Yellowknife (Dec 19/03) - Nearly a dozen teens and their parents packed a Yellowknife courthouse Monday as a 16-year-old boy admitted to flipping his car -- filled with six of his friends -- during a drunken streetrace.

"I'm truly sorry," said the teen, who had been driving for just four months at the time of the Oct. 24 crash. "I've given it a lot of thought. (I know) my friends could have been seriously hurt."

The youth pleaded guilty to impaired driving and was fined $650 and barred from operating a vehicle for three years. "(Teens) think they're immortal," said Chief Judge Michel Bourassa, as the youth's passengers and friends watched from the gallery. "(But) God takes care of fools and drunks."

According to one witness, the teen was racing with a truck at the entrance to the sandpits when his black Dodge Neon flipped during a turn. The car rolled over three or four times, ripping off a review mirror and blowing out the driver's side windows.

Three of the teens in the car were taken to hospital with minor injuries and released a short time afterward.

Witnesses reported the teen had consumed seven or eight beers in the hours before the accident. When police responded to the crash, the youth told them a "drunk Indian" jumped into the car with himself and his six passengers still inside. He said the fictitious man sped around the sandpits, crashed the car and then ran off.

The youth's mother said her son is seeing a psychologist because he has recurring nightmares about the crash.

During sentencing, Aitken asked for a two-year driving prohibition, but Bourassa felt the offence merited a stiffer penalty.