On Street Racing Culture

It's happening again. April third, thousands of people (myself included) will be packing theatres to get hopped up on street racing and its "culture". Like the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that, my scene will double or triple in size.

There are two basic effects:

The Positive

The buying power of our collective earnings will garner the attention of those who would otherwise pay us no attention. The most apparent of these happenings was the migration of the Mitsubishi Evolution and the Subaru WRX STI to American soil from Japan. Likewise, the influx of money spent on performance parts and cosmetic enhancements will allow opportunistic companies to explode overnight. AEM and APC are two examples of companies that exploited benefited from the influx of newcomers. Existing performance brands will be given a longer lease on life. The Honda S2000, while monetarily out of reach of most "street racing enthusiasts", enjoyed a long run as a flagship car that many "F&F Kids" graduated to.

The Negative

The existing motorsport community will see this as a dilution of their passion. From their perspective, their life-blood was patronized, packaged, and sold to yuppies and wangters. Contention and negativity will exponentially increase, which is alarming as automotive communities are generally competitive and hostile by nature. We will see the return of the word "ricer" and "roll racer". Two very clear sides will be drawn: one with wide-eyed, brash newcomers, and the other with self-serving elitists. I can see the forum threads now.

Don't get me wrong, I plan to enjoy this movie. It's not like I have a choice; cars are in my blood. I'm not sure how I feel about what it will do to the motorsport community as a whole. Looking around, you can see how huge organizations like IRL are poised to close their doors if their sales numbers don't improve. Am I willing to be lumped in with the "Taco Bell crew" by the general public when they look at my modded car? Am I prepared to lose the respect of new friends and complete strangers when they label me a "Fast and the Furious kid"?

To grow motorsport, sure.

Maybe Fast and the Furious 5 could focus on F1 and make the sport more transparent to the public. Maybe the future of "car guy" movies will inspire respect from the general public instead of disdain.