(This is the actual article that appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star.)

This 'brake dancing' is serious

By BRIAN ANTHONY HERNANDEZ / Lincoln Journal StarTuesday, Jan 09, 2007 - 12:21:23 am CST

Don’t try this at home.
“When driving a whip, ride or hooptie, get out and climb onto the hood while the car continues to move,” reads a description on UrbanDictionary.com.

Do that and you’ll be “ghost riding the whip,” a dangerous — sometimes fatal — stunt popping up across the nation.

And don’t forget to blast hip-hop beats (possibly the song that helped make the stunt popular, E40’s “Tell Me When to Go”) when bustin’ a move on or around the slow-moving vehicle.

Sound like a bad idea? Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady thinks so.“It only takes an instance for something fun to turn into something fatal,” he said.He hasn’t seen or heard of instances of this happening in Lincoln.“If we spotted something like that, there would be a ticket issued,” he said.

The stunt has led to injuries and a couple of deaths, including an 18-year-old from California who died after his head slammed into a parked car while he was hanging out the window of an SUV, The Associated Press reported.

Don’t be quick to think young drivers everywhere are itching to ghost ride.

“Why would you endanger your life like that just to dance?” asked Ryan Lieb, 16 of O’Neill, who was an usher Friday for Gov. Dave Heineman’s inaugural ball. “It sounds fun but sounds incredibly stupid.”

His friend Jason Sanderson, 17, also of O’Neill and an usher for the ball, agreed, adding that “I think it’d be more of a city boy thing. People in rural areas probably wouldn’t do this.”

Except for maybe their friend Paul Tompkins, 17, of O’Neill, who tried a variation of ghost riding before the stunt started to gain popularity nationwide.

“I tried doing that on a tractor while it was still going,” the 17-year-old said as his cheeks turned red. “But it didn’t work, and no hip-hop music was involved.”