THE PERILOUS JOURNEY (TO SCHOOL)

Road bikes? Seven, he says. Well, no; he interrupts himself to clarify. Three belong to his wife. They own two cars as well, one each.

Math teacher Jon Stark then goes on to detail his other modes of transportation. Two motorcycles. A sailplane. A gyroplane. And his beloved helicopter.

Since the school does not provide parking spaces for helicopters, Stark usually opts to bike to school. Ironically, he finds it faster to bike instead of drive due to the traffic.

“On busy mornings, I come up McClellan and my record so far is passing 162 cars,” Stark said. “Because once [the cars]  get into that conga line… trying to come up McClellan, they’re not moving.”

His own car bears a touch of his signature humor. Of course, it makes sense that a math teacher’s license plate would read “PI OVER 2”.

“I couldn’t think of a rational basis for a license, so I thought of using an irrational number,” Stark said.

Inevitably, he talks about the numerous accidents he’s encountered over his many years of biking to school. So far, he’s noticed an intriguing pattern.

“It’s always a small white four-door Japanese car, with a young woman driving,” Stark said. “And immediately after the accident, [math teacher]  Colin Anderson always drives by. So every time I see Colin Anderson on the highway, I get scared.”

Another time, Stark was biking in front of 7-Eleven when a car unwittingly cut him off.

“I hit the mirror and it cut through my watchband, and cut the watch off,” Stark said. “I went flipping over the hood and landed on the sidewalk. The police came and put a chalk line around me, and said ‘Don’t worry, it’s just so we can measure,’ and I’m thinking “Yeah right. Not good for your confidence when you’re lying on the ground and they’re drawing a line of chalk around you. You feel like you’re gonna be in one of those murder shows on TV.’”

Just last spring, Stark met with — perhaps yet another — death-defying experience. This time, it was a Prospect student who ran him over.

“She smashed me down and pushed me along the road and I came to rest in front of her car, looking up at her bumper with one tire by my ear and another tire by my ankle,” Stark smiled at the memory. “And you know, I was just about to get crushed. I was screaming my head off in terror.”

When the driver leaped out of her car, she saw Stark lying on the ground under it. Understandably, she freaked out and started screaming as well. Her passenger followed suit and soon joined the chorus of screaming people. Eventually one of the girls had the good sense to make a call.

She wound up calling her parents. And it was her parents who ended up calling 911.

Reminiscing about the past, Stark said, “I do a lot of mountain climbing and I fly helicopters and things like that, but I really think sometimes the most dangerous thing I do is just bicycle around Cupertino.”

FRANKLIN THE FLOWER

There is a collection of solar-powered bobbleheads sitting atop the dashboard: Hello Kitty, Baymax, Eddie the monkey, Franklin the flower, Nelson the cat and Oliver — the frog on the swing. They represent road trip adventures that senior Vincent Tran embarked upon with his girlfriend, souvenirs from the times they’ve spent together. A sea turtle sticker souvenir from the time his girlfriend vacationed in Hawaii adorns the car’s rear window; even the license plate is a memento from their trip to Disneyland one summer. A seat cushion very convincingly disguised as a tree stump only adds to the car’s charm.

The inspiration behind such personalization?

“I’ve seen some bobbleheads on other cars, and I’ve always wanted the one that’s a flower, where the leaves [bob up and down],” Tran said. “It was always my favorite, and I thought ‘Oh my gosh, I have to have that one when I get a car’.”

They found the second bobblehead in San Francisco.

“We were just looking through some stores and found another one, which was the cat [Lucky Cat],” Tran said. “And then it just went from there.”

So far, Tran and his girlfriend senior Julianna Xie have gone on five long-distance road trips in the past year alone. They’ve paid visits to SoCal twice, San Francisco two or three times and Monterey once.

Tran notes the irony of his tree stump: although it appears as stiff as an actual tree trunk, it’s actually as soft as any seat cushion.

Just as the stump’s appearance belies its softness, the outward appearance of Tran’s car — a modest white Toyota Prius — belies the nature of the contents within.

STIG

A mini cooper that is a cross between blue and gray, US Government teacher Ben Recktenwald’s beloved car is emblazoned with a Union Jack on its roof, with a black-and-gray Union Jack on the rearview mirror to match. Not surprisingly, it’s a British car. Complementing the British flag are two white stripes down the hood and white enamel lining the rims. The roof itself is white as well.

Before Recktenwald started car shopping, he already knew he wanted a car on the smaller side because they’re much easier to maneuver; it’s like driving a go-kart. To Recktenwald, the option of a custom-made car was the icing on the cake. So why the motif of the Union Jack?

“When I was a kid, there was a BBC comedy,” Recktenwald said. “And in the show there were two teenagers running around in a mini cooper, and I thought it was the coolest thing.”

And thus, Stig was born.

In all the five years that Recktenwald has been the proud owner of Stig, they’ve participated in an MVHS car show — and did not win, he adds — seen the addition of a high-end stereo and withstood the onslaught of questions from curious strangers.

The interrogation goes more or less like this:
“Are you British?”
“No.”
“Then why the Union Jack?”

Recounting the experience, Recktenwald said, “I didn’t feel it was necessary to explain to strangers why my car is the way it is.”

The way it is, with all its custom features, makes Stig an easy car to spot in any parking lot. However, those personalized touches add up. The high-end stereo represents only the top of a long list of custom features that Stig has — in total, the personalized touches add up to about $3000 and the stereo costs $500.

“Because,” Recktenwald said, laughing. “You’ve gotta have a killer stereo.”

When asked about adventures that he and Stig have undertaken, Recktenwald replied that nothing came to mind.

After a hesitant pause, he then said, “At least nothing I could tell a high school newspaper.”