During the early 1960's, usually after midnight, Bobbie and I were at times awakened by an automobile or automobiles roaring past our home on Maplewood. These vehicles were traveling, or should I say, speeding, considerably faster than the posted 35 MPH speed limit. After these cars zoomed past our residence, we could hear the decreasing Doppler noises of screeching tires and brakes as the drivers wound and ascended their way up Maplewild toward the top of the hill, where Maplewild becomes 152nd St.

This was an exercise that the teen-agers of Highline called, "The Five Minute Loop". The Loop race started when a group of young people, driving their, or their parent's cars, would gather in the Burien Theatre parking lot near 152nd and Ambaum. One of the drivers, with or without passengers, would be timed as he whipped out of the theatre parking lot and headed southward down Ambaum Road, toward Five Corners. From Five Corners the racer would turn on to winding Sylvester Road, follow Sylvester through a portion of Normandy Park and then along what was known as The Colony, or, South Beach.

Then squealing around the 90 degree right turn, where Sylvester intersects with Maplewild, at speeds sometimes approaching sixty miles per hour, the racer would wind upwards to Seahurst. Many times the car would finish this uphill dash in a lower gear which would intensify
the sleep-disturbing racket. From Seahurst it was a straight, flat run back to the theatre starting point. The basic objective of all this
dangerous foolishness was to drive this loop in five minutes or less.

These after midnight dashes would happen, off and on, for a couple of years. The Loop races ended rather abruptly when a teen-ager missed a curve while climbing Maplewild. His vehicle crashed and the boy was killed. His first name was Tony. His last name, of Italian ancestry, I can't recall. The Highline Times ran a quite comprehensive story about Tony's death. This story put the necessary pressure on the King County Sheriff's department and Normandy Park Police. Heavy law enforcement and more parental concern put an end to the "Five Minute Loop Race".

Al Sneed is the former publisher of the Highline Times and lived in the former tennis club on Maplewild.