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You know how at school discos the Grease megamix always takes a hammering?

Do you reckon they'll come up with a Fast and Furious megamix for our kids?

*WATCH YOUR BACK, WATCH YOUR BACK, WATCH YOUR WATCH YOUR WATCH YOUR BACK*

that'd be siiiiiiiick

Live - Deep Enough (remix) from that movie sounds pretty good lol. Hardly something you can sing in duet with a chick hahaha.

It's not about number of venues or events, it's about convenience. You can line up someone at any traffic light at any time and have a race right there and then. You can't do motorsport on impulse - this is what needs to be facilitated. 24 hour drag strip within easy distance of the suburbs? Maybe. It sounds far fetched and anti-progress, but if you had the infrastructure to support it and the will of the government/public...why wouldn't it work?

would never work unfortunately look at calder was pretty active and not to far out.. then they build houses all around it residents complain barely gets used.. not the only reason but probaly a large contributing factor, same thing happened to sandown and easter nats or something didnt it?

i dont think people mind travelling with in reason but certainly needs to be a lot more regular then one day a month

It's not about number of venues or events, it's about convenience. You can line up someone at any traffic light at any time and have a race right there and then. You can't do motorsport on impulse - this is what needs to be facilitated. 24 hour drag strip within easy distance of the suburbs? Maybe. It sounds far fetched and anti-progress, but if you had the infrastructure to support it and the will of the government/public...why wouldn't it work?

exactly..

as with grease, happy days, etc though.. they didnt show it as being stupid on a suburban street.. they still had a place, they arranged a meet time..

i think this is what it lost in all aspects of life these days... TIME and PLACE!

even a fist fight was arranged.. this time and place.. you and me... your mates wouldnt step in unless one of their mates would step in. and even though you were beating each other up.. there was a respect between the two, and when enough was enough, you walked away..

now they will jump you 5 on 1, kick the shit outta you, and leave you for dead.

i cant say ive attended many motorsports events.. i cant say ive been an angel on the roads... but i will have my spurt, by myself, out the back of whoop whoop.. because its an 8 hour round trip to the nearest race track.. what if something happens to the car on the track?? burst a hose, blow a hole in something, dump oil or coolant or some other fluid?? then what?? i either need to organise a tow car and trailer, or a tilt tray to get it 4 hours home..

motorsport and track days are expensive.. and can be made more expensive in a real hurry.. why do that when i can go 10 min from home, give it a spurt, and put it back in the garage??

thats what the police have to look at.

greases example wasnt the best racing through stormwater drains is the same as drifting in industrials in all honesty no body could say anyone is at risk in the middle of an industrial street at 2am not one car in sight not one person/pedestrian at worst you'll pwn your self.. but the governments make a killing off modified cars and road laws in general so why would they see a benefit to build a track and then lose out on all the fines..

and nzm its the same boat here winton is a 5 hour round trip but not only that u need someone else to do the trip with ya spare tyres and equiptment etc so your spot on its easy to see how the inconvenience leads to people doing it on the street

for me the nearest drag strip is a 3 hour drive, nearest race track is the same, but drifting track only about 2 hours (archerfield). so for me that's a min 4 hour round trip to attend an event. 6 hours if i want to drag race. when i did go to the drags i got in i think 5 runs. so that's 6 hours driving for 75 seconds of racing.

we have a skidpan in town but motorkhanas, etc are only held every 2 months or so.

so yes, accessability is a major issue for me.

would never work unfortunately look at calder was pretty active and not to far out.. then they build houses all around it residents complain barely gets used.. not the only reason but probaly a large contributing factor, same thing happened to sandown and easter nats or something didnt it?

i dont think people mind travelling with in reason but certainly needs to be a lot more regular then one day a month

Calder wasn't a 24 hour venue though and it wasn't really close to the suburbs. What I'm talking about is something completely unheard of - dedicated environment, sound barriers, 24 hours a day, subsidised costs, industrial suburban location...these venues could be profitable on their own even without government intervention. If people go to the effort of organising a drag meet in an industrial area, well this would thereabouts require the same effort on their behalf - only legal. DECA in the suburbs - why not, I say.

One thing this kind of solution unfortunately won't account for is people getting thrills from breaking laws. I think it might significantly reduce the occurrence of street racing, however. I don't know how happy the public would be with our state government allocating budget funding towards hoon activities - I'm guessing the emotion of that would get in the way of a rational solution. But then why do they continue to think that laws and scare tactics will work when they haven't worked for the past few decades?

I see this as the safe injecting room equivalent for those addicted to racing so to speak. Accessibility, cost and convenience is a big reason for the occurrence of street racing.

I don't think you will get anything like that from the government. Would have to look to private companies to organise something like this and that means more cost etc. Getting approvals from council for that kind of venue would be extremely difficult as well.

i agree with you birds totally and your right calder wasnt near anything but now it is urban sprawl caught up with it and would with any future venues unless they do it on industrial land or similar the government should look into these things even the north laverton grass lands that never get touched or used for anything but back burning once a year could slap a big slab of concrete on it and let ppl go nuts on it.

sure some people get the thrill of the breaking the law part of it.. most i know dont its purely cos theirs no other alternative, having an accessible and available venue would make a massive difference

the answer for it all is getting support from big business but as long as people are out their doing it on the streeet and killign them selves nobody wants to be associated with it

if putting any form of dragstrip/track near residential areas (even in industrial since the noise carries so much - where i used to live i could sometimes hear (depending on which way the wind was blowing) racing at the speedway which was about 10-15km away) you would probably need to restrict it to street legal cars as a full blown drag car is going to be way too noisey and the complaints would start rolling in straight away. so you'd need to have cars have a full exhaust, or at least be under a certain level.

if the government wont give us somewhere to go.. then have police supervision at the location of the street drags. in newcastle, drags were held at kooragang, there werent many accidents.. the road was good and wide and well lit.. and there was a little area for drifting or donuts.. why donuts are fun i dont know.. but each to their own.

a drag strip even in the suburbs will be no different to habbibi flying past your house in his 5L VN with no exhaust.. and it will be no louder than a bloody airport... which most major country towns will have a small airport.. scone, tamworth, coffs harbour, newcastle, etc. and it most cars are not as obnoxious as a 2 stroke kart.. or 8 of them. and plenty of places have kart tracks, as they do motocross tracks.. 20 4 stroke or 2 stroke bikes are plenty noisy.

with all the government infrastructure and new sub-divisions and industrial ares going up.. surely they could dedicate a little bit of area, and a little bit of hot mix and have a small track....

even if its still illegal.. if the police grabbed everyone they get for street racing and said "look.. we know you do it.. if you go to this road here and do it there.. we wont bug you.. but dont do it in town, if we catch you in town again, we'll take your car" and the police turned a blind eye to the good citizens that follow their instructions. the majority would do that and everyone would be happy.. and the idiots would be the only ones getting done.

they also need to stop with the "unroadworthy modifications" illegal maybe.. but saying our cars are unroadworthy is ridiculous.. the majority of us spend big money on good tyres and brakes, and we have brilliant chassis and handling mods.. only looking at a blow off valve and saying its unroadworthy is absurd.. my daily driver is much more unroadworthy and unsafe.. and i drive it everyday!

Typical western/northern suburbs idiots in that interview.

Although two VERY valid points.

1. Where the "FORD" and high powered cars, very valid.

2. Shutdown of DragTag and harrassment of people exiting the venue etc etc

Police are honestly stupid to make statements like "we'll be here week, everyday", just big talking from a poorly resourced and funded force. They do 3-4 big busts a year and that is it. You know the busts are coming as Police activity dies down in the few weeks prior to it as they deliberately let numbers "build" so their "big bust" looks good for the media/community.

And then to say they support a legal venue? Bullshit, they hammered the DragTag venue and they know it.

i agree with you birds totally and your right calder wasnt near anything but now it is urban sprawl caught up with it and would with any future venues unless they do it on industrial land or similar the government should look into these things even the north laverton grass lands that never get touched or used for anything but back burning once a year could slap a big slab of concrete on it and let ppl go nuts on it.

sure some people get the thrill of the breaking the law part of it.. most i know dont its purely cos theirs no other alternative, having an accessible and available venue would make a massive difference

the answer for it all is getting support from big business but as long as people are out their doing it on the streeet and killign them selves nobody wants to be associated with it

This is true. One of Calder's biggest problems was the banning of top fuel dragsters (not that we see these going around industrial areas god forbid) because of the residential areas, which was a massive buzzkill for the drag racing scene over there. That and the place is just too damn far from Melbourne. When you have people tearing up the streets in Dandenong and Narre Warren they aren't going to travel all the way to Calder for it. Need something for the north, something for the south, east and west.

if putting any form of dragstrip/track near residential areas (even in industrial since the noise carries so much - where i used to live i could sometimes hear (depending on which way the wind was blowing) racing at the speedway which was about 10-15km away) you would probably need to restrict it to street legal cars as a full blown drag car is going to be way too noisey and the complaints would start rolling in straight away. so you'd need to have cars have a full exhaust, or at least be under a certain level.

Agree with this. It shouldn't be too hard to govern sound though, given the venues would be designed for street cars in the first place. Cops would no doubt frequent the venues so if you're running staight out exhaust you're asking for it. Vehicle must be road registered to participate. What is ideally needed, is something of a compromise between being too bureaucratic and being too relaxed with regard to rules and participation. Our SAU Vic DECA days in Shepparton are a good example of this IMO. It is well a well governed event with all the necessary safety measures in place - yet all you do is sign a form, have your car briefly inspected, fork out $80 for the day, don a helmet and you can race to your heart's content. This is what we need in the suburbs.

if the government wont give us somewhere to go.. then have police supervision at the location of the street drags. in newcastle, drags were held at kooragang, there werent many accidents.. the road was good and wide and well lit.. and there was a little area for drifting or donuts.. why donuts are fun i dont know.. but each to their own.

The problem with police supervision at the spots where street racing happens at the moment, is that it is still on the streets where people don't want it / it is not safe. Public roads are not properly maintained for racing conditions and no business in the area is going to want their shop/property at risk of damage in the event of a crash. The type of venue to facilitate racing needs a proper environment - safety walls, sound barriers, maintained tarmac, close to a fire station and medical services etc.

I don't think it's such a far cry as a solution. Take a look at the autobahns over in Germany - very well maintained strips of road designed for high speed driving, and they work very well with the rules they are given. Why would you put your foot to the floor on a regular road in Germany when you can easily hit the autobahn and NOT get fined for it / lose your licence? I reckon the same could be applied to drag racing, possibly drifting, vehicle speed testing (long, straight, narrow tunnel making it impossible to spin out?). These are just brainstormed ideas but I can tell you now that any real solution to the problem, short of banning people from getting their licence until age 40, is going to consist of something like this.

The problem with police supervision at the spots where street racing happens at the moment, is that it is still on the streets where people don't want it / it is not safe. Public roads are not properly maintained for racing conditions and no business in the area is going to want their shop/property at risk of damage in the event of a crash. The type of venue to facilitate racing needs a proper environment - safety walls, sound barriers, maintained tarmac, close to a fire station and medical services etc.

thats a good idea.. in theory.. but my point is, its going to happen on the roads anyway, like habbibi said, they will keep doing it on the streets no matter what the cops do.. take their car?? meh, mum and dad will buy them another one.. take their licence for good??.. meh, they are already breaking the law.. as if driving without a licence will stop them.. plus if you dont have a licence.. then they cant take it away again.. throw them in jail?? well we all know they wont take it that far.. people dont even get put in jail these days for rape or for flogging a dude in a wheelchair with a metal pole

ticking all those boxes and making it accessible and affordable to regular joe bloe is going to be near impossible.

That's where the compromise needs to come into place. Accessible is no issue...if you can travel the distance to an industrial area you can travel to another industrial area the same distance away that doesn't have any public property at risk.

Drive through drag strip? Two lanes, take a number, quick check of your vehicle, pay $5 at the toll booth, race your mate and join back onto public road at the end of the strip. People can say it's unsafe but atleast with a properly designed venue to house it (safety walls etc.), it's going to be a hell of alot safer than any industrial area.

It's not about number of venues or events, it's about convenience. You can line up someone at any traffic light at any time and have a race right there and then. You can't do motorsport on impulse - this is what needs to be facilitated. 24 hour drag strip within easy distance of the suburbs? Maybe. It sounds far fetched and anti-progress, but if you had the infrastructure to support it and the will of the government/public...why wouldn't it work?

Waaah waaah waah there's always an excuse with you lot isn't there? How about instead of whinging about how the government isn't doing anythng for you, you go and check out some proper events (not all events are held at dedicated race tracks either).

PLenty of holes in your arguments - won't get into a big pi$$ing match on the internet. If you want to discuss with me, PM and arrange to meet me at one of the motorsports events to show you're serious about this and not just a whinger who expects everything handed to them on a silver platter, hell I might even let you enter my car and have a go. I'm up for converting street racers to proper motorsport.

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