Rowing Team Accident

    My brother, friend, and I were at an AM/PM gas station in Stockton, California, around 8PM on a Sunday night in May 1986. Since the three of us were in our late teens, we were always noticing the good looking ladies. On this particular night we noticed quite a few of them. They all seemed to be traveling together in a white van overloaded with cargo on its roof. As we all went about our business inside the store, I noticed the ladies had all piled into their van and gone on their way. About ten minutes after they left the store, the three of us got into my truck and headed south, toward Los Angeles. About an hour into our trip, the traffic came to a near standstill. The Highway Patrol was putting flares out to block the left lane. As we got closer I noticed the white van on its side, in the median. All of its cargo spread over the road. Then I noticed body bags. I don't know how many, but I'm sure there was one in the left lane on the southbound side of the road.
    As we passed the scene, all three of us said to each other, "Oh my God, those were the women at the gas station!!" I'd only had my driver's license for a month, and this was the first road trip that I was allowed to drive. For the next 300 miles or so, I was a nervous wreck. I drove like a saint. When we got home to Los Angeles (around 2AM) we told my mother about what we had seen. The next morning she found an article in the newspaper about the accident. It was the Univ. of CA San Diego women's rowing team. They were on their way home from a meet and were in a hurry to return to campus because some of them had morning classes. The CHP estimates they were traveling approximately 100 miles an hour when they blew a tire and rolled. Fourteen died.