Street racing
Several years after the notorious "Cannonball", Yates created the family-friendly and somewhat legal version One Lap of America where speeding occurs in race circuits and is still running to this day.
Since the track surface is originally planned for normal speeds, race drivers often find street circuits bumpy and lacking grip.
Racers who prefer this type of event typically do so because it allows the competitors to show that their cars could actually be competitive on a public roadway without the need to risk racing on the street.
The track effectively became "no prep" at the drag racing meet weeks later, and after numerous complaints about the no-prep surface the event was run without championship status.
Examples of this diversity can be found in the various words utilized to identify the illegal street racers themselves, including hoonigan and boy-racer (New Zealand and Australia), tramero (Spain), hashiriya (Japan), and mat rempit (Malaysia).
Typically this term is used to label such illegal drag racing events held on public roadways, where drivers are participating for a cash prize.
This act would be analogous to the Christmas Tree in a typical sanctioned drag race, and has been portrayed widely in popular culture, from ZZ Top music videos to American cinema.
Furthermore, illegal street racers may put ordinary drivers at risk because they race on public roads rather than closed-course, purpose-built facilities, such as Pacific Raceways in the aforementioned city.
Additionally, street racers tend to form teams which participate in racing together, which may ultimately lead to or feed into organized crime or gang activity.
For example, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, the venue for the Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix, hosts regular amateur racing events with appropriate infrastructure.
A driver convicted of a causing a street racing fatality can be sentenced to life imprisonment as a maximum term, with full parole possible after serving 7 years in prison.
The drivers, who drove a fleet of luxury sport cars including Ferraris, Lamborghinis and McLarens, were arrested at the border in Shenzhen trying to return to Hong Kong.
[citation needed] With heavier punishments, patrolling police cars, crackdowns in meeting areas and the installation of speed cameras, expressway racing in Japan became an extremely rare sight compared to its heyday of the 1980s and the 1990s, though it may occur on a not-so-regular basis.
[29] On 3 May 2009, the Bukit Aman Traffic Division of the Royal Malaysian Police, together with the Road Transport Department, once again launched a major integrated operation to crack down on both cars and Mat Rempit motorcycles involved in illegal racing.
For that reason a police unit called Sigma squad was created in 1995 which drove high-end sports cars like the BMW M3, the Audi RS2 and the Porsche 930 Turbo.
[citation needed] Even after decline because of the economic crisis, rising petrol prices and increasing police presence, street racing continues to be popular in Greece.
[40][verification needed] In October 2002, a man named Angelo Giugliano was killed after being hit by two cars involved in a street race in Rome.
[41][verification needed] In the 2010s, track days at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza become more popular with car enthusiasts with burnouts in the tunnel attracting many spectators.
Laws exist in all states and territories that limit modifications done to vehicles and prohibit having nitrous oxide hooked up to, or even present inside a car.
In most states and territories, P-platers (provisional drivers) are not allowed to drive vehicles classified as "high-performance", such as those with a power-to-weight ratio greater than 130 kilowatt per tonne.
Australia has lower reported levels of this behavior than New Zealand related to street racing, due in part to the size of the Australian continent and much of it occurring undetected in remote rural locations or at odd hours.
The LVVTA exists to service legal motorsport and responsible modifications only, but the system is prohibitively expensive and seems to be engineered to discourage hot rodding rather than promote it.
[52] In the 1970s the movies American Graffiti and The Hollywood Knights played a key role in the expansion of street racing and the joy of owning a hot rod.
One of the oldest and longest running street racing video game franchises is the Japanese Shutokou Battle series which has seen dozens of releases on a variety of platforms starting in 1994 on the Super Famicom.
Several missions in the popular Grand Theft Auto video game series see the player participating in races on the city streets.
Some of these missions often involve vehicular combat in addition to regular street racing, with the player required to attack opponents via drive-by shooting, in order to damage their vehicles or kill the opposing driver.
Unlike Most Wanted and Carbon, this time the plot involves an undercover police officer who is trying to break up an international crime ring; however, the game was very badly reviewed, and considered by many to be the low point of the series.
The 1994 arcade game Cruis'n USA has several references to street racing, like real cars and an upgrading system such as spoilers, decals, neon lights, ground effects, and engines.
The classic arcade game, which is also for the Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, PC, PSP, and GBA, Crazy Taxi, has similarities to an illegal street race.
Several racetracks in the Mario Kart series involve street racing on a public road with traffic acting as hazards such as cars, buses, and trucks.
