When Hollywood hunk Vin Diesel roared on to movie screens in The Fast and the Furious, young people across North America saw up close and personal what they knew in their hearts to be true: Street racing is cool. What law enforcement agencies across the continent, along with concerned parents and sleep- deprived neighbours, know to be true is the illegal sport is noisy and deadly...
Street racers take ordinary cars and transform them into lean, mean, high-speed machines. That can involve something as basic as removing anti-pollution and exhaust gear or as high-tech and dangerous as using nitrous oxide for a final burst of speed. Today, souped-up imports -- particularly Honda's Civic and Integra models -- are making their skid marks on intersections, parkways and city streets. A typical street race starts in the early-morning hours after most people have turned in for the night. Racers ready their cars and rev up for the signal -- often a green traffic light.
There are no rules; in some cases, there is not even an end point to the race. It is over when someone stops or slows down.
Usually, street racing calls for short, furious bursts of speed. It is common for drivers to hit 120 kilometres an hour in a 400-metre race -- and not have time to get above third gear.
Not surprisingly, street racers, race watchers or bystanders get injured or killed. In the past four years, 19 deaths in the Toronto area have been attributed to illegal street racing (including three in recent weeks).
The potentially deadly consequences is the primary reason police departments across Canada are putting initiatives in place to curb the sport.
In Saskatchewan, the RCMP and the province's drag racing association launched Street Legal, a program started in California to reduce illegal street racing, whileng up the lines of communication with the 16- to 25-year-old drivers drawn to the sport.
One Saskatchewan police constable even has his own '81 Chevy Malibu in peak racing form, to earn the respect of racers and help move them off city streets and on to sanctioned raceways.
In Halifax, where upwards of 1,000 people come together to watch street races at Point Pleasant Park, the local police department is ramping up patrols and revving up the motor vehicle citations.
During a two-month period, more than 50 citations were made, says Don Spicer, a police department spokesman.
That is a drop in the bucket compared with Toronto, which is acknowledged as one of the top street-racing cities in North America, where as many as 500 racers show up at a single event. They come from all over southern Ont-ario and across the United States to spots along the Queensway, Finch and Weston and Steeles and Kennedy. Gore Road is such a hot site it is said to have start and finish lines drawn on it.
This summer, Toronto Police Service launched PACER, which stands for Police and Community Educating Racers. It is a mix of enforcement and education. While it may be hard to quantify the impact of the program's educational component, the enforcement numbers are noteworthy: More than 400 charges were laid in one weekend, including 25 criminal charges.
Street racing, at one time called hot-rodding and drag racing, probably emerged on the heels of Henry Ford's new invention. Speed has always been an inherent attraction -- and proof of masculinity.
The fact that it is dangerous and taboo only adds to the appeal. Hollywood helps the image along. "Movies like The Fast and the Furious only glamourize this [sport]," Mr. Spicer says.
What viewers see in that movie is not drag racing, maintains The National Hot Rod Association, based in Glendora, Calif. "Drag racing is an organized sport for high-performance vehicles conducted on a safer, controlled race course," says Tom Compton, president of the NHRA.
In an effort to get races off the street, the association created the Summit Import Drag Racing series, which features events for import racers and national coverage on ESPN.
While giving racers the fast and the furious, it helps reduce the fatal.
LOAD-DATE: July 26, 2002
