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	Wisdumb
	270 Rail Dig (4-14-02) Ages ago, when I really couldn't ride a bodyboard, Glenn Policare and I would travel up and mostly down the coast to enter in these surf contests. You could just show up, pay $10 bucks and enter. I heard you could get money if you won and so we were always worried about whether we should keep the money and lose our amateur status or go with the cash and buy some lunch or something. Oddly, we were never faced with this decision. We sucked. Undeterred, we loaded our gear into Glenn's VW "squareback" and headed to Zuma beach for another beating in front of the masses. We were AMPED. It was 5:20 AM. I feel sluggish now just thinking about it. We are driving down Vista Del Mar, in front of the Los Angeles Airport and you can see there is surf. It is a foggy summer Saturday morning, devoid of people except two idiots blaring Rush songs in this blue square back with pizza cutter tires. Unstoppable. For anyone familiar with this road, like we were supposed to be, the road drops down, and then comes to a 5-way intersection. From our direction, you make an easy right hand turn and go on your merry way. Not even a full 90-degree right hand turn, but an 'easy' right. The worst you have to worry about is that it is a 25 MPH zone, and you might get a ticket. Since we were 'owning' the street at this early hour, we were clearly exceeding the posted 25 MPH speed limit. We have the green light and it is money in the bank. Glenn, the spazz, flies into the turn with a "hang on" battle cry. Unfortunately, his senior citizen driving skills don't cut it and we go into a 4-wheel slide. A professional stunt driver, which we could have used at this point, would have corrected by turning into the slide thus making this lack of judgment look totally planned and cool beyond belief. (In the interest of full disclosure, the author did not have a driver's license at this point in his driving career, but reserved the right to talk s**t). Instead, we have the "Deer in the headlights" driving the car. We spin clockwise until we slam against the curb on the inside of the turn. Still loaded with momentum, as I was learning about in physics class, we roll up on our side. The frame hits the sidewalk and we stall, with me in the passenger seat getting the most air. The car drops back down on its wheels, facing the wrong way. We land and the back door pops open and my ripe nectarine falls out and gets severely bruised. We eat it anyways making it the only casualty. We are both shaken but secretly invigorated by all this action. The car essentially did a 270-degree spinner and dug a rail, not unlike some of the moves we were going to unleash in the contest of skills. RAD! We savored the deliciousness of the moment and then got out to survey the damage. One flat tire, two sad faces. Predictably, the spare was flat too. $17 dollars worth of tow-truck air later, we are proceeding to Zuma, but the car has the shakes. I get out and have Glenn drive by and note that the rear axel is totally bent making the wheel wobble all over when we drive. Beaten, we head home and get some close outs at our home break, both of us tying for last place. more stories >>