Highway to Hell

I'll admit that I daydream a bit, what person doesn't? I think about our next vacation, last weekend, what's for dinner tonight, what the world will bring when the children are grown, what can I do to the Pearl while I wait to get the right tools. I just think, a little more then I should sometimes.

I was daydreaming when a song came on the radio, it got me reminiscing about a time, that got me thinking about something someone very good had once said. That got me thinking about the time that I was reminiscing about.

Ayrton Senna once said, " And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension." He often compared it to a tunnel vision, as if he just became the car.

I realized that I had atleast once been conscious to this experience. As I listened to that song playing over the radio, I slid back several years to that moment.

I had for years pinned to race across the deserts of Nevada, racing my dirt bikes and truck as if everywhere I went was the Baja 1000.  After to many sleepless nights, empty check books and high interest rate credit card bills, I had gotten my chance.

It had taken a bit for me to get a chance at the wheel. Everyone seemed to know how important it was, the first time is always so special. Exhaust wide open as the desert passed under our seats. Ten miles out into the desert and in respect to the moment, a few rules where overlooked.

With AC/DC being piped through the radio into our helmets I found myself slide into that place. It's a place that really is impossible to describe, you just feel, instead of react.

As we came upon the first silt bed, 20 yards wide and 100 yards long of vehicle devouring talc. At that moment when most pause to pick a direction, I didn't have to, I just felt it. Where most might lift off the long pedal if only enough to prepare. I didn't need to do anything other then bury my foot in the floor.

Some may never have that experience, some get stuck sitting crammed into a truck next to someone that's having that experience. It's something everyone should be blessed with feeling.

Not sure if I want to know what it feels like to be strapped into a speeding vehicle next to someone that's having that experience though.