Fast and Furious - my first taste again after donkey's years

I left Loft around 3-ish after I had a few with Ricky and his company. Nobody I need to give a ride back tonight, so I was driving back alone in my car. I drove and reached this place, somewhere near the prominent landmark of Stadium Merdeka and Dewan Pustaka, I saw a number of cars squeezing into a long queue in one lane, so I followed suit. And of course I knew it was one of those illegal road blocks set up again, hoping to catch people in the act - drinking, driving and letting you off in return for the asking cash.

After a while, waiting for other drivers, way those in front of me to be breathalyzed, I knew frustrations await me, and surely enough after a while, I ran out of patient, and made me wondered if these crooks standing out there are actually doing their job - to actually make drivers breathalyze, apprehend them red-handedly - driving-drinking and ultimately have them summoned or merely just trying to negotiate how much cash they would get, out from their usual and untrue accusations routine they put on those innocent drivers. These type of unethical conduct and their famous line "tolong macam mana" must be familiar to you and the nickname they carry with them "Mr Corruption" has now become a household name among them these days. The day when our Prime M. stepped into the hot seat, he announced how much he advocates anti-corruption, giving his strongest implication of his rising power as the father figure, would herald the ending era of "duit copi", an arduous undertaking one would think all his ancestor and mentors have failed miserably.

On the face of it, it would had seem that his attempt in the beginning to kill off the prevailing attitude - "you give me the $$ and I will give you what you want" was a successful attempt considering how he embraced the yearns and fervent appetite of zero nepotism at the early stage, but looking at it now, has he really answered the essential questions and fulfilled his role as the father figure who once shown all the good signs and had zero tolerant in corruption?

He made no secret of his desire and vision to eradicate bribery, corruption, nepotism .. so and so as one would recall. While it was no laughing matter at all as it is, human rationale and intuition would led us to having second thoughts - if his vision would be on the cards or even materialise. And your gifted rationale and wisdom will tell you it will never be, regardless what. And true enough, more often than not as we all are seeing at the moment how prevalent the attitude is and how it's growing still, the opposite and its proliferation seems to be the usual case. On one hand, we are told all the time, not for the world, they will do whatever they can, even if it's beyond their capacity to fight against and build an ecosystem of bribery-corruption-nepotism-nation free. On the other hand, you see more and more road blocks being set up, for not in the intention of apprehending drunk driver and punishing them, but rather for more to feed their greed. The more road block set up, the more briberies start to set in. And you wouldn't want to hear or know about how the mega projects are planned, got established and then allocated to certain parties, if you look at situations of late and present, there isn't any slightest bit of indications to conclude that the solemn commitments once made will take place anytime sooner, only it will make you ponder and rhetorically ask, would it be any difference if the vow he had made, has not been made after all or even if it had been made, you would ask how much has it been materialized already, if not at all???

I had some really funny experience dealing with cops before and the asking I got sometimes is virtually impossible to believe. I will go as far as to say if you happen to be working for World Guinness Records umbrella organization and so happen to happen to be one on the receiving end, unluckily dealing with their dishonesty and greediness, there is a likelihood of you wanting your experience to be noted down, nominated into one of the 7 modern wonders list and have it published onto the World Guinness Record yearbook. why? because the experience you will get is amazingly an impossible and unexpected one. I am not exaggerating and no cock-and-bull story here, I still have a vivid recollection of how my closed friend and I were asked by a cop to pay for the direction and a ride we were asking for. Which greedy basKet would do that? What makes them looked even more bold is that, they have the nerve to ask for the undeserved money in the eyes of the world under the scrutiny of everyone with their blue-collar dressing code on. It simply not quite the thing for cops to do such a thing, especially with their duty uniform on. It just beats me sometimes how they made it looked so easy. Really, my hats off to them!!

Coming back to where I was, after burying all the frustrations away, I was looking at the rear view mirror to see who else will be joining the "victimised list". Not long after I was about to turn my head back to the direction from where I was, I saw via the rear-view mirror, a lady in a car slowly approaching towards me. The running car was at first on the same lane as everyone was until when she got closer to me, cut out on a spur of moment and drove out to the other unoccupied lane that makes you think for one moment, her frustration and impatience must have had taken over her too and all she wanted was a quick overtaking as many vehicles as possible in front of her. As she was on next lane to me, she went closer, until she halted her car adjacent to me. She could have gone further up to overtake other vehicles in front of me, considering the lane she was in, was not occuppied with any automobiles at all. Feeling odd, I look at the directions to where she was and only to find out she has one lady friend besides her in the car. Both were giving me their little smile. Not knowing who they were, I wore a plastic smile and smiled back. It doesn't take them too long, before they went further up again and gave me an indication that they want to cut into the narrow space in front of me. A minute or two lapsed then, I made my car motionless by not moving forward and in a very reassuring manner, I gave way for them to cut in, slowly and very surely, they came upon me at the front from the lane where they were at.

So yeah we were waiting... waiting in queue for our turn to be examined. As soon as our turn came, these 2 ladies who were ahead of me and the driver lady, was given the breathalyzed test, had herself a clean bill of health and released. Then my turn came. I knew exactly what questions I will be thrown. I have all the sequence" answer in my head. And I know I have to answer in this sequence - "balik" and "tak ada", because the first question they will always ask is "encik pergi mana?" and then followed by "ada minum??". Normally, this is their usual way to make you talk and ascertain if you have any alcoholic intake and if you are found one with, they will make you blow into a device to gauge your alcoholic level. So the next time, if you ever get barricaded by a police and if you want to avoid the whole breathalysed process or even if you want to save their breath from asking you the same questions which has no effect on you, wind down the window, and before they even say anything or ask you any questions, just say "balik..dan..tak ada"..that is all you need to say... :)

And if you make them suspicious over you for over-confident thinking that you will bypass them one way or another, then you will be asking for trouble.

Surely after this "balik-dan-takada" with this crook, he let me off. As I was driving off, I saw that lady that went off before me at the road block, was in a distance that made her car in sight still. As one will tell, she is driving in such a way and pace that she is waiting for something to happen. Not bothering, I just drove pass her. Just some seconds away after I have driven pass them, they came from nowhere and zoomed pass me. And when I said they zoom, I really mean they ZOOM - they surged pass me like a rocket. The zooming had me realigning back my car coordination to the left along with my both hands firmly grabbed on the steering wheel for me to find back my bearings. And after that I was like "mother father.... youuuuuuuuuuu".

What furious yet tinged with curiosity are, upon zooming pass me, they were at a near visible distance again, driving at a slow pace with the irregularly flashing on and off red light seen on the back of the rear light car. I thought this was interesting as I knew they wanted for a race, considering how they gave me a smile initially, and deliberately drove at an odd pace after the road block, zoomed pass me in a lightning speed and then now giving me blinking red lights to get my attention. Just to maintain my discreet presence, I slowed down my car speed too and thought for a while.

I was in two minds about this adventurous feeling "come and get me, boy" but otherwise also make me feel, a possibly on the threshold of heart-pounding adrenaline rush race, putting me in somewhat of a dilemma - contemplating and asking myself "should I or should I not race?" Due to the fact that I have never been really racing on the road for quite sometime, I do not know what will happen if I ever race with an unknown driver as then I was only doing that with some friends Im closed to, so what's more and the risks racing with someone whom I don't even know of now. It is not by implication that when comes to racing, I’m chickened out of losing or fearing for its trivial repercussions or anything like that. In fact, my track records of racing speak for myself, and I’m proud to say :), on all occasions, nine times out of ten, racing with my closed friends and ex-college mates, I had been always the first one to turn up at the destination, and when I said major races, I mean it involves a couple of cars ( 5 to 6 cars, sometimes less ) racing on the road. And for those who have had raced with me before, just want to say sorry mate - I’m still the people' champion. LOL..if you still remember, my Honda "WAX 7021" rocks eh. I still remember how I was in my car "WAX 7021" driving my friends, about 5 or 6 of us up to 170 - 180 km/h, chasing a car on federal highway and one of my friend was screaming her head off! I remember also how my friends and I practised our stunt and did the 180 degree turning at desa petaling and those drifting-piu2 in oug and cheras hill.... Those were the days !!...Okay...whether Im or not the people' champion now, it still remain to be seen, but I have a strong reason to firmly believe I can make the history repeats itself ( can put my money on this. haha ), because you don't win many races in a row for no reason. You must have got what it takes for you to achieve that feat. And Im proud to say I for one managed to have it done and have that attributes....awwwwwwww..poor you guyz..:).. Ok, I can sense after this bold statement I made, many of you will want to invite me for a challenge, haha, it's a thing of the past for me now and Im no longer eager to pick up the gauntlet anymore.

I went off the tangent again, coming back to where I was again, while trailing them from a distance away, I was still looking at the prospects that if I were to engage myself in racing with someone whom I don't know of, would it lead to endangering the life other drivers??. There have not been too many tragic accidents in KL when comes to car racing, may be this is one of them, my thoughts and feelings were at such then. I do not like the idea of putting someone's safety at stake just because of my mere little fun. - reason being is that, you read these type of tragic stories in the newspapers everyday and for this reason, you wouldn't want it to happen and you also know how things on the road can turn really ugly if either one of the racers or even other innocent drivers are caught off guard. Or you may probably even ask, could it possibly be that EC who was once regarded as David Coulthard, people' champion, ( self-proclaimed and tumpang glamour only. hehe ), renowned for dessert-driver has now become the safety-driver? Mounting factors tell you YES, as age is catching up, I truly understand the meaning of life is fragile and short, and among other things, Im more inclined to treasure my life and others, to efficiently consume fuels usage and not just for the latter reasons only, but sometimes I just don't see the need of me speeding even when the circumstances require me to make haste, even if it means I will be minutes late away. Better late than never it's my maxim on the road. I like driving at the speed I'm comfortable with, not too slow yet not too fast.

Yeah, so I was driving slow, thinking and gauging all the possible risks involved, and still having half mind as to race or not, until I finally decided - what the heck, as long as I control and manipulate the whole racing process, then all aforementioned issues shall be fine, well that was how I felt at that point in time. As a matter of fact, very few people would know the concept of controlling and manipulation ( C&M ) of a race, with the notable exception of experienced drivers who have had this type of racing under his/her belt before. I don't mean to rate myself as a good driver or someone who has been around as you may want to put it, Im just merely pointing out the fact that not many people out there who do know indeed or even know how to enjoy this concept of racing. Notice, I use the words "CONTROLLED-MANIPULATION" because everyone knows what it is and it fits into the context of what I am trying to explain. In nutshell, it s just a tug-of-war, you pull and you let go. Similarly in a car-race, you speed and you slow down with one evil thought of not letting your opponents overtaking you. In essence, C&M is a just race you beat your opponent not with the absolute or full-blown speed of your car, but with the least speed of your car. C&M requires in-depth concentration and in my opinion it is the hardest type of car-racing in city of all due to the fact that you need to be vigilantly watchful of the cars behind and in front of you. The reason is twofold - 1) when you are leading the race, you don't want to be too focus on who's chasing you and "when and how" he will be overtaking you till you neglect the sight of who's and what's in front of you ( other drivers, direction, animal, etc, who or which you may come across while racing) and I am certain you would know of its perilous situation if you miss out one bit of sight of what and who is in front of you, by the same token, 2) if you are the race leader, you don't want to be so focus too on what is in front of you till you lose sight of what's happening behind you. Imagine what will happen if you happily enjoying your race and as the race leader, you confidently think that and presume your opponents are way behind you, when in fact and for some reasons, you did a jam break without knowing your opponent was just right 2 inches near behind you? - crash boom bang. This could have been avoided if you have known their coordination of existence and hence adjust your pace or even signaling him not to trail too close. Likewise, supposedly if you pay too much attention in the objects in front of you, you may not again realise or even know when was the moment he was trying to overtake you and by the time you know it, it will be already too late for you to do anything but to chase him back again, a situation which you do not want yourself to be in. So C&M is a "catch 22" race type of situation. I would say it is a complete and total difference type of feeling and situation if you are just the driver who does very little but to just give chasing or the race leader who does nothing but to speed away just to finish off the drag race. Try applying this concept into Daytona, pool, snooker or any game, and you will know how arduous and challenging the game is. The fun is not winning the game, it is how you stop and prevent your opponent from getting pass you and at the same time - give them a hope that they are still in the game - all these only make it even more fun.

With the joy of anticipating and having the race under my heel, I decided to have this little fun with them, the plan is to dictate and contain their driving pace while at the same time, maintaining and stimulating the fun out of the racing. But the safety for other drivers and them is still the number 1 rule for me. Since I was trailing them, I gave them my car's headlight flash to send them my message "you ve gotten my attention". I switched my gear from D to 3rd gear to up my car's acceleration. Surely I got the better of them as soon as I had my acceleration up. And one would think, the race was over as soon as I overtook them. It wasn't the case and certainly it didn't end there, it was just the beginning of the race at full throttle, a race which I was quite reluctant to.

So the race started off not far away from the place where we left the road block. As soon as I up my car's acceleration, overtook them and drove right in front of their lane, they got the signal and for a fraction of second, they gave back a chase. This time it was their turn to trail me. So yeah we were racing coming down from the flyover that leads us to Sungai Besi highway. During this period of adrenalin pumping, I was looking at the rear view mirror every minute, trying to pinpoint her coordination, and I wouldn't say she is a top-notch driver, but for a lady like her, I must say she is by far, one heck of the far aggressive one I have seen. At one point, she was trailing my car so closed till I can hardly see her car's headlight. Feeling too close of comfort, I keep a distance away by topping up the speed, and that was when I saw my car speedometer reading at 130km/h. It surely got myself away from them a distance, but it was not too long before they came back close to me again. Knowing it was hazardous to make her drive at this speed, this was the time I was compelled to control and suppress the speed of the race. I let off the accelerator pedal for a bit to reduce the speed down to 60km/h - 70km/h. She must have taken a while in the back of her mind to figure out as to why I lowered down my speed but it makes no odds to me, and during this time I was tempted to swirl my car to a light-left and light-right making hard for them to overtake me. Apparently this doesn't stop them racing or even prevent them from overtaking me, instead she was more enthusiastic than ever before. You only had to look at the way she was giving me high beam, making irregular interval horn and trying eagerly to overtake by swirling to the opposite direction of me, to tell how much she was so into the race. At one point I had to up my speed to 100-110km/h just to match and prevent her from overtaking me. As forthcoming as it is, the cycle of trying to "overtaking-and-blocking" lasted for about a minute or two until I half gave in as I thought it was abit risky to race C&M at the expense of my car and they zoomed pass and overtook me again. And I must say, the spectacles up to this stage is already hard for me to describe, the effect of zooming pass me was truly mind-blowing, our presence of mind in the most unimaginable cliff-hangar was extraordinary and the inescapable mind of envision of what next to follow, only add up to the drama of a wonderful night, are the only words I can think of.

After a while, we have inadvertently raced and cut into Federal Highway. I thought the race was already over as soon as the moment they overtook me, but it wasn't seems to be case again. Shortly after overtaking me, in the space of about 20 seconds where my car speedometer was reading about 40km/h, they were at a near visible distance away again, somewhere near Kuen Cheng High School, driving the same pace as me, waiting and tempting me, while at the same time, making me feel like I'm coming off the second best out of the race. If that is not enough, metaphorically speaking, I can even hear and sense their uttering tease all the way from my car, telling me - "you have managed to race with me thus far, I believe you can do much better than this". That was the way how they drove till they made you felt like that. Now again, it threw me back that question - should I or should I not?

Now I'm facing with an uphill battle decision as to give them a real race or not because the last thing I want is anything but accident. It reminds me back, about 10 years ago, how I was driving my friends - 2 guyz and 2 girls in a car and caught up in an accident. Someone whom we don't know of overtook me without me realizing and then jam-break me at one semi-sharp corner, and the rest like they said is history. I realised and I also understood my first-hand experience taught me, if you are trailing someone from behind with a moderate speed and if he/she ever jam-break you, you should better not, for a million of years, hope that you will be able to avoid the bump. 5 stitches on my head was the evidence and my testimonial to tell you how true my sweeping statement is. That event on the night of crash was a reverberating one and will engrave on my minds for as long as it wants to lodge into my head. As much as it was regarded as an unwanted experience, it was also just as much regarded as a good learning experience for me too as I consider that inccident a definite sadder but wiser experience for me - without of what had happened and me going through that, it wouldn't have made me a better driver than I ever was. You live and learn and I guess you only learn if you make mistakes.

The defining moment came when I made a split second decision to go over the top like her, despite of what being all said. One may think the reason I changed my tune instanteously was due to the fact that she has made me look like an amateur. It's not the case and certainly not for the reason I love racing nor I wanted it on impulse . I just wanted to have my first taste of real racing with a lady. As every guy would feel this way, I wanted to gauge and know what exactly her level of driving skill is to mine, as well as her her aggressiveness. As far as her and other drivers' safety are concerned, I still subscribe to that theory that if do the race with safety consciousness in mind, then things should be alright. Therefore playing safe it's still the number one priority for me. But only this time, I consider it as a more genuine race and acid test for us because Im no longer thinking to control and manipulate the race anymore but to give her a good run for her money. This time, I raised the tempo by switching the gear from D to 2nd gear for acceleration - and not from D to 3rd like I intially did - and swiftly cut across the fast lane, then progressively I up the gear back to 3rd and D again. If you must know, I also switched the playing track then from Jay Chou - Kai Bu Liao Kou to Eminem - Lose Yourself - just to give myself the momentum.

So as soon as I turned up my gear to D and was on the verge of overtaking her from the fast lane, I saw her car too cutting immediately from the bus lane across to the fastest lane just like me and, she just managed in time to come upon me from where she was, making herself to reappear just right in front of me again. Seeing her obstructing my way, I cut across back to the middle, then to the bus lane to make sure everyone stays out of my way. At this point in time, I saw her driving parallelly the same pace as me, the only difference is that she was at the fast lane and I was at the emergency lane. I push on the accelerator pedal to top up my car's speed to 120km/h and then to 130km/h. And surely enough I slightly got the better of her again. At one point in time, I have lost sight of her on the fast lane - she was nowhere to be seen and then only I found out later on she was too at emergency lane trailing right behind me and then back to the fast lane.

If this is not thrilling enough, you should see how she overtook me at one stage. We were near reaching at this highway where it splits into three way, on the far left, it's the way that leads you to the seremban highway, then on the far right, it's the continuous joint Federal highway where we came from that will lead you to PJ-Subang-Klang. In the middle, a semi-highway, as one will know, it's the way that head to the Old Klang Road. And in between the middle lane and the right lane, there is a semi-huge flat red painted divided lane that separates between the two lanes. It's painted to signal that no other drivers should cut across or drive interwiningly on this lane. Oh really? then you should really see how she came by when we were driving and arriving near to this painted divided lane. Like i said, she was at the fast lane driving bermati-matian ( right lane), and I was at middle lane heading to Old Klang Road, and when I was about to breathe in a sigh of relief and thought the race was no longer running anymore, seeing as how she was at the right lane - the lane that is heading subang, never a fraction of second I could pictured what had happened when she cool-ly overtook me via the painted divided lane.

Upon gaining back the frame of my mind and understood of her aggressiveness, I couldn't help but to raised my momentum and enthusiasm again this time, by changing the playing track, from Eminem - Lose Yourself to MJ - Billie Jean. So this time we raced our skin off - bermati-matian into Old Klang Road. I overtook her at one point with the speed of 130 - 140km/h.

What makes the race even more sweet is the way how we reached Taman Desa traffics lights and she stopped just beside me, at the very right side of me. It was like this, I stopped first at the middle lane and there were 2 cars in front of me, and on my left, there is only one car occupying the whole lane. On my right side of the lane, there is just one car occupying the whole lane as well and if she drives down onto this lane, she will be certainly positioned herself right behind this car, meaning she will be on the second row of the lane. So she comes, she drives down to the right lane of me and stopped at the third row of her lane. She could have gone further up to occupy the empty space - second row, but she didn't. She stopped just on the right side of me leaving a very big gap between her car and the car in front of her.

From the traffic lights where I stopped at, to the place where I stay in, the distance was not far away. Immediately after the lights turned to green, I had my baby accelerated and sped off to my area. This time, they did not pursue me anymore as they looked like they were en route towards Klang via old Klang road.

So the race was rather a fun one, as it were and in one's mind, you may want to picture one of the race scenes of Thunderbolt, that was exactly how it was like. If you happened to be on the scene, you would have seen the old ME. That night itself, I was made to look like the carbon copy of me in 10 years ago. Anyway, now I wish she and I were living on the other side of Klang Valley - Klang, because that way, from oug to Klang, the distance would be lengthy and thus, if Im heading towards that direction, I will be changing and playing alot more "fast and furious" tracks in my car.