1,000 cars, headed up I-97 for a banger. What could go wrong?

I’m 30 feet above Interstate 97, peering through a chain-link fence at the concrete trail below. Traffic is light on this bright May morning, but I feel like a red-tailed hawk testing the exhaust-flavored wind flowing up from all that horsepower. I try to picture how different it must have looked from this overpass on March 24, when 1,000 cars traveled it in a midnight stampede.