[FDfranklin]

Originally Posted by Q4P

TK, I am going to make the guess that place will be so looted with cops that there won't be too much street racing going anymore out there.

This happens every few months, it will die down for a few and the idiots will be back out there until the next crash. Never ending cycle of morons.

[TK-421]

Originally Posted by Q4P

TK, I am going to make the guess that place will be so looted with cops that there won't be too much street racing going anymore out there.

Maybe for the next week or two but it won't last. It'll be business as usual pretty soon. This isn't the first time this has happened - a while ago, I saw a tanker t-bone an Integra that tried to pull out in front of it but stalled. The tanker did a full jackknife and propelled the Acura into the air. The kid had to be pried out of the car and was barely conscious but had no serious injuries and was right back at it 2 weeks later (not in that car, obviously). Also, just a month or two ago there were 2 Civics racing down Gandy towards the intersection where the spectators are. At 120+, one car did a pit maneuver on the other (not intentionally) and ended up launching it into the air where it collided with a light post and kept hurtling through the air to hit another light post. In all 3 instances, no fatalities occurred somehow (Civic = Volvo??).

After both of the previous incidents, people kept on coming to do what they do after things have settled down. Also, none of the three wrecks I mentioned were talked about in the news, be it on tv or the papers. Why? Because it shines light on the fact that street racing in Tampa is nothing short of out of control. Even when they did block off the entrances to the Causeway spot there was nothing they could do except hand out a few tickets for spectating illegal activity or some shit and let everyone go. Plus, officers have better things to be doing than sending fleets of Crown Vics to chase down punk kids every weekend.

[FDfranklin]

Originally Posted by TK-421

Maybe for the next week or two but it won't last. It'll be business as usual pretty soon. This isn't the first time this has happened - a while ago, I saw a tanker t-bone an Integra that tried to pull out in front of it but stalled. The tanker did a full jackknife and propelled the Acura into the air. The kid had to be pried out of the car and was barely conscious but had no serious injuries and was right back at it 2 weeks later (not in that car, obviously). Also, just a month or two ago there were 2 Civics racing down Gandy towards the intersection where the spectators are. At 120+, one car did a pit maneuver on the other (not intentionally) and ended up launching it into the air where it collided with a light post and kept hurtling through the air to hit another light post. In all 3 instances, no fatalities occurred somehow (Civic = Volvo??).

After both of the previous incidents, people kept on coming to do what they do after things have settled down. Also, none of the three wrecks I mentioned were talked about in the news, be it on tv or the papers. Why? Because it shines light on the fact that street racing in Tampa is nothing short of out of control. Even when they did block off the entrances to the Causeway spot there was nothing they could do except hand out a few tickets for spectating illegal activity or some shit and let everyone go. Plus, officers have better things to be doing than sending fleets of Crown Vics to chase down punk kids every weekend.

Didn't that civic that went airborne land on a car going in the opposite direction? lol

[TK-421]

Originally Posted by FDfranklin

Didn't that civic that went airborne land on a car going in the opposite direction? lol

I didn't see it because I was talking with some people but heard it happen and the guys I rode with wanted to leave asap before I could see anything. I never got the full info because I left town on vacation the day after but yeah that sounds familiar. There was something about a baby too, I don't remember though.

[FDfranklin]

Originally Posted by TK-421

I didn't see it because I was talking with some people but heard it happen and the guys I rode with wanted to leave asap before I could see anything. I never got the full info because I left town on vacation the day after but yeah that sounds familiar. There was something about a baby too, I don't remember though.

Yeah just recalling from memory what I read on Tamparacing was that it flipped over the median and landed on a car with "drunk" drivers, not that it mattered. There was supposedly a kid without a seatbelt on in the car that got hurt but not seriously injured.

[ianbiz]

Good write up TK.

[1speedbike]

I feel no sympathy. The street racers AND the drunk driver are willing to endanger my life, my family's lives, and the lives of everyone else on the road for their own stupid reasons. Am I horrible for kind of hoping one of the morons died so that their friends might actually get it into their heads that this shit has consequences? If they don't give a shit about anyone else's lives, I don't give a shit about theirs.

[V8Beatr]

Originally Posted by 1speedbike

I feel no sympathy. The street racers AND the drunk driver are willing to endanger my life, my family's lives, and the lives of everyone else on the road for their own stupid reasons. Am I horrible for kind of hoping one of the morons died so that their friends might actually get it into their heads that this shit has consequences? If they don't give a shit about anyone else's lives, I don't give a shit about theirs.

I agree with you 100%! Everyone there was an accomplice to the street racing CRIME, they should all be arrested and charged, everyone in the video.

[Year's_End]

Originally Posted by TK-421

inb4 tl;dr - I warned you

So here goes. First off, let me start off by saying I was not racing - I go to these with my friends to watch and hang out. I'm not one to dick measure with random vtec kids who don't give a fuck and will pit maneuver you if you walk them. My car is my car and I build it so it entertains me and no one else (mostly for drift anyway).
/rant

Anyway here's some info first to set the scene. Tampa is arguably the biggest stage for street racing in the nation. A big reason for that would be the many long bridges and causeways that are essentially a green zone for letting your car loose because there's no room on them for police to camp out. Now what usually happens is on Friday and Saturday nights (occasionally Sundays too), people come from miles around and even other cities to either the Courtney Campbell Causeway or the Gandy Bridge. The northern circle is the Courtney Campbell Causeway while the southern is the Gandy Bridge:



Last Saturday, I went with a bunch of my friends to Causeway, as it's called. Now usually there's a pretty decent amount of cars, say 50 or so. This night in particular was the wildest I've ever been to. Easily a couple hundred cars showed up. Now how everyone goes about this is they come from the Tampa side of the causeway (the east heading west) and turn at the 4-way traffic light intersection at the western red oval on the map below onto a strip of paved road on the southern part of the causeway between the guard rail and the water. There's a grassy part with palm trees between this paved road and the guard rail that the cars park on to watch. How cars go about racing is they go back to the intersection to line up.*



At this time (past 11 at the very earliest until maybe 3-4) there's hardly any cars driving on the causeway. People who race will wait until any traffic passes and line up stopped next to each other and race from a dig or go at it from a roll with one car doing the traditional 3 honks to start it. The cars would go for a little while then slow down and pull into the second red oval on the map below to go back to where they were and rejoin the other cars. Now there was every car you can think of there with most being your typical vtec cars to built supras, 240's (there was even a real S15 o_O), turbo liter bikes, full bolt-on C6 Z06's, and even a '69 Chevelle SS with mirror black paint and the factory 396 but built to the extreme (hardly any BMW's there with the exception of my E30, a stock white E30 with no brakes, and an E36 or two). Because of how many cars there were, races were happening literally one after the other for a couple hours. Eventually, a police car came. Now we had seen a few pass by but all they did is slow down a bit but kept on going. This one, however, pulled into the turn lane of the intersection and put on his lights (no sirens). At this point everyone dipped in every direction but nothing crazy like when the opening street race in The Fast and the Furious was broken up. Traffic lights were obeyed, turn signals used, no burnouts, etc.

At this point, most of the baller cars either headed home or to meetups with their people. Other cars went south to the Gandy Bridge. Where the cars meet up is just after the western part of the bridge where there's a dirt area to the south where people park and a side road to the north where cars park on. I was on the side road where you see the red arrow:



Now there were far fewer cars that came over to Gandy but there were still more than usual - I'd say maybe 50-60. I was one of the first 15-20 cars to get there and was there for a good hour or so until any racing started. At some time after 3 am, the very first race is about to begin. 2 Hondas line up between the 2 points where the spectators are on the westbound road with their backs to the bridge. A flagger goes in front of the cars to start the race. As they start building up revs, I see a Nissan SUV (X-Terra I believe) come flying down the bridge going 80-90 mph. Thoughts are going through my head like "he's going pretty damn fast... Wait, this is only a 2-lane road with 2 cars stopped dead in both lanes... If he tries to avoid them, he could quite possible flip........ Holy shit." The Nissan slams into the hatch with no attempt to brake or avoid it. A huge cloud of metal, glass, and plastic shoots into the air with the X-Terra getting airborne, flipping onto its roof and the hatch being shot forward like a Hot Wheels car when you push it through that launcher thing. It was hit so hard the radiator burst. People rushed to the SUV with one guy taking a wrench out of his car, smashing the windshield so people could get the driver out... who was apparently drunk off his ass while the driver of the demolished Civic got out under his own power with no major injuries (...wtf?). The driver of the wrecked hatch got into another person's car and hauled ass outta there so he could go home and report his car as stolen so as to avoid any trouble from the law, civil suits, and his insurance denying his claim (that is if he had any). As for me, I stuck around to see if I could help but didn't do anything as there was an EMT who was watching the races too and was taking care of the Nissan driver. I didn't get a wink of sleep that night.

I didn't go back on Sunday night to either Causeway or Gandy but I imagine there was a heavy police presence and very light turnout if any at all. Everything happened so quickly but felt like slow motion.


/full retard

wow i can't believe those saturday night races are still going on. haven't been to one in years

[The Ghost of Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by Year's_End

wow i can't believe those saturday night races are still going on. haven't been to one in years

wtf else is there to do if you aren't 21?

[Year's_End]

true, thought the popo already cracked down on all the gandy and causeway racing though

[miiipilot]

I lived down there right by Ulmerton in early 2000. There were are few incidents down there...but nothing like now.

Ill have to admit, the Courtney, the Gandy & the Howard Franklin BEG you to let loose. Maxed out my 99 M3 & modded GS-R a few times. No real racing, just some fun late at night.

[Year's_End]

Originally Posted by miiipilot

Ill have to admit, the Courtney, the Gandy & the Howard Franklin BEG you to let loose.

They installed cameras on the Howard Franklin a few years back for traffic purposes, and I remember receiving a letter in regards to a grey BMW with my plates repeatedly driving "140+ mph" repeated times in the same night/morning. Denied that I was the one driving and nothing came of it.

[markham335i]

hm that would be a veryyy interesting case in court....... for people who are more experienced with the law what would happen.. from 1 side, the honda driver did stop on the highway in an attempt to race... but the guy who hit him was drunk out of his mind. what would happen lol?

[Mr Tonka]

Originally Posted by Q4P

TK, I am going to make the guess that place will be so looted with cops that there won't be too much street racing going anymore out there.

Originally Posted by FDfranklin

This happens every few months, it will die down for a few and the idiots will be back out there until the next crash. Never ending cycle of morons.

Originally Posted by Year's_End

wow i can't believe those saturday night races are still going on. haven't been to one in years

Originally Posted by The Ghost of Tom Joad

wtf else is there to do if you aren't 21?

Originally Posted by Year's_End

true, thought the popo already cracked down on all the gandy and causeway racing though

There has been racing on Gandy and the Causeway since the '60s. Not likely to stop anytime soon. Back when i started going there wasn't an import car to be found except for me and 3 friends. Was mostly muscle cars and mustangs. But back then, everyone just hung out and goofed off. When there was a race it was for money. There wasn't this crap of everyone and their mother just running for shits and giggles.

Was the same thing with the motorcycle racers on the Causeway. You'd be there for 3 hours and see 2 maybe 3 races. Lot of money would changes hands back in the day.

What's funny is that when the cops started being vigilant about breaking it all up people started bringing their RC cars. We'd scale out a 1/4 mile and run them in the old 84 Lumber parking lot. I made some friends of mine a little over a grand running my RC car one night.

I remember going back one time after a not going for about 3-4 years. It was disgusting. The place was over run with Civics, Swifts, Grand AMs, Neons and any other slow front wheel drive cars that were on the market at the time. The one thing that sticks out in my mind is seeing a super long line of cars and it seemed like 80% of them had those little lights on their windshield washers. That's when we got the hell out of Dodge and haven't gone back.

For my freinds and i it was much more about driving to the different locations. We'd always try and time our departures so that we wouldn't be on the road with all the idiot jack-legs. Not to mention we'd take the out of the way routes because they were more fun and avoided the cops.

Kids are just stupid these days. I remember one night where these guys had $5k laid out on a race and because of some abnormally heavy traffic they couldn't a break in traffic large enough to get the race going. So it just didn't happen. They had both given their $2500 to a third guy and were just waiting for a break in traffic. None came, they didn't race. These days they just pull out and expect people to see that their stopped and wait for them.... Stupid kids.