A wet dream of a course, the dunes rose and fall like a Six Flags roller coaster and banked and curved enough to make it hard to pull away from the competition. Within just a few seconds of twisting the throttle, I was laughing with Roger as we whipped around a corner and our four wheelers bumped wheels like a scene from Mad Max.

I always liked to think of our races like real life games of Mario Kart. I once even brought a turtle shell I found in one of those shitty Ripley’s Believe It Or Not gift shops on the Oregon Coast and chucked it Roger in the middle of the race.

I didn’t have a turtle shell on this night, but I did have another trick up my sleeve. I pulled three bottle rockets out of my jacket pocket once I got the cushy lead on my brothers I knew I would eventually secure. It was some McGyver shit, but I was able to get my lighter out of another pocket, stick the bottle rockets in my mouth and light them all at once while still maintaining my lead.

Ready for my attack, I took one hand off my steering, pointed it backwards, and felt the rockets on sticks fly out of my hand one-by-one.