HERE’S THE KEY: Shirley Piha, 65, of...

HERE’S THE KEY: Shirley Piha, 65, of Newport Beach went to Santa Ana Chrysler Plymouth to have her car appraised. Before she left, she says, she was pressured into buying a car she didn’t want by salesmen who kept stalling when she asked for her keys back. Piha settled her lawsuit this week for $35,000. . . . Dealership owner Mike Shepard, who denies her version, is steaming: “You can’t afford to take a chance in court in this country any more.” But Piha’s lawyer, Aurora Harris counters: “It’s an old sales tactic that’s being used more often.”

NO TORTOISE: Were you around the Huntington Beach Pier when those 14 people took off on the Trans America Footrace June 18? Five of them crossed the finish line at New York’s Central Park--2,925 miles away. The winner: Istvan Sipos, 35, of Hungary, who made it in 68 days, beating the second-place finisher in handy fashion--by 45 hours. . . . If you’re thinking about entering next year’s race, it’s in June, and the starting point again is Huntington Beach.

TAKING STALK: When Julie Gianatassio, a senior at Western State University law school in Fullerton, worked with its domestic violence clinic this past year, she decided to put together a California stalking laws booklet. . . . The law school was so impressed it’s now making it available to the public. It tells you whether you qualify as a stalking victim, and what legal remedies are available. “People think only of celebrities as stalking victims,” says Gianatassio, who recently took the bar exam. “But many women out there face this threat.”

CONCEPT SURFING: Maybe it helps to see what you’re doing when you windsurf, but it’s not really necessary to make it fun. . . . The Braille Institute in Anaheim has sent 30 teen-agers on a camping outing at Newport Dunes in Newport Beach for a three-day outing--sailing, windsurfing, and setting up their own tents. “We call it conceptual development,” says youth coordinator Peggy Comstock. “When you’re blind, it’s much easier to understand what you’re reading if you’ve actually experienced it.”