Richard Petty, a NASCAR legend, theorized that the first car race was fait accompli the moment the only guy with a car noticed that there was a second guy with a car.

That danger forever would ride along seems beyond obvious. Or as fellow driver Cale Yarborough once said: “Driving a race car is like dancing with a chainsaw.”

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Yes, even in a so-called controlled environment, racing always has been, and always will be, a risky pursuit.

Take the speed and the racing to city streets and highways, with amateurs mocking their own mortality as they sit behind the wheels of mega-horsepower muscle cars, and mayhem is the natural evolution.

“Name a street, any street in this community, and I’ve seen it. We all have,” Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich said.

“They’re not seasoned race people,” said Kenny Bomar, a former street racer and owner of 2nd Hand Power Speed Shop in Memphis. “They don’t have the driving skills if something gets out of hand. Some will pay for it with their lives.”

Or with someone else’s life.

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Street racing more prevalent now

Evidence is strong that since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, drag racing/street racing has become far more common here.

The Memphis Police Department in early January gave the Memphis City Council a presentation on drag/street racing. The numbers show an escalation from 2019 to 2020, when the pandemic hit, and another spike through 2021.

Arrests and citations for reckless driving, according to MPD data, jumped from 589 in 2019 to 692 in 2020, to 810 in 2021.

Drag racing charges, which require a more specific set of circumstances, went from 24 in 2019 to 35 in 2020, to 80 in 2021; a separate public records request made by The Daily Memphian to the City of Memphis showed that there were 95 drag racing arrests in 2021. And internal data from the Shelby County DA’s office was similar to MPD and city records.

“Clearly, law enforcement is doing more because we’re seeing more arrests,” Weirich said.

A new law has increased the penalty for drag racing statewide to a Class A misdemeanor. If convicted, the maximum sentence is 11 months and 29 days in jail — up from the previous max penalty of six months. 

Already on the books, Weirich said: “Upon a second conviction for drag racing, it is a lifetime revocation of your driver’s license.”

Memphis Police Col. Keith Watson said police also will charge people participating in drag racing or stunt driving events, even if they are not driving or riding in the vehicles in question. Setting up the event and/or later shooting video and posting online as a way to promote future events could result in charges.

State Rep. John Gillespie, R-Memphis, one of the sponsors of the House bill that stiffened drag racing penalties, said: “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to drive your kid to school or go to the grocery store and not have to worry about someone racing another car on the same street as you.”

A tough charge to make

Unfortunately, it’s far easier to charge reckless driving than it is drag racing.

“What we talk about as drag racing from a layman’s perspective may actually end up being charged as reckless driving,” Weirich said.

She said for drag racing to be charged, prosecutors have to prove that drivers were trying to get their car to the “max attainable speed, they were literally racing one another,” or they employed a vehicle to “challenge or accept a challenge with reference to the performance ability of one or two cars. ‘My car can do these things’ … ‘oh, no it can’t’ … ‘game on.’”

“Those things,” she said, “are rarely, if ever, the facts presented to us.”

But if they are …

“If the facts are there, and the evidence is there, hold the line,” Weirich said. “Upon conviction (of drag racing), we can take the car, forfeit the car.”

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Memphis Police Deputy Chief Paul Wright made the presentation to the council, and he said sometimes drag racing charges are pleaded down, thus not allowing for seizure of a vehicle.

Councilman Chase Carlisle questioned whether Weirich’s office was doing all that it could.

“Seizing a vehicle could send a message when somebody’s got a $90,000 to $100,000 vehicle after they put on the after-market parts,” Carlisle said. “But it’s not going to send a message into the marketplace, so to speak, if the DA is not doing its job prosecuting these offenses and seizing these vehicles.”

Weirich is running for re-election. When asked if she believed there was any political component to Carlisle’s comments, she said: “I hope there’s none.”

Carlisle requested that a representative from DA’s office come to a council meeting for an explanation of how street racing cases are adjudicated. Weirich will do just that Tuesday, Jan. 18.

Speed kills

Lili Trujillo Puckett, founder of nonprofit StreetRacingKills.org, had never given street racing a second thought until the night of Dec. 7, 2013, in Los Angeles. Her 16-year-old daughter, Valentina D’Alessandro, was riding in the backseat of a red Ford Mustang that crashed into an SUV and a fence while street racing.

Valentina was killed on impact, her life the cost of that 17-year-old driver’s decision to drag race on a city street after drinking at a party.

“I never knew it existed,” Trujillo Puckett said of street racing. “And I’d seen the movie ‘The Fast and the Furious.’ But never knew it was a problem. I learned the hard way. Professional racers have lost their lives doing it the right way. What makes you think doing it in the street that it won’t happen?”

Last summer, new Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis said at a meeting in East Memphis that residents could expect to see an increase in patrols that likely would target, but not be limited to, the Mount Moriah corridor along the interstate. Police have identified that area as a center for interstate shootings and much of the reckless driving, such as weaving in and out of traffic.

In both 2020 and 2021, Mount Moriah led all Memphis Police precincts in charges of reckless driving and drag racing (115 in 2020, 150 in 2021).

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By early December 2021, Memphis Police had handled 401 cases that included charges of “excessive speed,” Watson said.

And from Jan. 1, 2021 through the first week of December 2021, Watson said 240 people had been killed in 217 crashes with varying causes, including those involving drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The ultimate price of an amateur driving at excessive speed, perhaps even seeking to attain the maximum speed his car could go, was tragically evident here on June 25, 2021.

That’s when off-duty MPD officer Antonio Marshall was going up to 114 mph in a 45 mph zone, according to his arrest report. Marshall was still traveling 99 mph on Walnut Grove Road and Timber Creek in Cordova at the moment his personal vehicle, a Dodge Charger (and a favorite among street racers), struck a 2000 Pontiac Bonneville turning out of a gas station.

The impact severed the Pontiac Bonneville in half and killed 42-year-old Wallace Morris and his 19-year-old cousin Travis Parham. Marshall was charged with two counts of vehicular homicide, and he resigned from the police department. The case has been bound over to the grand jury.

“It’s just mind-numbing to think … just the level of recklessness, the level of stupidity,” Weirich said of drivers pushing their cars to the extreme on city roadways. “I don’t know any other way to describe it — to operate a deadly weapon in that fashion and not only risk your own life but to jeopardize the lives of those around you.”

Asking for trouble

Nearly every city of size has a similarly horrific story from the past two years. As Watson told The Daily Memphian in 2021, “During the pandemic, we saw these drivers felt like they could speed, and they felt like they wouldn’t harm anyone because the roadways were clear.”

The return to more normal traffic patterns doesn’t seem to have slowed down the street racers in Memphis. Speeders can be seen zigzagging in and out of traffic on a weeknight when highways are full of people driving 65-70 mph, but being passed as though they’re on a treadmill.

During a trip from Collierville to Memphis International Airport just before 10 p.m. on a Thursday in early December, the same motorist encountered two muscle cars weaving in and out of traffic at a high speed on Tenn. 385 in Collierville and less than 10 minutes later watched as two different sports cars darted in and out of traffic on the I-240 loop.

After hearing about that recent experience, mechanic B.J. Brown shook his head and said, “I used to street race, I don’t do that crap anymore.

“They’re punks,” he added. “They feel like they’re invincible behind the wheel, and nothing can happen.”

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In that recent City Council meeting, member Cheyenne Johnson said: “They scare you to death cutting right in front of you … and as soon as you see one, there’s another one coming right behind.”

Unfortunately, that behavior would not, in most cases, qualify as drag racing — which is a more serious charge than reckless driving.

“Reckless driving, speeding, could be a whole host of other things but it is not, per se, drag racing,” Weirich said, again citing the specificity required to make a drag racing charge hold up in court.

Whatever the legal label, recent instances of dangerous driving are resulting in tragedies all across the country:

• In Los Angeles, a 21-year-old University of Southern California student was struck and killed by a Dodge Challenger Hellcat. The Los Angeles Times reported that witnesses heard the Dodge Challenger Hellcat and another car revving their engines just moments before the fatal crash. The student was strolling across a marked crosswalk when he was hit and catapulted into the air.
• In suburban Atlanta, a mother of two was driving home when struck and killed by a man in a Dodge Challenger. He allegedly was street racing when he hit her vehicle head-on.
• In Birmingham, Alabama, a 52-year-old grandmother was killed after her car was struck by a 2010 Chevrolet Camaro that crossed the center line. Police said they suspect the driver, a woman who later posted videos blaming the victim, was street racing when the crash occurred at 6:10 on a Sunday morning. The driver of the Camaro was charged with murder.

Trujillo Puckett’s organization operates a Reckless Driving Intervention Program. She does not put all the blame on the drivers and/or the immaturity of youth. In fact, at some level, she said she understands the fascination with a powerful engine under the hood.

“We can’t go against car culture because it’s been around since the 1950s, the 1940s, and it’s not just L.A. (or Memphis),” she said.

“Texas, Tampa, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania,” she said, ticking off hot spots around the country. “Mexico City, too, a lot of the rich kids going crazy with the fast cars.”

The official, unofficial, raceway

Probably the most popular street-racing strip in Memphis is Riverport Road in the Rivergate industrial area by the rail yards. Because of its isolation and long straightaway, it is a perfect spot for street racers to set up and, theoretically, minimize the chances of unintended consequences with other people and vehicles.

“Luis,” a 30-year-old Memphian who has settled into a quiet life with a job and a family, often attended the drag races on Riverport Road, and the “sideshows” at the 24-hour AutoZone’s parking lot on Summer Avenue, in his younger days.

“It’s a cultural thing,” he said. “This has been happening for years in Memphis. I’ve seen families meeting up there. I just went to the races to cheer on friends.

“There are a lot of things in the city more important (more serious crimes),” Luis added. “Then again, it could be dangerous if they go fast and run into someone.”

In June of last year, according to multiple media reports, Memphis Police arrested three suspected street racers after a Dodge Charger was doing doughnuts on Riverport Road as other cars blocked off the entrance to the Electrolux plant. When police hit their lights and sirens, several cars took off at more than 100 mph.

Police later found the suspects — none older than 19 and all from Arkansas — at a nearby park and made arrests there. MPD’s Col. Watson said it is common for drivers from Arkansas, Mississippi and Missouri to come into Memphis for street racing.

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“But we’ve seen tags from as far away as Texas and Oklahoma,” he said.

The spectacle of night street races in the Rivergate area is captured in a couple of YouTube videos. In one, from August 2016, “BUSTED BY THE COPS,” there are several minutes of racing action before blue lights appear. The gathering is large and about as diverse as a crowd at a Grizzlies game.

In another clip featured on “MODS Muscle TV” and titled “Packed Night at Rivergate 2020 Memphis Street Racing,” the scene is nothing less than a street party.

In between the racing action, drivers and spectators mug for the camera.

A man identified as “Phino” holds up what appears to be a bottle of brown liquor, grins and shouts, “You see what it is!”

Another man, “Silverado Josh,” boasts from behind the wheel of a car that looks to be on its way to the starting line, “I don’t care what I’m in; I’m always going to beat!”

None of it is guaranteed to be danger-free, even in a secluded location.

“The car companies are really promoting speed,” Trujillo Puckett said. “So, we say take it to a safe place. We promote taking it to the track.”

A different time …

Taking it to a professional race track, such as Millington International Raceway, is what local old-timers such as B.J. Brown, 56, and Kenny Bomar, 73, do.

They had their time street racing, but that’s now all in their rearview mirrors.

“A couple of trips to the jailhouse sent me to the racetrack,” Bomar said.

Long ago, before Memphis had sprawled far to the east of Downtown, Bomar said drag racing by Shelby Farms was common. He raced a 1966 Chevelle Super Sport.

“Aqua green, black vinyl top,” he said. “Back in the day, you were good if you had 500 horsepower. But it’d get you in trouble quick.

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“We’d race by the penal farm, mark one spot white for the start, another for the finish quarter-mile away. I can never remember being beat,” he said. “For bragging rights mostly. You might win 30 or 50 bucks a race. Gas was only a dollar-fifty a gallon.”

Bomar said he bought that Chevelle new for $3,500. Now, he said, it is common for young guys to sink $40,000 to $50,000 into their muscle cars as they overhaul them with 1,000 to 1,500 in horsepower.

No city-issued police cruiser is catching a car like that, nor are police today likely to try.

“The department has a no-chase policy unless someone’s fleeing a violent crime,” Watson said, adding that the risk/reward of pursuing drivers going more than 100 mph for street racing does not equate. “The stakes are just too high.”

Things played out differently 50 years ago. Bomar led the cops on a couple of movie-worthy chases.

“One time they got me, and next time, I was more savvy and went left-right, left-right, left-right, for about 10 blocks and then parked behind somebody’s house and waited for about an hour.”

When the cops did catch him, they towed his baby to the impound lot. When he went to get it, there was a scratch in the paint that ran from the passenger door to the back bumper.

“That burned me worse than the 75 bucks I paid to get it off the lot,” he said.

The tradition lives on

Even now, B.J. Brown sometimes takes in the scene along Summer Avenue. The parking lot of a 24-hour AutoZone store has been a gathering place for many years and is still a place where young people — almost all of them Hispanic — go to Saturday nights to scar the pavement with doughnuts and burnouts in those “sideshows.”

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On a recent Saturday night at 9 p.m., Brown sat in his gray Ford Mustang at the edge of the lot pulling on a cigarette, waiting for the familiar game of cat-and-mouse between the young drivers and city cops. Police shoo them away, only for them to return later when the cops have moved on or had to answer a call.

By 9:40, there is no sign of police, and more than two dozen cars and trucks have come back to the AutoZone lot. A black truck does a quick burnout just ahead of a returning MPD car with blue lights flashing. Two minutes later, a second MPD cruiser arrives, and the cops issue a warning through a loudspeaker:

“You’re going Downtown if you don’t get the (expletive) off the lot.”

This prompts a mass exodus.

But at 10:05, the police are back. Young drivers, who are again hanging around outside their cars, jump in and take off. Two, however, are either too slow or maybe say something they shouldn’t have. Police detain the drivers of two Mustangs, briefly put each young man in handcuffs and have their cars towed. They release them with pink misdemeanor summonses in their hands.

Inside the AutoZone store, two employees say MPD officers told them that “we don’t have time for this,” and the company needs to provide better security.

But the gatherings outside in the parking lot are unstoppable at this point.

“It’s been going on for decades,” one employee said. “On Cinco De Mayo, it was like the Fourth of July out there.”

If you got it, flaunt it

It is now nearing midnight, and a growing crowd gathers at the large empty Summer Commons shopping mall parking lot on Summer Avenue next to an Exxon Station near White Station Road and diagonally across the street from the Gold Club.

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Minutes pass, the day changing from Saturday to Sunday, as more cars roll in and drivers find their places in a large loop that leaves room for the stunts that are to come. Finally, the show starts, a white pickup the first to whirl around doing doughnuts, tires howling, smoke rising, long black streaks left behind on the pavement like so much paint on a concrete canvas.

Luis said such events are mostly an innocent diversion for young people.

“Obviously, the burnouts and things are damaging parking lots,” he said. “But I think they’re just having fun. They’re not out to hurt anyone.”

Still, as the drivers go faster — become bolder — and their cars or trucks briefly slide sideways and out of control at the completion of a doughnut, several spectators move their vehicles back a few feet because accidents do happen.

Trujillo Puckett knows the danger too well, recalling a 2020 incident in which a Sacramento State student was severely injured at a “sideshow.” He was standing and watching, she said, when he was pushed forward and a car doing doughnuts spun in his direction, and he wound up under the car with a fractured skull. She said he was in a coma for weeks.

Here, drivers not only want to perform for a live audience, but they want their stunts documented on social media. Passengers take out cell phones to shoot video as cars turn round and round. One passenger in a Mustang, and wearing a ski mask, holds more than a cell phone. In the other hand, he waves a gun.

A short time later, three drivers who took their turns spinning doughnuts, exit the lot. Passengers from the cars put their punctuation marks on the night, firing gunshots into the air. The bullets don’t appear to strike anyone or anything, but had law enforcement been present the shooters would be getting free transportation to 201 Poplar.

“They can be charged with reckless endangerment for firing a gun off in public,” said Sergeant Kevin Sathongnhoth of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. “And if they hit someone, or property, they can be liable criminally, civilly or both.”

In 2020, a man was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and employing a firearm in the commission of a dangerous felony in connection with a shooting incident Feb. 15 of that year during a street race on Riverport Road, News Channel 3 reported. Police said as many as seven people were shot and five went to the hospital but were expected to be OK.

Luis said the local car culture wasn’t always this way.

“Now,” he said, “it’s easier to get a gun than a good book.”

Catch ’em, convict ’em, if you can

From city hall to law enforcement agencies to the prosecutor’s office, everyone is in favor of cracking down on street racing.

But because such specific criteria must be met to charge drag racing and might be weighed against more serious cases moving through the system, few drag racing charges go into the system and fewer result in convictions.

Presently, the Shelby County DA’s office has 56 drag racing cases pending and 1,044 reckless driving cases pending.

Over the past three years, only eight drag racing cases resulted in a guilty verdict while 41 were nolle prossed.

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“That means that we have dropped the charges, for whatever reason,” Weirich said. “It could be the individual pled guilty to other charges and in exchange for that guilty plea, we dismissed the drag racing case. It could be that we couldn’t prove our case, and we dismissed the charges. Some of these will go on for six months, and if you can go without being re-arrested, we’ll nolle pros the charges.”

From 2019-2021, data from the DA’s office showed 2,036 charges of reckless driving. Nolle pros cases in that span totaled 2,254; the two sets of numbers do no match because cases are not necessarily, or even usually, resolved within the same calendar year.

And sometimes, Weirich said, cases are dismissed in the name of “judicial economy.”

“We have an ethical obligation before we can prosecute anybody,” she said. “We’ve got to be able to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt. Whether it is a drag racing charge or a murder charge and everything in between.”

Weirich added that in many instances, a drag racing and/or reckless driving charge falls away in lieu of a more serious charge — which could be everything from DUI to drug possession, to illegal possession of a firearm, to one or more outstanding felony warrants.

“The drag racing and reckless driving is just one of the many criminal behaviors these offenders are engaged in,” she said. “If somebody gets pulled over for drag racing or reckless driving and they’ve got a B felony-amount of drugs on them, and they’re a convicted felon, our focus is going to be on those deadly drugs or on the convicted felon with a handgun.”

Knowledge equals trepidation

As Trujillo Puckett pointed out, racing is dangerous enough when done by professionals at a track. This is why Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Jim Murray once offered a helpful edit for the start of the Indianapolis 500:

“Gentlemen, start your coffins.”

Street racers? They take chances the pros can’t even imagine.

“These guys,” Bomar said, “will do anything to make their cars faster.”

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Because fast is good, faster is better and fastest is best.

That reality is evident on Riverport Drive, Shelby Drive, Winchester Road, South and East parkways, Bill Morris Parkway, even Germantown Parkway in Cordova, and anywhere else street racers have an open stretch of road.

The street racers also have shut down Riverside Drive and a portion of I-240 to do the same doughnut stunts they do in parking lots.

But most concerning, they will push to 100 mph and beyond when weaving in and out of traffic on the interstate, sometimes just missing the front or rear bumpers of other cars as they slide across multiple lanes.

It is dancing with a chainsaw.

Former street racer B.J. Brown knows what it is to hold the steering wheel of a roaring machine that feels almost omnipotent. He also has seen some of the same drivers who struggle to pull off a doughnut in a parking lot weaving in and out of traffic with their feet heavy and their consciences light.

“Hell,” he said, “I’m scared to drive on the interstate because of it.”