I remember heading home on state street Orem at the height of the "Fast and the Furious" craze and I was stuck at the light behind an old farm truck. Bed rusting through, but what sounded like a lopey cam.......hard to tell under the leaking exhaust.

Anyway, from my rear flanks fly two sub-compacts to either side of the truck, rear wings somehow defying physics and applying ample downforce on their front drive wheels, stickers glistening in the moonlight, chromed Folgers coffee cans rattling happily, unleashing the fury of at least 1/16th of a horsepower trapped within the confines of their sideways mounted engines which displaced less than the 2-liter of rootbeer back at FHE.

Anyway, the cowboy teens sitting in the rusted testament of American industrial might must have felt the disturbance in the force, same as I. They both looked out their respective windows, for the 6" shackle lift made it quite difficult for them to see the sleek lines of modern technology below them. They briefly studied their new friends, then turned and looked at each other.

That silent glance was all I needed to know. It was on. And it was going to be fun.

I dropped my automatic out of Drive into 3, pressed the sport mode, placed my foot on the brake and spun up the torque converter to around 1900RPM, the ripple of raw pushrod power pulsing through body as my NAPA Gold calipers held back the coming storm. And I waited the eternity for a Utah County stop light to change.

I waited.

And I waited.

Then at the literal speed of light, the red vanished and was replaced with a green glow, the compacts made a loud squeal of high pitched racket that was quickly droned out by the growl of a 30 year old American Big Block. The truck was off. I was on his bumper, checked my blind spot, turned on the blinker, passed the truck, checked my speedometer: 50mph. Uh oh, the speed limit is only 45. I tapped on my brakes. So did the truck.

The sub compacts? They weren't finished. They were just getting started....apparently. It takes those little Aluminum Hamster wheels a while to spool up. With a screech both cars flew by us at maybe 55 or 60 on their way to the next stoplight.

Me? I turned and nodded at the cowboy, who nodded back. We would allow the subcompacts to claim the victory. After all, this was 2003, the dawn of the age when "Everybody is a winner! Everyone gets a trophy!"

And that was my first experience with the "ricer flyby".