Media and Law Enforcement Give Drag Racing another Black Eye.

Media and Law Enforcement Give Drag Racing another Black Eye

Last Saturday evening I was sitting in a media room with other photographers  at a local university, covering a college football game for USA Today, when one of the other photographers who was monitoring a social media site said with shock and sadness that Paul Walker had died.

My response was” Who?”  He looked at me like I had three nipples and said “ Paul Walker…. You know The Fast and the Furious.” 

Now with all honesty I can say that I have never seen an entire one of these Fast and the Furious movies. I watched about twenty minutes of the first one and then changed the channel to the Discovery or something.

Movies and reality shows that depict illegal street acceleration activities are not something I tend not to watch or give credence to. Then when compared to a legitimate sport such as drag racing, it pains me even more.

            Furthermore, I feel that those knuckleheads in Oklahoma with their reality show have done more harm to the motorsports industry than help it. Even though some racetrack promoters have felt it is OK to bring these people in as celebrities and such to heir events. Nevertheless, I digress.

The mainstream media and the law enforcement community have also done a great disservice to the sport of drag racing when they file reports on situations such as what happened last Saturday afternoon. “There was a possibility that Mr. Walker was drag racing when he was killed.”

Having my undergraduate degree in media studies, I understand why the mainstream media, and law enforcement officials are comfortable with using drag racing as a way to describe the illegal street acceleration activities, when these activities go aria.

The term is laziness.  It is easier to write drag racing than it is to write, illegal street acceleration activities. Two fewer words to write by the author.

The shame is, mainstream media types and some in law enforcement don’t understand that incorrectly using the term “drag racing” in these negative connotations can do to irreparable harm to half billion dollar dollar industry.

These reports are in a sense putting a legal, legitimate sporting activity and business in the same light as an illegal criminal enterprise. 

These erroneous reports can affect how a potential sponsor might look at the sport of drag racing, if that potential sponsor is new to the sport. It will make it harder to convince a potential sponsor to become involve if they see the sport in such a negative light.

However, to many of these uninformed people in law enforcement and the media, they don’t get it or worse yet don’t care.  Case in point.

About ten years ago, I was part of a fledgling all sports newspaper here in Southern Idaho, and there was an accident on a rural road where two cars were engaged in an illegal street acceleration activity. A gravel truck happen to  pull onto the road from a side street and the three kids in one of the cars involved were killed when the car and gravel truck collided.

The local law enforcement put out a report which was picked up by the local print and electronic  media and stated that the kids were killed while drag racing. I tracked down the officer who wrote the report and was doing a story on this tragedy.

My first question to him was “How did the gravel truck get on to the drag strip?” He looked at me with a puzzled look, and I followed up with, “Your report stated that the 3 occupants in the car were drag racing when they collided with the gravel truck and were killed, so how did the gravel truck get on the race track?” His response was “They were drag racing on the street.”

I tried to explain to him that drag racing is legal activity done at a drag strip and illegal street acceleration activities are not legal, and done on the street.  His response was “It’s all the same to us.”

Therefore, I asked him if that is the case then private security guards are the same as police officers.  His response was a very stern “NO”

 I said “Sure you are. You both drive cars with flashing lights on top, both have badges, both carry guns, Billy clubs, and handcuffs etc. All the same to us, right?” 

If he would have had a tazer, his facial expressions pretty much said he would have tazed me right then and there. Rather he spun round on his heels and got in his patrol car and left.

Now I am not trying to make light of what has happened this past Saturday.  It is tragic. Two families have lost a father, a son, a brother. Many others have lost two dear friends. Moreover, many have lost an entertainer who brought them enjoyment.

However, let’s not drag (no pun intended) an entire industry down where many people are employed and many positive things occur, just because somebody in the mainstream media or law enforcement official is too lazy to give a proper description to actually what happened when people engage in illegal street acceleration activities by calling it drag racing.

So when these instances occur where media and or law enforcement take the easy road and use the term drag racing when these illegal street acceleration activities take place. It puzzles me why the leading sanctioning body in the sport of drag racing the National Hot Rod Association sitting on their hands and not coming out with a statement refuting the description of the activities that caused Mr. Walker or others to lose their lives in illegal street acceleration activities.

Because you know damn good and well the next time some high profile individual is killed or seriously injured in an illegal street acceleration activity, and it will happen, if a reporter in the mainstream media or law enforcement office puts in the report, that the victim was involved in stock car racing on the street.  NASCAR would mobilize its legal and communications department in order to contain and redirect those comments so fast it would make one’s head spin.

One last thing is that racing is a legal sport done at sanctioned facilities throughout the world. Where there are safety measures in place and rules to govern the activities.

 When people get out on the street and drive fast it is not racing.  In addition, when there are two or more knuckleheads out driving fast on the streets, it still is not racing; it is illegal street acceleration activity. Alternatively, use the term wreck less driving.  

Either way my message to those in the media and law enforcement don’t take the easy way out when describing a tragedy like what happened on Saturday by just throwing out the term drag racing. It is not fair moreover, it is not an accurate description.

Just to see if anybody notices.