kind of driving was totally illegal and dangerous, and any single thing could have led to disaster. But after a while it seemed so natural... the starry nighttime sky, the headlamp-lit highway streaming underneath, the tunes pumping from the speakers, my concentration cranked up to 11... perfection. A shared celestial moment between drivers who knew nothing about one another except that we were hauling ass.
It was MESMERIZING.
We sped along like that for almost 90 minutes... at 100mph... at night... on the freeway... slicing through the Northern San Joaquin Valley like so many bolides.
I imagine the other drivers had the same shit-eating grin as me the entire time, whooping out loud when we each caught and passed another car, flowing from the outside lane to the inside lane and back to the outside lane. I don't recall there were very many semis on the road that night.
Eventually it had to end, so when the exit signs announced the Kettleman City offramp (gas/food/lodging), two of the cars ahead signaled their exit and, as we flew past, popped their hi-beams and flashers in a sign of shared law-breaking exuberance.
Not too long after we blew by Kettleman City, our Night Train dwindled down to just me and one other car.
We'd done the 130 miles from the Tracy Cutoff to Kettleman City in less than 90 minutes, but now we were approaching the southern half of the valley and on the run to Bakersfield. The traffic grew a bit heavier and I backed down to 85mph. My compatriot behind was lost in the mix, probably doing the same with a new-found abundance of caution.
The rest of the drive... flashing past Bakersfield, over the Grapevine and dropping into overnight SoCal traffic and civilization was an 85mph blur of lights and cars.
Stupid. Exhilarating. Illegal. Fantastic. Dangerous. Spectacular. Wildly inappropriate. Wholly enjoyable.
I've had the good fortune to drive real race cars on real racetracks, but that insane high-speed nighttime I-5 drive stands out as a truly singular experience, one that gives me pause when I realize exactly what I'd done, how much risk I took and how little it seemed to worry me at the time.
I'm an old fart now and wouldn't do anything like that on the open highway again. However, in my mind's eye I can still see that freeway ballet, performed when no one else existed in the world except me and my temporary road warrior compadres in our speeding projectiles, hurtling through time and space.
I wonder if any of them remember that night the same way I do?
