Unfortunately my Legend met its match with a 1998 Mercury Thunderbird/Couger. It was on a Saturday evening and my brother and I had just finished racing each other in our Legends (his is a Metallic Brown 1992 4-door L). Some how his always beats mines with no modifications!? I seen this couger driving vigously down the rode after coming back into Maryland from Virgina. It was a Thunderbird I floored to see if I could catch him but I couldn't. We came up on a light then I asked him what in the hell he had under the hood? 8-cylinder he said, that's all cousins. I thought for a second and all I have is six with 200 horses, and a damm good six at that. The light turned green and we were off. Let me tell you, the Legend was in there, but the Cougar needed to get over into my lane (at 70 mph), and there was a car in front of him. So I just let my foot off of the gas coming around a tricky corner and he was gone, running red lights and all. He couldn't do an emergency stop if he wanted to.

Then out of the blue there were a huge crowd of cars just up ahead, fully stopped. The truck in front of me saw it, and slammed on his brakes. Unfortunately he didn't have ABS because he locked up and he went careening into the center divider. Needless to say his truck was no more. In the corner of my eye I saw a few cars to my right rear ending or spinning out of control into other cars in front of them.

I guess this is where having cross-drilled brake rotors were a tremendous advantage because I stomped on the brakes and realiable ol' Vivian stopped on a dime. Then my jaw dropped in terror as my eyes peered up towards the rear view mirror, wondering if the cars behind me would have the same stopping benefits.

I was answered with a Honda Civic that came barreling down the wet highway towards my coordinates. I could see him cringe in terror as he realized I was at a full stop, and immediately slammed on his brakes. I knew he wasn't going to stop in time from hitting me, and so did he. Luckily for me the guy was pretty nice and decided not to plow into Vivian. Instead, he veered into the rail on the center divide.

My eyes were still gazing at the rear view mirror as I saw a Volvo ram the rail, then another Civic. Then a BMW rear ended the Volvo, a Buick hit an Accord ... well, you get the picture. It was sheer horror as car parts were flying all other the place with one accident after another! Thanks to me lucky charms, I survived this chaotic ordeal ... unscathed.

The lane I was in was still moving, so we slowly inched past more wrecked cars that had plowed into each other from a previous wave of accidents. On the opposite side of the freeway, the same dreaded fate had befallen other motorists, who now created a parking lot of wrecked cars.

I saw a policeman reporting on the numerous accidents, and grimly told him of the 8 or so accidents that just happened behind me. He sighed and thanked me for the information.

Is it a bad omen when you see more accidents than you need to in such a short amount of time? Just the other week I was kind of racing with this tricked up red Honda Civic on the freeway. It looked like we were both taking the same exit, so I let him take the lead on the exit ramp which had a wicked 45 degree turn. I guess he wanted to show me what his little Civic was made of, so he accelerated ferociously into the curve, (with me not far behind).

But even with his performance suspension setup and 17" wheels, he lost control and smacked nose first into the rail. Then he proceeded to spin uncontrollably for about three 360 twirls. He finally stopped in the middle of the road, his bumper gone, his wheels bent inward, and car parts all over the place.

After the initial shock wore off from what just conspired, I realized I was behind him, still rushing forward, and closing fast! Once again, my brakes saved the day as I managed to do a very hard brake, veering out of harm's way to avert this near disaster.