The Need for Speed

Drive down from, say, San Francisco and by the time you hit Reseda, you notice it. People in Southern California do drive faster--and more smoothly--than anywhere else in the West. Where else will you see a middle-aged mother with three kids and a dog glide onto a freeway at the perfect, go-with-the-flow speed and then slide across four lanes of fast-moving traffic without halting, jerking or endangering anyone's life? Sure, in Seattle they drive fast, too, but in short, nervous, caffeinated moves. Multiple lane changes are achieved in strange, violent lurches. In Portland, the game is to prevent you from changing lanes in the first place. If, perchance, you see ample space and put on your blinker, the car behind you roars up to close the hole. And then there's San Francisco. There people go with their own flow, not the flow of traffic. And lane changes? Oh, tricky. Very tricky.

Only in L.A. will a kid grow up to become a sort of Fred Astaire in a Ford. I admit it, I loved coming of age in this car-eographer's paradise, though I never reckoned there'd be any psychological advantage to it. And I certainly never dreamed that it would cure me of the nightmares of a murder.

Mind you, I grew up taking the L.A. speed thing a little further than most. I started by racing overpowered go-carts (120 mph-plus) around rubber-coned tracks set up in the huge and weekend-vacant lots adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport. My competition: Porsches, motorcycles, Lotuses--whatever went fast on a short, tight track.

When I grew more physically--though clearly less emotionally--mature, I took my speed-lust onto the city streets. The canyons became my tortuous playgrounds--with Latigo, Roscomare and Beverly Glen being my tight-turned favorites. There was, as well, Mulholland Drive, particularly west of the 405, where, some 20 years ago, long stretches were dirt and dangerous.

I did, however, grow out of it--and quickly enough. When, with my best friend in the car, I lost my brakes going down Roscomare pegged at 125 and had to negotiate two short 90-degree turns, I woke up fast. I managed a controlled slide through the first turn but lost it on the second and slammed into a high curb. The car almost rolled, but luckily we stayed on the road. I did, however, sever all of the 3/4-inch body bolts and bent both axles. The car, my father's car, was essentially totaled.