Street racers play cat-and-mouse with police

Sunday, Aug. 6, 2000 | 9:04 a.m.

The need for speed brings the muscle cars out on Saturday night.

Outlaw racers driving street-legal machines with 300-horsepower engines pair off every weekend in the Las Vegas Valley for midnight drag races where speeds can approach 200 mph.

For the drivers, it's a thrilling burst of adrenaline fueled by competition, bets and the pent-up desire to let their big cars loose.

For Metro Police, it's an irksome weekly cat-and-mouse game and an accident waiting to happen.

The weekend ritual, which can draw hundreds of cars and trucks, begins at a department store parking lot around 11 p.m. Under the parking lot lights, drivers check out each others engines. They compare notes on wheels, torque, horsepower and other arcane points of motorhead knowledge.

Almost all of the drivers are behind the wheel of American-made machines. Import drivers hold their own impromptu races and the two groups rarely mix.

Cars circle the parking lot, showing off bursts of power and speed with white clouds of burning rubber.

Chris Hubble, 21, said he looks for the races for two things: "for the people and for the rush."

Most of the cars boast 300-horsepower engines, but many are equipped with canisters of nitrous oxide, which can boost performance by another 100 horsepower or more.

While still in the parking lot, good-natured ribbing among the drivers gives way to serious speculation. Soon the challenges -- and bets -- are flying among those who rarely miss the opportunity to race friends and foes on a quick quarter-mile of Las Vegas Valley asphalt.

Around midnight, the cars peel off to find a place for a street race, the illegitimate stepchild of legal drag racing.

Avoiding the police is the major challenge. On a recent Saturday night, police kicked them out of a secluded site in southwest Las Vegas, then chased them off an even more remote spot about 10 miles south of town.

Police also dispersed them from several staging areas -- convenience stores in the southwest part of the Las Vegas Valley -- before a hard core of about two dozen racers finally found an empty road in a light-industrial area just south of McCarran International Airport.

They raced there for about 90 minutes -- in 10-second intervals -- before the police caught up with them again.

The racing isn't legal, but that doesn't keep the drivers -- most in their late teens or early twenties -- from racing. The Camaros, Trans-Ams, Mustangs, Impalas, Cutlesses and others range from the road monsters from the 1970s to the leaner, more efficient cars of the late 1990s.

Hubble is one of those with a newer car -- a 313-horsepower, 1995 Z-28 Camaro. A month ago, he moved here from Portland, Ore., where he also raced.

Within two days of arriving in Las Vegas, another Camaro driver pulled up next to him at a stoplight and told him about the races. Hubble wasn't surprised. He said there are similar street races in virtually every city coast-to-coast.

Saturday nights

Travis Whidden, 20, a Web-page designer, is a racer who rarely misses a Saturday night gathering.

Whidden said he doesn't usually compete for money, but this Saturday night he brought $150 to wager against other drivers. He won all four of the races he drove in that night.

While the drivers and their fans -- many of them minors -- bet on the outcomes of the street races, winning the bragging rights is even more important, Whidden said.

Whidden said he doesn't drink or do drugs, so street racing is his one outlet for fun. It is an expensive habit, he admits.

On top of $500 a month for insurance and $500 for payments on his 1998 Z-28 Camaro, he pays another $1,000 a month just to keep his car looking and driving well.

"I baby this thing," he said, affectionately patting the sleek black vehicle.

Whidden doesn't mind when people pay attention to his baby.

"That's what we strive for -- attention."

Although Whidden and other racers admit they've seen some minor accidents, they said serious crashes are rare.

"I've never seen a fatality, and I've been doing this for two years," Whidden said.

Hubble said he has seen few serious wrecks in street racing.

"Daily driving is probably more dangerous," he argued. "It's better to have organized racing then kids doing it out in traffic, where they can hurt other people."

Potential for danger

Police, however, say street racing always has the potential for a dangerous accident.

Sgt. Chris Darcy, a Metro Police spokesman, said his department tries to put the brakes on outlaw races. Police often find out about the races from phone calls from irate residents annoyed by the roar of drivers revving their high-powered engines before and during the races.

"We try to stay on top of it, but it is very difficult because of the highly mobile nature of the activity," he said. "We take it very seriously."

The drivers meet at a central location, but split up when the police arrive. They stay in touch through cell phones, agreeing to meet at the next appointed race site.

Police try to follow the cars, and can cite drivers for numerous infractions, including speeding and racing.

Metro often details several two-person patrols to try and stop the races, Darcy said.

He said police sometimes arrest juveniles for curfew violations. Police sometimes find illegal drugs or alcohol among the drivers, he said -- a point that the drivers dispute.

The drivers, many of whom aren't eager to be identified, insist that if someone is drinking or using drugs, they are ostracized.

Power and speed

But even the best and most sober driver can make a mistake with the power and speed of these vehicles, Darcy said.

While he didn't know if anyone has been injured, Darcy said the police have responded to accidents from street racing.

"It is very dangerous," Darcy said.

Police encourage the drivers to use the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which holds weekend events for street racers.

"Anybody with a street-legal car can come out and practice," said Kirk Barkhimer, racetrack manager of speedway events.

The Friday and Saturday events draw 100 to 150 cars, he said. The events include a "test and tune" on Fridays and races on Saturdays.

The emphasis is on safety, Barkhimer said. Cars are thoroughly checked before being allowed on the race track.

Whidden and other drivers say they don't want to get checked out, then wait hours to race.

Another sticky point for legal races is the cost. According to Barkhimer, it costs $15 for a driver and car, $10 a head for "crew members" and $8 just to watch the Saturday night races.

The street racers, many of whom bring a car full of friends, say they would rather put that money into their cars.

More intense

But mainly, drivers avoid the track because street racing is "more intense," Whidden said.

Whidden said the police efforts to crackdown on street racing would be better focused on finding a place for people to race away from populated areas.

Street racing is safer than trouble that young people otherwise find in Las Vegas, he argued.

"They can cite us, they can tow our cars, they can do whatever they want," he said. "It'll never, ever keep us from street racing.

"It's like a year-round party every Saturday night," Whidden said. "It's never going to stop."

"You gotta catch me first," Hubble agreed.