CarCraft Glorifying Street Racing??

[BKBridges]

In Sandiego they impound and crush your car for street racing. Doesnt stop it, just makes it really expensive occasionally. Not many tracks will impound and crush your stuff other than 24hrs Lemons....

[Brian Lohnes]

John did a great job with the story. It was reporting, not sensationalizing anything. They used good pull quotes, words from the guys they were interviewing, not their own.

Two thumbs up for a well reported story in my book. It was more about the cars than the scene, but the scene needs to be in there somewhat to explain why guys are doing what they do.

My experience with the east coast realm of this was far scarier with drugs and guns being flashed around (these were not "brotherhood of street racer" guys)

[Thumpin455]

Used to do it back in Nebraska, deserted road a couple miles out of town, two cars lined up, and maybe one or two more there to watch and start it. No traffic, plenty of room, and no deer popping out because the corn wasnt tall enough to hide them most of the time. When I started running 11s at the track I decided not to do the clandestine stuff.

Still dont have much of an urge to race off the track like I used to. I like to know how well its running, and a time slip is a quantifiable and repeatable result of any changes I made.

Is the article glorifying it? Debatable. Are they doing some impressive stuff with those vehicles? Definitely. Its the place most of us started, simply because there arent enough tracks around to do it legally.

[Barry Donovan]

I guess they just want a track.

locale normally makes the machine..now they have machines and not a place to do with them.

they don't even have a long empty highway at 80. Racer machines would be fictitious without a place.

[Beagle]

DId ya happen to notice the distribution / spread of interest during the latest Freiburger and Finnegan (FnF? HA!) dirtball extravaganza? The one with the retirement-priced-Lambo and the shitbucket death-trap-impending-compound-fracture rat rod?

Girls want the bad boys. Little boys destined for law school love lambos.

Guess where the bad boys run their sh*t ?

Maybe CC is trying to increase their female readership.

It still happens around here, although I no longer know where it happens. I have enough problems without adding street racing to my folder. After seeing some of the truly stupid shit that happens on the cold hard streets, I lost interest. Then again, I lost interest in the Harley "Lifestyle" when the smell of new leather and bengay (RUBs) became so prevalent I couldn't hold down my lunch.

[bbnova]

In the new CarCraft there is a huge story about Street Racing in California......It's even on the front cover........ Do you think it's a good idea to cover Street Racing and put it on the front cover?? Or a bad idea that will promote street racing all around the country......

really who cares

[dieselgeek]

Haven't read the CC article (yet) but... there is a growing nationwide phenomenon of youth who literally live for nothing but street racing and gambling. They live at the shop space they rent, earn their income from gambling on their races, and do nothing but repeat this over and over. Megasquirt is popular with this crowd due to its bang-for-the-buck factor and features that spank the "domestic" EFI systems... get on the MS forums and look at some of the kids asking questions about launch control, boost building, etc.

And I am not talking about the SoCal 13-second "brotherhood" stuff that's lingered over from the 70s and 80s, if your ride isn't in the 8s then you aren't even thinking about playing with these guys. I know a chassis tuner down south who makes most of his money working with this crowd, getting 2400hp cars to dead hook on the street.

[Brian Lohnes]

Scott, dig up the story. The guys they talked to aren't in weenie lightweight stuff. There's some heavy iron roaming around out there. I think it is a good read. Again, I am classifying it as really good reporting, not as a hype up of street racing.

[BKBridges]

The last time I went to the Chassis dyno I had to wait for a 800hp honda civic street racer to finish his pulls. Serious stuff indeed.

[38P]

What Would Wally Do?

McGann's story never would have run when Wally Parks was Petersen's editor.

But it's not much more "glorifying" than some of the stuff Baskerville wrote back in the '70s (i.e. "Silver Bullet", Lisk's Hemi/Lenco Challenger, the Roush-built Mustang II).

On the other hand,if it was only about reporting, McGann probably should have included a couple of side bars about the fatal dangers of street racing and the police/CHP perspectives.

Trivia: Old guys grew up reading juvenile hot rodding novels by Henry Gregor Felsen (often to satisfy some school assignments). Felsen got his start in the genre on a commission from a local safety council to write an anti-street racing book. Of course plenty of youngsters read his Bangshifting yarns and got other ideas . . . .

[TC]

At the end of the article in the little blue highlighted box, they say they just scratched the surface of this and that they would check back with these guys to see how stuff is going in the future, and then they add that they want to go around the country doing articles about Street Racing and then they ask people if they know were some good scenes are......... If that isn't advocating Street Racing I don't know what is....... To young kids eyes, that don't have much common sense, I'm not sure if these articles are a good idea........

[pdub]

I reckon it's out of context, but I can vividly remember a feature article in HRM maybe 40 years ago about the Clandestine Racing Society on Mulholland Drive (did I spell that right)? I don't know where that is, but I think it's in California.

Before the days of lots of people and minivans coming the other direction....

[TC]

I reckon it's out of context, but I can vividly remember a feature article in HRM maybe 40 years ago about the Clandestine Racing Society on Mulholland Drive (did I spell that right)? I don't know where that is, but I think it's in California.

Before the days of lots of people and minivans coming the other direction....

It maybe, since that is my interpretation of it....... Here's the actual quote itself....

Even with all the time we spent preparing this article, we realize we've only just scratched the surface of the scene here. We will continue to fallow up with the guys we met and will also expand our scope to look at the other parts of the country. Know a good scene near you? Email us at [email protected]

You decide..............

[antmnte]

I have a Car Craft article from 1973 about street racing in NY. That was when there was probably 3 or 4 tracks still less than 50 miles from NYC . It still goes on here too just not like back then.

[pdub]

Man, they're risking it all right there, as a publication. Like said above, wonder what huge impending (editorial?) changes to HRM are in store?

EDIT: I'm pondering about all of this blind, because I take HRM at the house, but not Car Craft.