Is there such thing as a Beautiful Speeding Ticket?

Her name was Katrina. She was pretty.

About two years ago, I used to drive a 2004 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII. Yes, this is the all wheel drive, turbo, sleek car that is famous for its heritage in rally racing in Japan. Keep in mind, I was just 18 years old at the time, and after working part-time through high school and running my own online business, I was finally in heaven in my new car… That was a legitimate race car. First off, the car was a bright, flashy, sleek red. To be exact, the color code through Mitsubishi was “Rally Red”… How ironic. Secondly, I bought this car with some “modifications”… and let me say that modifications are an understatement. A stock (how the car originally was produced) Evolution, or Evo for short, came with about 276 horsepower. However, I bought the car with over 620 horsepower at the crank of the engine, exactly 497 wheel horse power for the car junkies on here. It broke every law possible in the state of Illinois. The car was without a front license plate (required by law), straight pipe exhaust (zero modifications are allowed by law in my county), 15% tinted windows (no window tinting was allowed), and nearly every part under the hood was for “off road use only”. Let me just say that if there was a cop nearby, his eyes were on me and my every move.

Back to the story. One afternoon, after driving out with my friend to pick up a girl I was beginning to see at the time named Katrina, we decided to go for a little bit of a drive. As any of you may know, driving a turbo car is a lot of fun. However, driving a turbo car that absolutely throws you back into the rear of your seat and forces you to brace yourself because the turbo is larger than your head is unexplainable. One honestly must experience this in their life.

The area that we decided to drive through was a four lane road with basically zero cars. However, there were quite a few amounts of hills. Just the weekend before, I had taken the Evo up to 155mph on a private closed track (I would never do that on public roads) and my friends were aware of this. They eased me on, and eventually got the best of me to get her going a little bit. As soon as I hit a slow steady incline of a hill, I decided to hit the accelerator and give her a little bit of gas. I said to hell with it, and I floored it in the 45MPH speed zone, up to about 80MPH. As soon as I peaked the hill, all of us thrown back in our seat, my Valentine V1 Radar detector began to beep like a bomb was about to detonate. I instantly let off the gas, gained my composure, and began to brake slowly to avoid suspicion. Much to my dismay, the cop actually was directly across the road from us, driving the opposite direct. He gave me a quick glare, turned on his turn signal, and was shortly behind me. The officer walked up to my car which I had shut off (to avoid him hearing the modified exhaust sound) and asked me for my Driver’s License and Insurance. I complied, and he walked back to his car after stating that he clocked me doing 73 in a 45… 28MPH over which was an arrest able offense (anything over 25mph on top of the speed limit in IL is arrest able). I did notice that he paused while walking away for a brief second, and I was wondering if he was looking at my windows (which were all rolled down, but the back window was basically tinted completely black).

After a few minutes went by of my friends and I being extremely scared and nervous, the officer approaches the car in a stern but friendly manner. He walks up to my window, glances at me, and then Katrina, and looks me in the eyes. He states, and this is a direct quote: “I am just going to give you a $20.00 citation for having a modified exhaust. Do not worry about the speeding ticket, the tinted windows, or the lack of a front plate. You have a very nice car young man. Please drive carefully… And I’d imagine it would be quite hard to get laid without a car these days.” *Nods at Katrina as her mouth drops open*

Clearly, the officer agreed with me.

P.S.- This story is 100% accurate, and no, I will not release the town, or the officer’s name.