Time in the Prop Blast

Shortly after I had crossed into Virginia, in a driving rain, and at my usual highway speed of a hundred and ten miles an hour, I came over the crest of a mountain and had a clear view of the long, straight downward slope of the highway ahead of me. Perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead of me, several men were pushing an automobile out onto the lane ahead, probably with the expectation that the long down-hill highway woud provide the muscle to crank their dead battery vehicle. On the south bound lane, coming up the hill toward the auto being pushed out into my north-bound lane, was a great, slow-moving semi truck and trailer. I immediately took my foot off the gas, began to flick my headlights and honk my horn quickly and intermittenly to signify impending danger. My mind had clicked into its hyper-speed overdrive. The scene ahead had shifted into super slow motion. I was aware that with the quantity of water on the highway from the downpour, I could not apply my brakes fully or the car would simply skate without losing any speed. I saw the men who had pushed the car onto the highway abandon it and begin climbing up the hillside to their right. I saw the semi crawling slowly upward on the north bound lane with a downhill slope off to his right. Neither of them could pull off the road or change their speed significantly. I saw that I had to apply more brakes than I had been or the semi would not pass the auto ahead of me in time. I gave Perfidia more brakes and she began to slew sideways; I turned the steering wheel to the right and continued down the northbound lane in a sideways skid. I dared not look at my speedometer, all my attention was focused on the two vehicles ahead crawling toward each other. I think perhaps the spedometer would show zero anyway beause by this stage of the slide, I was pushing the brakes with all my might. As I approached the vehicle ahead of me, I saw the semi slowly coming past him. There was a glimmer of hope. I saw the rear of the trailer pass the car. I took my foot off the brake and put it on the accelerator. The instant I flew past the bacck of the semi, I floor-boarded the gas pedal, swung the front wheels forward, then right again and as my back bumper passed the old car ahead, my wrap-around rear bumper tapped the corner of his rear bumper and his car jumped forward, starting his motor. But I had gone well past him by then and as I continued on down the mountain, I rolled down my window, tooted my horn, and gave him a wave. He waved back.