THE RACE
Around 0200 on one quiet night a call came into the station about a couple of cars in a race around Fashion Island.
An employee of one of the companies was working late and he had a perfect view of Newport Center Drive from the 6th floor of his building. The dispatchers ask him if he was able to give a description of the vehicles. He said to wait a second until they came around again and he would be able to give a very good description.
While the dispatcher was waiting for the description of the speeding vehicles he checked to see who he could send on the call. The witness then said he could see the cars coming again and they were both 4 door white cars. He said they had light bars on the top and they both had big numbers painted in black on the roof. He gave the dispatcher the numbers and suddenly the dispatcher realized who the racers were. It seems that Gary Lee and Al Miller were having there own training session to see how fast the cars would go before they spun out.
The reason that the dispatcher was so surprised is that usually Gary and Al were known to be sleeping soundly by that time of night.
I think that was the end of Gary and Al’s racing days.
They both got an extra day off that month.
Gary Lee’s Version:
“The time of the driving training session occurred at about 5:45am in daylight. It was conducted in a very safe manner and was watched by a Wall Street broker in his office early for the New York stock exchange opening. While he was waiting for the opening bell he was enlightened by our outstanding driving skills and called the station. He merely wanted to advise the Watch Commander of our outstanding pursuit driving skills!!”