Racing the cops

Went to the"New" drag strip at the Broward/Dade county line tonight. This place in in the middle of NOWHERE out on the edge of the Everglades. As I drive in the entrance road I see all kinds of flashing blue lights. Uh oh, gotta be a bust. Nope, turned out the local cops were racing the kids! City of Medley PD had 3 cars there, a standard Crown Vic, a hotted up Camaro, and a full race Nova. Running bracket style, if you beat the cop, you got a tee shirt that said "I Beat the Heat". I thought it was a really interesting way to get racers off the streets and do a little positive PR. Got to shake the Police Chief's hand, complimented him on the program. They were having too much fun. Guy in a ratty Miata got a shirt.

That's awesome, and I wish they'd do that more places. Last I heard, they had actually dropped funding for such programs in the place they need it most: San Diego, the place where if you so much as see a street race, they'll crush your car.

VicPol in Australia had a program at Calder Park with a full drag Commodore back in the early 90's for this exact purpose, it continues to this day

http://www.police.vic.gov.au/content.asp?Document_ID=3934

I did a program like this two weeks ago. Everyone gets a shirt and a photo with the cop in front of the two car regardless if you win or not.

jpod999 wrote: I did a program like this two weeks ago. Everyone gets a shirt and a photo with the cop in front of the two car regardless if you win or not.

future evidence

These programs should be all over the place.

Then again, dragstrips should be all over the place.

People need to be able to get this stuff out of their systems safely and legally.

The whole thing was very low key, real Old School. No flag man, but laid back. It's an abandoned air strip formerly known as Cocaine International, owned by the county. Probably self-supporting now. Spectators pay 10.00, racers 20.00. Had about 150 cars racing, 1000 spectators, decent food vendors. Talked to one of the owners, they have two other similar strips, happy with how things are going. I had a good time even though I'm not a drag kind of guy. Enjoyed watching a 4 door F350 diesel beat a new Mustang GT.

back in the day i street raced a cop. i had my 91 caprice in full cop attire(black wheels, antennae, push bars) and a white crown vic pulled up next to me and revved his engine. took off from the light and beat him to the speed limit. he got up next to me and i saw it was an akron cop car, he looked at my funny, and turned off.

Pat, I think you are very lucky. I grew up a little east of there in Youngstown. Cops would jail you for THINKING of racing. You must have embarassed him. But, back in my day, (60's, 70's) some cops had real hemis. You did not outrun them.

cwh wrote: But, back in my day, (60's, 70's) some cops had real hemis. You did not outrun them.

As a friend of mine was fond of saying (about an experience with him delivering a fast car across the open desert of New Mexico and Nevada to Vegas back in the early 80s): you may be able to outrun one cruiser but you can't outrun Motorola.

That's a great idea !!!! The only problem is you need a legal place to race. Most urban areas don't have a race track near enough.

It's a shame this kind of program isn't more common.

autocross wouldn't be a bad idea either.

The cops would show up at our Autocrosses 20+ years ago. we were all nervous about it, but they were just checking it out, insuring it was safe and using their radar guns to give us our top speeds on the long straights. it was cool to see them there and they definitely thought autocross was a good thing.

Jack

Sometimes its good to remember there is a real person behind the badge... many of them are car-guys too...

My g/f and I were driving home from a car show yesterday in our two Spitfires... as we were making a right turn, a local cop was turning onto the same street... he looked at my g/f and then at me and I gave him a wave. He returned with a thumbs-up and we all continued on our way...

Our next autocross is our annual "emergency services" event. We invite the cops, Deputy Sherriffs, Ambulance drivers and Fire Truck drivers to the event and we teach them autocrossing and they ride with us. During the lunch break they compete against each other for "top gun" and we donate the event proceeds and donations to the local charity of the winners choice. We get a local dealer to "loan" the use of a police version Crown Vic for them to drive. It's a popular and fun event for us.

I've heard of drag racing events held by cops and agree that there should be more of it.

I tried to have a program like that at the indoor kart track I used to run, but the owner was a douche and wouldn't let it happen. We had a list of 100 people ready to pre register, and the local cops, and the cops from 2 neighboring towns were on board as well.
Its a shame it never happened.

I was at the local pizza joint Sunday and got talking to a cop that was in getting food for the dispatcher. My son found the new Dodge fascinating so we went out and looked at it. The guy flipped the lights on and blip-ed the siren for my son (he is 3). He thought it was the greatest. I then asked him how he liked his new ride. He told me that the blind spots in it are really bad. I then asked of he had the 360 in it and to my surprise he said no that the big selling point of the new dodge was the V6 and its millage. I was surprised but then again he did say it was a faster and MUCH better handling car then the Crown Vic

When I lived in santa barbara, CA the cops there had a toyota corrola low rider. not my thing, but it was popular with the kids in the latin part of town. It had a pretty elaborate paint job too, probably done by a real low rider artist.

The autox club I usually run with invited the local police to attend an event. An officer and one of the dispatchers showed up with a cruiser. The rules were we could use the cruiser as long as we left the weapons and radio alone, the siren and lights were ok. The officer drove a bunch of our cars, and we got to appreciate just how bad a crown vic really is in turns. The lights and siren don't make it any faster.

Hey! They're not that bad!

man I sound old.

dean1484 wrote: I was at the local pizza joint Sunday and got talking to a cop that was in getting food for the dispatcher. My son found the new Dodge fascinating so we went out and looked at it. The guy flipped the lights on and blip-ed the siren for my son (he is 3). He thought it was the greatest. I then asked him how he liked his new ride. He told me that the blind spots in it are really bad. I then asked of he had the 360 in it and to my surprise he said no that the big selling point of the new dodge was the V6 and its millage. I was surprised but then again he did say it was a faster and MUCH better handling car then the Crown Vic

those new charger police cars are the best. they look so much better than the crown vic. i love the look of the front with a push bar, it has a mean face.

I have heard rumors of people having the opportunity to be "the bandit" in high speed chase trainings that the highway patrol does periodically. I have no way of verifying the legitimacy of this rumor but it sounds freaking awesome!

I'm going to bring this up at the next autoX club meeting. Maybe we can get something like this going.

Yeah. I think that trying to make a bridge between the enthusiasts and the Cops has to be a good idea. OK, we all know that some of them are ______'s, but I'll bet there are some gearheads in there too. Hey, can't hurt! Those Medley cops were having a ball. Oh, the best driver they had was a chick!