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stop street racingplease post your stories here for why you quit or why you think it's okay to do it.
I quit after a trip to the hospital. I wasn't even running my car. (I doubt my 1.6 L Nissan could do much)
I was riding with my friend in a '89 GMC something or other truck.
We were racing my other friend's Camero.
It was about 1:30 am on a backroad with about 2 miles of straight away. We'd camp the start and finish so that we could use both lanes.
It was the first race of the night.
The camero pulled out ahead, but when we hit second it was over.
We pulled ahead and kept gaining ground.
About 2 seconds before he hit third a deer jumped out.
We hit it at about 110.
I woke up in the hospital.
In the end I was glad it was us and not the Camero.
He was okay and I was just a little banged up, no broken bones. Just a hard hit to my head.
They stitched me up and gave me some pills.
Please don't let your friends tell you that it's safe. I thought we'd be okay with the start and finish blocked off. I thought we were safe from cops and oncoming traffic. Never thought about a damn deer. If it was the camero and not the truck someone would be dead.
The trip to the hospital cost me over 1000 dollars. It would have cost $135 for all of us to go to the track.
The truck wasn't too bad off and somehow the engine was spared. I don't know how much repairs cost but I'm sure it wasn't cheap either. And the the court costs. And the community service. Yeah, shitloads of fun.
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Im glad you started this thread! +1 to you!
Im sure that all of the true regulars here would agree with you and me on this issue.
Street racing is plain stupid. I have not been involved in said accident that coused me to stop, but here it goes. My friend was canyon racing in a WRX when he hit a patch of sand doing 60 around a corner. The car spun out and hit the side of a cliff. This caused the car to do a 180 accorst the street and fly off of a 150' cliff. He landed at the bottom after flipping 3 times. The only reason he walked away was that the car landed on its axels. I nearly lost my best friend since 2nd grade that night. After that, i decided that tracking cars (something i had participated in, but not truly been into at the time) was a smarter option.
And, as a side note to any 15 or 14 year old kids who i have seen post here how cool street racing is, dont be stupid. You dont drive. You havent had the responsibility of your life and others in your hands. Dont be stupid and think that street racing is cool just because it was cool to watch in Fast and the Furious. It isnt. There is a reason cops fine people for participating (even watching!) in street racing. it is a danger, not only to the drivers, but to all around them. If you want to race (once you get good enough at driving) do it at the track!
Thats my 2/100.
I never street raced but when I was 16-17 I was one of those idiot drivers that just had to go fast all the time, I had a 93 Probe so I didn't exactly have anything worth showing off, but still I would be going 125 on the highway all the time without exception. Making absolutely retarded lane switches, driving insanely close to the car in front of me just so I could switch lanes a few seconds earlier and gas it.
Just completely ignorant, dangerous and weak minded driving. No matter how "good" you feel you are all it takes is for someone to not see you coming at 125mph and switch lanes real quick and then someone is either dying, or getting seriously hurt.
Thankfully I grew up and realized how pathetic that is without the wake up call of killing/injuring someone. As much fun as driving fast is (and that's a lot ) I see now that it takes an incredibly weak mind and an incredibly ignorant person to think that it's ok to drive around like that, to think that you have complete control and that it's ok because you are young or whatever. I hate myself for being that stupid for so long, there is nothing sad or wimpy about driving like a rational human being, it takes a stronger mind than one who buckles and caves to that type of driving just to feel cool or fit in.
Exactly. Take it to the track to get any pent up agression or speed out of your system.
So you're the reason my car insurance payment is higher than my car payment.... (I'm just kidding).
I've never street raced, and think that doing so is foolish. The best reasons not to have already been posted. You guys have some pretty badass stories though. So far they've been some of the most interesting reads I've seen on the forums.
Just another option for those of you with a need for speed or racing - maybe not the fastest racing, but it takes skill and who knows, maybe you'll learn something.
SCCA Regional Map
Northeast Region - where I am
Ya. Autocross kicks ass!
the problem is the innocents that get hurt.
Give me an old school muscle car and we'll talk.
Just like the kid who ran away from home the same night you're out street racing a couple blocks from his house. You take a turn to sharp and swing your back end around. You only take out a few fence posts and the little kid climbing the fence. Didn't do much to your car, but the kid doesn't make it through the night. It may be fun, but there's too much that you can't count on out there on public roads.
Street racing isn't bad because the racers are bad drivers.
No, street racing is bad because the drivers are dumb enough to think everything is under control.
ALL street racing REGARDLESS the circumstances IS DUMB.
Okay, so some drunk duy shows up and gets ran over.
It's too unpredictable no matter what you do.
Atleast if you pay to go to the track and shit happens, you're not responsible.
exactly.
Vinsfield: You say you're 20, but you seem to be quite immature. Mabie, you havent had a life changing experience to see the faults of your ways, or you dont drive enough to understand. I dont care.. Street racing underr any circumstance is illegal and stupid to boot. "If you want to street race, fine then by all means do it. Its fun. But don't cry about it when you smack up your car or end up dead." The problem is the innocents. I dont care if youre in the middle of nowhere. The variables are inumerable. Just dont do it, and save yourself the horors that demon and i have seen.
My so called life changing experience was when the guy I raced ended up in the back of a sqaud car and spent 3 days in Jail due to it. Nothing happend to me, just a wake-up call. Since then, track all the way. Sometimes when I'm in the mood, on a country road in the middle of nowhere I'l fishtail my friends car around a corner, but thats going like 20 mph and there is nothing around but cornfields. Tracks are also much better due to the fact that you have an emergency staff on call during the time you race. So if you do get injured or into a serious wreck there is a medical staff there and you don't have to wait for them to drive 30 miles to get to you. If your dying don't you think a 2 minute wait then a 5 minute drive to the hospital is better than a 45 minute wait then a 50 minute drive to the hospital. (Assuming they dont care flight you there).
There are quite a few track events for SCCA club members...
If you're both at a red light, the road's clear, it's one thing to see who can accelerate faster. But going any faster than ten miles an hour past the speed limit is really asking for trouble. I'm what one would call an "aggressive" driver, with probably a fair bit of road rage. But I don't "race", for a few reasons:
1. Stupidity - see examples above
2. The car - the engine's fine, but it's a FWD with cheap front tires. If I floor from a dead stop, I peel out anyway. Peeling out usually draws more attention from cops than speeding.
3. No real benefit - Face it, unless you're racing for money (which most people aren't), what do you have to gain? The guy/girl in the other car is someone you'll most likely never see again, or at least remember.
4. Gas mileage - I don't care what kinda car you drive, if you're even coming close to red-lining, you're burning more than twice the gas than actually required to get to that speed. You can watch your needle go down veeeeewy quickly. With gas prices not likely to come down, you'll be payin' more.
5. Car maintenance - Unless you know 1. how to drive/race well, and 2. how to fix your own car, racing can wreak havoc on your car. Your brakes wear down faster, your spark plugs are prone to high-speed glazing, if your car has any alignment or tire issues, you're worsening them, you're pushing the coolant system harder (not when the air flow in is great, but when you slow down afterwards, pressure build-up from heat can cause older hoses to start leaking)...not to mention transmission...well, you get the idea.
But hey, I doubt you'll listen if you're already convinced. Just keep the above points in mind.
awsome points man.
A stupid question:
What's high-speed glazing of spark plugs?
(I may know, just call it something different, or I may just not know at all.)
During hard acceleration, it is possible to overheat your spark plugs and have parts of it melt, coating the plug and rendering it inoperable. Hence, the term "glazing." The solution to this would be to get colder plugs.
And yes, street racing is retarded. If you want to street race, please just sit in a hole in the ground and inject bleach into your neck. This will:
a) prevent you from killing other people
b) save us the trouble of digging you a grave when you wrap your car around a tree
c) ensure that your DNA will no longer pollute the gene pool
Thanks, I put some Bosch +4's in my car. They don't seem to make my car do anything other than cause this occasional shudder whenever I'm not accelerating, but I'm sure they won't speed glaze.
And for more on elimination from the gene pool read this
From the sound of it, they're cold plugs. So, they have a harder time detonating when not being pushed, which could account for the shudder. If you're not stalling, you should be fine. :D
LOL. Nice. XD
They're nice because they're factory pre-gapped, but because of the type of plugs, they tend to run slightly warmer and can possibly hurt the car years down the line.
Considering it's already over 120k miles, I think it's worth experimenting.
As to above, yes, that's high-speed glazing. Gets even worse if you're doing a lot of fast driving on too low of an octane. If your plugs start glazing, you'll notice seriously acceleration AND gas mileage loss. I know this because the last spark plugs in my car were glazed. :)
As for my points...thank you. I kinda just cobbled those together.
I really don't like street racers.
I love the excuses they use.
"We can't afford track fees!" But you can afford all that shit you did to your car. Suuure.
"We don't have anywhere to go!" Yes you do. There are tracks (road courses and drag strips) all over the country. There HAS to be one around you somewhere. Sure it might not be 20 minutes up the road, but surely within a couple hours drive.
"Racing on the street's more exciting!" Yeah. Real exciting. It'll be really exciting when you T-bone that minivan at the next intersection while doing 90 miles an hour, killing the family inside and possibly yourself. That's one hell of a thrill there. I'm sure your and their loved ones will say at the funeral "They had such an exciting death, didn't they dear?"
"We block off the road/set up barriers! We're in control!" Bullshit. Just because you've got a rolling roadblock or some hay bales scattered around doesn't mean you're in control of anything. You don't know what's around that next bend, what's at the next intersection or what's just over that rise. There's no way for you to know that without deploying an entire crew with radios and everything to monitor the situation--and if you're willing to go that far, just go to the damn track where they provide all of that for you.
"I have to race on the street cuz those $%*(#$ NAZIS at the track failed me at tech!" Guess what? If they failed you at tech inspection, it means YOUR CAR IS UNSAFE and you shouldn't be driving it ANYWHERE, let alone racing it on the street.
If street-racing lingo were a language it'd be loserese. Please, for the sake of everyone on the road. Race at the track or DON'T RACE AT ALL. Your family, friends and local law enforcement will thank you.