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”Street Racing & the Boy Racer” its not a headline that will shock any of you i’m sure, You must be immune to it by now and the hype that invariably follows. Pleasant Sunday mornings ruined & readers horified to learn of organised street racing etc, young testosterone fueled modifiers flying in the face of all that is good & decent, ”Something must be done to stop them”

The reality on the other hand may be harder to push as headline news so whats the use in that?

I have been involved in the scene here in Ireland for a long number of years now and am constantly amazed at the level of  Hostility towards modifiers. Ok we’ve all seen idiots acting reckless on our roads but for every boy racer who speeds past you’ll find

1. The Tdi driver: King of the motorway who secretly thinks he/she is michael schumacher’s distant cousin, Tailgating ’til you finally submit & make way to see him passing in a cloud of black smoke Most likely to drive: Diesel Merc/Beemer/VW      

2. The cool school run:  applying make up in the mirror,shaving,ringing child minder, stretched between rear child seat & drivers seat dressing children while dressing themselves with no concept of whats happening on the road outside their family econo box. Most likely to drive: Picasso/Galaxy/Trajet

3.  Lane Hogger: think they own the road in front of them, these are the people who wont pull out & allow you to join the motorway, in rush hour traffic they leave 2 km gaps to the car in front & will make no attempt to close this gap unless someone tries to pull out in front of them at which time they accelerate at breakneck speeds to prevent this. on the few occasions when traffic is light they insist on doing 80kph on the motorway blocking the flow of traffic. Most likely to drive: Yaris/Polo/Seat

 Which catagory do you fit into?

I think its refreshing to see young men(and ever increasing numbers of young ladies) take so much pride in what they are doing to their cars, they spend time planning their next ”Mod”  they toil, they save, scrimp & scrape, they persevere, they polish and all for NO REWARD except the pride they achieve from their hard work. These are the types of  Qualities that we all want to instill in our Nations Youth, Yet when our youth show these qualities themselves we want to clip their wings

THE MEDIA

I will not spend much time here as the once noble art of reporting the truth is mostly led by ability to sell hype without much substance at the moment, give the people what they want lol

THE RSA(road safety authority)

I think should recieve all our support, although they need to be more pro active. I’ve never met anyone who ever admitted to being a bad driver but there are plenty out there. We need to push for advanced driver training and graduated licences.Recently i have heard that in Poland the authorities allow young modifiers to race on designated city streets at night, at any speed in a semi controlled environment. Now i’m not suggesting the RSA push to close off O’Connell street at night but they could get behind  the building of facilities for these young modifiers. I spoke to a ”MAN” in a position to set in motion the developement of a track about 18 months ago, he returned a few days later in no doubt it would be a viable business however he did’nt believe it would recieve any type of political backing & would be unlikely to receive planning etc.

THE MODIFIERS

Need to grow up & show some responsability………. and they will, in their late 20’s/early 30’s, just like the rest of us did!! In the meantime,they spend all this money & put all this effort but have no outlet, no Dragstrip, no Track, so like any wound up youngster they end up making their own in a quite industrial estate & end up in trouble with the Gardai. These young people come from every type of background imaginable, they are the driving force of Ireland 20 years hence and we should not Demonise them if we value our pensions.

THE GARDAI

Tend to react to media articles & tar all modifiers with the same brush, i’ve been told openly by members of the Gardai that i should change my car if i dont want to be stopped so much, but i was under the impression it was supposed to be ”How You Drive, Not What You Drive” ( full B,C,D licence with no points) . So a story appears in one of the rags on Sunday & by monday morning the commisioner decides to crack down on ”Boy Racers”. So it travels down the chain of command & for 2 months young modifiers have to spend large parts of their journey sitting on the hard shoulder getting Grief for the sins of the few who made the headlines.It would be counterproductive to alienate a large portion of our mechanically propelled youth. Gardai should try to reach out to these young men & women to become involved in organising events, these are ordinary kids with healthy interests in cars, not criminals.

YOU, SOCIETY 

I’m sure that some of you reading this will admit on reflection, that you took some pleasure passing a  so called ”boy racer” pulled over by the Gardai reassuring yourself  ”They’re only getting what they deserve” blissfully unaware of why the hapless youngster was pulled! Should we really want to smother our youth or strangle their development, if you try & stop young people doing something they will rebel against you. Most of these young people sacrifice everything for their cars, we should try to harness this enthusiasm & provide the facilities for these young modifiers to flourish, as we do with other sports, As kids we all played football on the road, did’nt we?? nowadays people book the astro-park for an hour, a proper facility, floodlit etc. if we provide track facilities for these young modifiers it will take them off the streets keep them away from drink & drugs & generally keep them out of mischief. Access to Mondello is limited & very expensive although they are getting better with more open/private trackdays in my opinion they really are cashing in by charging people to come in & watch amateurs. A couple of drag strips dotted around the country would be relatively cheap to develope & run, we must build safe environments for young people to race & test their efforts, if we dont they will race where & when they get the chance.You cannot stop it & if you try you will drive it underground. if like the young footballer booking the astro-park your son or daughter was able to book the Dragstrip for a few safe runs  & get it out of their system would’nt you rest easy knowing the were’nt in some industrial estate.

there are worse things you could be doing         

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