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2TONE_93GT · 08-07-2005, 08:30 AM

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Street racers dodge the law
20,000 illegal cars, police say
Enthusiasts say they're targeted

MORGAN CAMPBELL
STAFF REPORTER

Randy's 1985 Ford Thunderbird looks like hell, parked outside a Scarborough Tim Hortons with its rusted wheel wells and dusty blue paint job that looks like it needs a final coat.

And it doesn't quite ride like heaven, wallowing onto Ellesmere Rd., the squeak of a loose alternator belt piercing the engine's menacing growl.

Even though this is Randy's everyday car, it's not built for looks or handling. With a powerful engine lifted from a cube van, and a tank of nitrous oxide for an extra boost, Randy's car has been modified for one thing: straight-line speed.

On a good day, on a good track, the T-Bird covers a quarter-mile in just over 11 seconds, about three seconds faster than an average, unmodified sports car.

Randy likes to race three or four nights a week, and later tonight he'll dust a couple of guys in newer, shinier, faster-looking cars.

And for police, that's the problem with Randy: he doesn't always race at the track. He's one of more than 20,000 people in southern Ontario who police estimate have modified their cars to race illegally on public roads.

Heading into this summer, 29 GTA residents in the past six years had died as a result of illegal street racing, according to police. Each summer police services across the GTA step up their efforts to stop it.

The initiative, called ERASE (Eliminate Racing Activity on Streets Everywhere), is a joint effort between several government ministries and police services including Toronto, York, Peel, Durham and Halton. It's like the RIDE program, but instead of looking for impaired drivers, police target racers and illegally modified cars.

The periodic blitzes have resulted in 1,336 charges this year, including 319 for speeding and 80 violations of the Environmental Protection Act.

But racers complain that increasing surveillance amounts to illegal profiling of car enthusiasts whose vehicles are fast and modified, but street legal. They also say police exaggerate street racing's death toll, making their hobby a scapegoat for all types of bad driving.

Real races, they say, are comparatively safe. They happen in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, and beyond the reach of police. Using Internet chat rooms, racers spread the word about "car meets," which involve a lot of talk about racing but often few actual races. Even when police pull people over, racers say they often escape serious charges.

The numbers support their claim — this summer, police have booked only two people for racing.

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Local street racers know Randy's rep. A pudgy man with a suntan, a ponytail and grease-stained hands, Randy fixes cars for a living and for fun. He may not be able to Pimp Your Ride, but if you limp your ride to him he'll get you running again.

Racers also know that in 20 years of driving fast cars around the GTA, Randy has rarely refused a race. On the track or the street, as long as his car runs, he'll line up with anyone.

Why?

For the thrill of rocketing from a standstill to 170 km/h within seconds. To see whose car is faster. Just because it's more fun than not racing.

"Why drink a beer?" asks Randy, who is in his mid-30s. "Why watch a football game?"

He and his friends say they do it on the street because of the dearth of quarter-mile drag racing strips near Toronto. To run on a track, Randy has to drive to Cayuga, outside Hamilton, or to St. Thomas, south of London, and pay $20 or $30 to line up.

He doesn't mind driving 500 kilometres most weekends to race, and he calls the $80 weekly gasoline tab "an inconvenience." But he says many others won't spend so much time and money to race legally, so they improvise.

"If there was a track closer (to Toronto), there would be a lot less racing," Randy says.

Not that he always feels safe at the track.

Last summer, Randy says, police gave racers vouchers so they could run at Cayuga for free. When racers arrived, police and officers from the ministries of transportation and the environment inspected their cars and ticketed many of them. He says those vouchers sent a lot of racers back to the street.

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Project ERASE started nine years ago. Feeling overwhelmed by street racing, three officers — one each from York Region, Peel Region and the Ontario Provincial Police — hooked up to see what they could do about it.

The project now includes 12 police services and has led to more than 5,000 charges over the past two summers.

On a Friday night in mid-June, about 25 officers trickle in to Toronto Police 31 Division, near Highway 400 and Finch Ave. W., to review last-minute instructions for the night's blitz.

Sgt. Peter Fleming of York Region police briefs them. He cautions officers to think twice before chasing a souped-up car.

"It would be embarrassing if we were there to save lives and wound up in a collision that took lives," he says. "Common sense is the word of the day."

As the officers prepare to leave, an OPP report arrives as if on cue. A young man was killed when his car plunged into a ditch during a race with a friend.

The street racing death toll reaches 30.

Ten days later, waiting for other drivers inside a Scarborough Tim Hortons, Randy and his friends, fellow racers Rick and Tish, scoff at the cops' statistics. To them, a pair of sports cars speeding between busy intersections isn't a street race. It's stupidity.

"(Those 30 people) weren't all killed street racing," Randy says. "A lot of them were killed through carelessness. How many people have been killed jaywalking?"

They feel street racing's bad rep comes from younger drivers trying to emulate the reckless racing glorified in the 2001 film The Fast and the Furious.

"A lot of these so-called street racers are 17 years old and it's their first car," says Rick, who only races on tracks these days. "They're the ones zipping through traffic like it's the Grand Prix."

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June 17, 10:55 p.m., Langstaff Rd., Vaughan

Const. Mike LaCroix creeps east along Langstaff Rd. in his unmarked cruiser, a black Chevrolet Impala. He has been on the road about an hour in this Project ERASE blitz, but hasn't seen any action yet.

As LaCroix approaches Highway 400, a blue blur flashes past him. He flips on his lights and siren. "Now this is worthy of inspection," he says.

He catches the car, a 1993 Honda Civic hatchback, on the other side of the 400.

The car's lowered suspension causes its undercarriage to sit just inches from the ground, and its oversized, after-market tailpipe amplifies engine noise.

The officer and driver chat briefly, then LaCroix inspects the tires. If they rub against the wheel wells, the driver gets a ticket. The tires pass LaCroix's test, but little else does. Neither the headlights nor the turn signals work properly. The driver, 20-year-old Mike Venaforo of Richmond Hill, co-operates, but sighs with frustration. "Are you going to destroy me?" he asks.

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`If there was a track closer (to Toronto), there would be a lot less racing'

Randy, street car-racing enthusiast

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`Why are (police) always busting our chops?'

Mike Venaforo, driver, Richmond Hill,

after receiving a $600 ticket