Street racing
..., upgraded exhaust systems, body kits and turbochargers. Some mods could almost be described as toys, for example one racer in my own town has a Fiat Punto GT turbo (180bhp), with “Under-kit neons” which shine brightly underneath the car onto the road. Another has a Honda CRX (200+bhp); with a “Flame thrower exhaust kit” this does exactly what the name describes by throwing a six-foot flame from the exhaust with the flick of a switch. Later on in the night we will usually go as what is described as a “boost”- which is driving about town in a group of two or more cars- this usually ends up with someone racing, on our case just out of town on the long straight road, towards Stranraer. I myself have been in quite a few races (some scarier than others!) As my town is quite small everyone knows each other, which makes racing slightly safer as most of the drivers are courteous to each other. On one incident a friends of mine raced a non-local boy out a single-track road, on this road there is a particularly tight left hand corner, my friend who was in front obviously knew the road well used his handbrake to slide round and carry more corner speed, the non-local boy tried this as well, but went too wide, hit the verge and flipped the car- landing on the railway line, luckily no one was seriously injured as the emergency crews were there quickly to cut the lads free from the car. This was an eye-opener, as it made me realise how easy it is to crash, and how quickly you could kill yourself, or worse someone else. In my opinion racing is becoming increasingly popular, with more and more young people buying cars and modifying them to be faster or look smarter. A lot of this popularity comes from advertising, with magazines such as “Max Power” or “Revs.” I was recently reading an article in one of the magazines mentioned, which was about illegal racing in southern England- where cars were recorded doing speeds of up to 200mph, the whole way through this article the writer makes the racing sound great but then at the bottom of the page in tiny writing it prints: “Racing is dangerous, Revs does not condemn it or any other illegal activity” even after they have just said how amazing it is. This does not warn youngsters how much danger is involved, and I can vouch for the dangers myself from past experiences. Almost all the racers...