Street racing has and always will be popular throughout the world, especially in major areas. But is it popular in Riverton?
Riverton is connected to Bluffdale, which has a variety of rural areas. Racers use these areas to their advantage.
“Racers find unpopular streets and rural areas. They go at night on streets surrounded by fields that have a quick access out,” said Officer Kent Cameron.
Tyler Gust is the owner of a 2006 Subaru WRX, he started modifying from scratch and calls it his “baby”. If anyone knows about the racing scene, it’s Gust.
Tyler Gust stated “Me and my friends used to race up and down State Street back when it was legal.”
He claims that “Racing is more like networking now,” meaning that racing is a lot more aggressive and popular when you’re at a younger age, like a rebellious stage. Once you get older, the actual racing scene changes into networking so to speak.
“It’s just about knowing the right people, I don’t race as much these days” says Gust “[now it’s about] knowing people to get new parts from.”
When getting new parts for cars, Gust simply said “Ebay is your best friend.” Knowing the right people can get you far in racing.
Cars that give police the most trouble, “Honda, Toyota and Mitsubishi. Pretty much anything that racers can supp up.”
Gust and all of his friends drive around in WRX’s “Mitsubishi EVO’s are the worst competition.”
Racing may be a targeted problem here in Riverton and the United States, but things are a bit different in places such as Tokyo, Japan.
According to www.insideline.com, in the article Forget the Movie: This is the Real Tokyo Drift by Erik Adelson it said “The cops? They don’t seem to care as long as the racing stops when they come by.”
The technical meaning of street racing in Utah’s Street Racing Law is “A person may not engage in any motor vehicle speed contest or exhibition of speed on a highway; or aid or abet in any motor vehicle speed contest or exhibition on any highway. A person may not, in any manner, obstruct or place any barricade or obstruction or assist or participate in placing barricade or obstruction upon any highway for any purpose prohibited under Subsection.”
In English, www.utcodes.org said street racing is “Illegally organized events with spectators and marked distances on public roadways or spontaneous racing with another car.”
www.utcodes.org also claims that street racing is only 1.1% of all citations issued per year. But that number is soon to rise. In 1992, there were 150 drivers issued with citations for street racing and in 2002 there were 400.
Males are also more likely to street race than women. 95% of street racers in the United States are males and only 5% of street racers are women.
According to www.cops.usdoj.gov, data is hard to obtain on street racing and there is no software yet available to make a database on racers as well.
