Local meet that was getting sketchy ended up exactly as expected

News 7 coverage of stupid drag race

A detail shop near my house had a cruise-in/meet a week or two ago.  They had one late last year and it was kinda fun, small-ish, shop owner is about 20 and SWMBO knows his parents.

This one I'm pretty sure caught him off guard.  Much much larger, they were parking cars up and down the street for 2 miles anywhere they could.  I almost left but they directed us to a loan store that had parking, ok fine.  Walked around for about 40 minutes and decided I had enough.

Especially when the d-bag in a Mustang did a donut in the middle of Patterson.  Cars revving up and down the street, ok I'm done.

Apparently shortly after these two idiots decided to drag race and the Viper owner (who had parked near me) didn't even make it a block before crashing into a pole.  I had seen many people pushing baby carriages up and down that sidewalk earlier.

If he doesn't do something to get some control, I think this will blow back on him and his biz.  They mention a car show, it was put on by his shop, and he had a few people with radios trying to park cars so it wasn't just a casual thing.  He was actively trying to put this on.

If he has another, and doesn't try something to control it, I won't be back.

I saw that video. Play stupid games win stupid prizes. 

I remember those days. Started a small weekly Mazda meet. About a dozen people, etc. Word of mouth and we grew. A switch or locations got us to dozens of people across all makes. Everyone's welcome, right? Then the bullE36 M3 started. People drinking and driving, lots of acting a mess up and down the road, bunch of stupid racing. Eventually got asked to not come back despite the money we brought in. I was not sad to see it gon 

Yikes, that is a no joke collision. That guy is lucky that it only ended as badly as it did. I used to go to a lot of street races (as a spectator) in college and I knew it was dumb and dangerous and I would be as careful as I could, like not watching from beyond the starting line. People would line up past the start line on the street, a deal like that could have wiped out a lot of people.

It's all fun and games until a Viper wraps itself around a sign pole.

Saw that earlier on a local get together page.  The Viper owner had only owned it since October or November, and it was on 6 year old tires.

Soooo, link to cheap viper for sale?

Same thing has happened here with Cars and Coffee.  Started out being a chill enthusiast meet up.  Last time I went it was chaos, people throwing revs, purging nitrous valves at an idle crawl in the middle of hundreds of pedestrians.  

Seems like car shows have a gravity that eventually sucks in the personalities that really need to be seen instead of people who are just enthusiastic about automobiles.

Yeah our cars and coffee happens bright and early that a bunch of the berkwads aren't up in time for it. Have also had to call in off duty police and post a squad car at the exit to curtail anything. Every couple of weeks someone smokes the tires and for the most part if it's caught in real time gets a ticket and if just on video, get's publicly shamed for their antics.

One of our local Cars and Coffee events just shut down due to stupid people doing stupid people stuff with cars.

Not a kid. 44 years old with enough money to buy a Viper. Anybody see a problem here.

There's a C&C starting up here right now. So far, so good - but I have had to suggest to one turbo Miata kid (with a "400 hp" 2560 turbo) that he get a few blocks away before summoning the whoosh when he's giving thrill rides. I think what's going to kill it will be spectators shooting video of departures. That leads to showboating and that eventually leads to more speed than talent.

It'll be a shame to lose it, it's attracting a really varied crowd. 

Dayton cars and Coffee has been going on for a handful of years, mostly no issues. It's grown to 1000+ now and takes up 4 large parking lots. We still get a couple "look at me"s but we also have a couple police cars helping block certain entrances so that helps.

I was hoping this would be a fun extra event but maybe not.

In reply to Jerry :

OK. I get it. Starts out good quickly turns stupid.  
      Does that mean young gear heads  are stupid?   Or is there a way to properly harness that energy?  
  

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah he looks a lot older than 44.  That makes me feel weird cause i'm 41

In reply to Patrick :

Viper guy has all that stress "age" from being a rolling liability...

The C&O in Atlanta starts early, and ends around 11am. There has to be 10 patrol cars policing the event.

I stopped attending car shows years ago. I can see plenty of cool cars and car people at track events and rally events, where the morons are mostly weeded out. Plus there's something more exciting to do than stand around - like drive your cars in a safe and competitive environment.  
berkeley car shows. 

frenchyd said:

In reply to Jerry :

OK. I get it. Starts out good quickly turns stupid.  
      Does that mean young gear heads  are stupid?   Or is there a way to properly harness that energy?  
  

I think it is a personality profile and not an age thing.  Douchenozzles gonna nozzle.

frenchyd said:

In reply to Jerry :

OK. I get it. Starts out good quickly turns stupid.  
      Does that mean young gear heads  are stupid?   Or is there a way to properly harness that energy?  
  

Stupid behavior breeds stupid behavior.  I'm significantly older than 44 and I'm not immune to peer pressure.  One of the reasons I don't drive a high performance car on the street is that I'm not really responsible enough. 

The only real solution is to be vigilant and police ourselves to create and maintain a culture of enjoying our toys responsibly.  That means pointing out stupid behavior when we see it and accepting criticism when we deserve it.  We also need to promote safe outlets for automotive shenanigans when we can.

People of all ages like to show off, which sucks because it DOES kill shows/meets

Just last week I was at a local meet in Lexington and some guys on sportbikes started gassing it and weaving in and out of traffic etc. That is the kind of stuff that can get people hurt or worse.

Revving? It's annoying but Id rather than than the burnouts and such

C&C events in my area of Detroit-ish are small except for the ones at M1 Concourse in Pontiac and they decidedly aren't!   The small ones have been pretty restrained overall.  I can't say much about the larger one as I don't know.

The local Richmond, VA C&C has been struggling with this behavior as well. I only attend sporadically because my Saturday mornings are usually filled with kids' activities but they'll get over 1000 cars during the nicer weather. The organizer is aware of the potential issues and has taken some steps to try to avoid them. The biggest changes are adding local PD presence ands restricting people from gathering at the exits. The Richmond PD isn't always available but preventing people from congregating at the exits really seems to help. For some reason people can turn into idiots when the cameras start rolling. I, myself, am definitely guilty of goosing the throttle a bit but I'm very careful not to break traction.

Tyler H (Forum Supporter) said:

Seems like car shows have a gravity that eventually sucks in the personalities that really need to be seen instead of people who are just enthusiastic about automobiles.

Sort of the inverse of actual motorsports events. Opposite poles of d-bag poser magnetism.

Popping turbos while parked also doesn't help things. 

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

Soooo, link to cheap viper for sale?

I think someone was looking for a motor swap for a commuter in another thread.    Will a V10 fit in a Miata?

Last Cars & Coffee here a woman got tasered. And shook it off. 
 

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