From the WSJ Opinion Archives
SCENE & HEARD
Gimme a Brake
Ignorant nannies attack drag racing.
Amid the summer fizzles of "Pearl Harbor" and "Moulin Rouge," the movie industry seems finally to have found a winner: Busting on to the scene last weekend was "The Fast and the Furious," a crash-and-dash exposé about gangland street racing. Opening weekend netted a whopping $41.6 million and any teenage boy with a drop of testosterone is plotting a second viewing.
But where success lurks, so does controversy, and "The Fast and the Furious" is no exception. Even before the movie hit the big screen, the ubiquitous nanny lobby moved into full gear to condemn Hollywood for glorifying fast cars and racing. Most of the country has paused from fretting over teenage smoking or school violence to ask that earth-moving question: Do kids have too much horsepower?
New York newspapers and late-night talk shows jumped all over the story of a 27-year-old man arrested this weekend after a street race in Long Island killed one racer and an innocent driver. The New York Post interviewed teens who'd watched "The Fast and the Furious," to ask whether the movie had given them an irresistible urge to drive at breakneck speeds through pedestrian streets. The kids the Post quoted all said yes. Then again, wouldn't you?
Police across the country are bracing for an upsurge in teen dragging. Senatorial scolds Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman pointedly introduced a bill that would allow Washington to fine Hollywood when it marketed violent material to kids. Universal Pictures scrambled to put a warning label on its Web site, and began airing public-service commercials of the lead actors telling kids to drive safely.
What's really been frightening, though, is listening to the people who spawned all these highly impressionable teens. It took approximately two seconds for suburban parentworld to equate a movie about pyrotechnic, gangster law-breakers with the otherwise harmless world of regulated drag racing. On a recent call-in show, a mother asked how we could possibly be surprised that teens want to go from zero to a zillion in five seconds when society sanctions legal racing tracks.
True, that America has witnessed a rise in illegal urban street racing over the past decade. This is a problem for urban parents and police, not for Universal Pictures. Anyway, street racing has little to do with organized drag racing, which not only isn't dangerous but can be great for kids.
And who can forget "Grease," with all those slightly disaffected but fairly innocent boys, slaving away in the school shop to make sure they had a cool car? Parents placed drag racing in that kids-will-be-kids category, along with the occasional boozy party or, later, sneaking into R-rated movies.
In truth, this hasn't changed for a lot of America. What those call-in moms don't know is that drag racing is a true-blue sport--just like football or softball--and a real achievement for any number of devoted kids. Thousands upon thousands of teenagers compete in high-school divisions at local drag tracks--in regular season and championship rounds. Many schools have unofficial drag-racing teams. In Meridian, Idaho, the high school has a team approved by the school board. Wasson High in Colorado Springs, Colo., is among schools that allow students to "letter" in drag racing. For a lot of these kids, especially those who aren't handed a Mercedes when they turn 16, this is a chance to buy an affordable set of wheels, fix it up and show it off.
Drag races themselves are melding pots. Urban and rural kids show up at official raceways, where they stand around talking about the difficulty of boring out an engine. Because drag racing isn't about speed as much as consistency and skill, the races are huge levelers; whether you're a suburban kid in a Volkswagen Beetle or a tough guy in a 1967 Chevelle, it's all about knowing your car and understanding the mechanics.
Kids on the track become better, more responsible drivers. Many have their parents as their pit crew. High school auto-shop instructors step in to offer guidance on both mechanics and safety. Some of the official teams have grade requirements, and strict "no illegal dragging" policies. But because these kids know from a controlled environment just how scary it can be to have a car wobbling along at 100 miles an hour, a lot of them know better than to do it down Main Street.
Sure, there's some illegal dragging. But these kids put hours, pints of blood and whole paychecks into their cars; they don't want to end up in a wreck more than the cops want them to. Here's what usually happens: Two kids who know each other decide to race; they stop by a deserted back road and burn down a quarter mile. Is that any worse than unwrapping a Quarter Pounder, putting on mascara or chatting on a cell phone while cruising down a busy thoroughfare?
In the small town I come from, a lot of kids work on their own cars. The local supermarket, Jim's, has a front parking lot that feeds into a back service road and empties, finally, into what used to be a dead-end street. That loop had been christened "Jim's International Raceway," long before I arrived on the scene, and it was a rare weekend when somebody wasn't down there tearing around. It was loads of fun. Though we did get caught once (tickets were, rightfully, issued right and left), nobody ever got hurt.
But a new, edgy version of street racing has emerged with the imports. Because it happens in the middle of cities--unregulated events between kids who often don't know each other--there've been accidents, fights and, now, public concern. Street racing has been around forever, but in recent years it has acquired an inner-city feel--complete with rap music, gang connotations and a glitzy look--that gives it a darker overtone.
But "The Fast and the Furious" is hardly the culprit. First, a lot of street racing is done by grownups; 16-year-olds can't afford the pricey hobby. Those who are out racing around are generally doing it with their parents' cars. A lot of these kids are ignorant about cars, and their parents like it that way. I once asked a mother, who was complaining that her son "didn't handle the car well," whether she'd thought of sending him to one of the many driving schools with tracks where drivers weave through pylons, skid through water and generally figure out what a car is capable, or not capable, of doing. The mother, who confided she'd never driven with him (out of fear), dismissed the suggestion, saying it might "give him ideas."
All this is pretty strange when you think about it. Parents assume their kids are smart enough to drive, but not dumb enough to do the wrong thing (racing through the middle of town, for example). And this gets to the heart of the debate over "The Fast and the Furious."
A car is a powerful machine. A lot of kids are smart enough to know to confine their racing to a track. A smaller group knows they shouldn't drag illegally, but if they do, try to do it with some safety and sense. Finally, a tiny group of law-breaking morons willfully neglect everyone's life and scream through heavily populated areas. There is a line to be drawn here. But the answer isn't to outlaw or vilify the kids who pursue a wholesome sport.
Ms. Strassel is an assistant features editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Her column appears on alternate Thursdays.
