It was bound to happen ...

Yesterday my uncle had a big Labor Day get together at his house. There were probably nearly 100 people there at various times of the day. There were five four wheelers at the party, including my dad's and my mom's. My two cousins and I were out riding (I was riding my dad's and one cousin was riding my mom's and the other cousin was riding a dirt bike) and one of them said we should race. So, we raced. There was a big open field that made a good race track. Unfortunately, we didn't designate a finish line, so by the time I started breaking, I realized that in front of me was a treeline and then a creek. Well, being the quick thinker that I am, I decided that hitting trees or flying into a creek 12 feet down were not good options, so I continued to break as hard as I could (the grass was wet, so I wasn't getting much traction) and once I knew for sure I couldn't stop, I turned the handlebars to the right. I was thrown from the four wheeler and it turned over on its side and nearly flipped over on me. Luckily it stopped and just ended up on its side rather than squashing me. I stayed on the ground for a minute, making sure I wasn't hurt badly and then got up to see what kind of damage I did. As far as I went, the only thing that hurt was the shoulder I landed on. My cousin and I flipped the four wheeler back over and it seemed to be okay. I just stood there for a few minutes, calming down and then got on the four wheeler to take it back to the house. It wouldn't start. I tried again - still wouldn't start. Finally I gave it some gas while I hit the ignition switch and it started right up. I drove it back to the house and that was the end of my four wheeling for the day. I did learn some valuable lessons from this experience. First, always have a finish line with enough braking room. Second, it is better to flip the four wheeler on its side rather than crashing into very large trees. Third, victory is sweet - that's right, I won the race!