Member-only story
Concord Ave Car Crashes
The screaming big block V8 rattled the windows on my Trans Am. The candy apple blue Chevelle sat in the right lane next to me waiting for the traffic light to turn green. I knew what this meant. He’d revved his engine as a challenge. If I look over at him and he has his pink slip dangling there it means, we were racing for ownership of our cars. If I look, nod, and floor it at the green light one of us would possibly be signing our cars over in a parking lot somewhere. Refusing to do so often meant a bad beating and bottles, rocks, sometimes baseball bats smashing your car to pieces. But if I ignored him, chickened out, I would be laughed at least for the rest of the night and probably a lot longer banishment. I wouldn’t be able to show my face out here again. And every teenage boy from San Francisco to Stockton knew that the hot girls that liked hot cars were out on Concord Ave on Saturday nights.
Part of me was angry with myself for coming out here in a muscle car in the first place. I knew the signal that sent out to the other racers out here and I knew I should have been damn sure I was willing to put my car on the line before coming out here to begin with. There is a healthy compromise. You find a parking lot along the strip, usually the grocery store on the north end if there are spots open and you park there. You don’t even have to drive up and down the strip all night. Let the girls come to…
