Tearful Ending

Michael Ballman was killed by the machine he worshiped. The 19-year-old died Thursday night when he lost control of his souped-up 1969 Volkswagen bug and smashed into a tree as he drag-raced with friends on his street, police said.

It was a sad ending for a kid who had been devoted to his car even before he could start driving it three years ago.

“Before he got his license, he would just sit and stare at it,” said his 12-year-old sister, Rachel.

“My mom always told him that he shouldn’t race, because one day he would die if he crashed.”

Neighbors said Friday that they often had complained about constant drag-racing on tree-lined Riverside Drive, their winding, two-lane street. But Ballman and his friends continued to use it as a speedway, prompting neighbors to appeal to city officials to install speed bumps. The city never did.

Thursday night, neighbors said, they heard the teenagers revving their engines and taking off.

“It wasn’t a matter of if it was going to happen,” said Linda Helms. “It was just a matter of when. They are always racing down here. I’m just sorry to hear it happened.”

Police say Ballman and either two or three friends were driving more than 58 mph in a 25-mph zone. Perhaps Ballman lost control on a curve, Sgt. Steve Johnson said.

“Kids shouldn’t be drag-racing at all,” Johnson said. “They put speed limits up for a reason.”

Two teenagers who were questioned denied that they had been drag-racing, Johnson said. Police and the district attorney’s office will discuss whether charges should be filed, he said.

On Friday morning, nearly two dozen teenagers gathered at the Ballman home, crying and hugging. They walked en masse to the tree, where some laid flowers.

Weeping as he knelt at the spot where his friend died, Brian Harter, 24, picked up a shiny chrome handle from Ballman’s car and handed it to Ballman’s brother Danny.

Only a few months ago, Danny, 18, had crashed into a tree across from where his brother died, neighbors and friends said.

Neighbors said the brothers’ parents, Evelyn and Darrel, were on a cruise in the Bahamas to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.

On Friday, the family’s pastor called the Ballmans with the news, and they were returning home, relatives said.

Ballman’s passion for cars was obvious at a very young age, his sister said. Their mother often told friends that at 6 months, Michael had learned to roll down the car window, Rachel said.

As a youth, he could take apart a car and reassemble it with new parts and a new design, said Harter’s 18-year-old brother, Dustin, who had known Ballman since elementary school.

Nearly every weekend, Ballman and his friends went to the Pomona racetrack to race their cars, relatives said.

He bought a new motor, repainted and lowered his treasured VW bug, which had been his mother’s car, friends said.

“He had just bought some new car parts but never got to put them on,” Dustin Harter said. “A lot of our friends race. This is just something that happened.”

Ballman, who worked at a nearby computer store, also had a keen mind for computers, said neighbor Heather Stafford.

“Mike was the best of all the kids,” Stafford said. “He was so smart. He was a computer whiz. If anything was broken, we would call Mike and he could fix it.”