One of the women at work has a 2000 Civic Si with a CAI and a coffee-can muffler. I've been after her to race me ever since I got the Ion. She kept putting me off, citing transaxle troubles. Today, she finally agreed to run me.

We were able to run at stoplights three times. From a stop, I was killing her, though this may have had more to do with the drivers than the cars. Not that she can't drive ... she races when the strip is open.

At the first light, I simply had a much, much better reaction time and was under way before she even popped her clutch. At the second and third lights, I tried to wait until I saw her start to move. According to her, I won because of "VTEC lag". In the time it took for her VTEC to activate in first gear, I was walking her like nothing and she could not pull on me subsequently.

We did not run from a roll. We drove into a gas station afterward, talked a little bit, then headed home.