[RnmEvo9]

Who will win when they go to battle in court?

[FDM68]

Now that will be an interesting bit of lawyering...

[TK-421]

This happened last Saturday night in Tampa just off the western side of the Gandy Bridge. I was about 100 feet away from it. Craziest shit I may have ever seen. I have the whole story behind it if you want it but be warned - I'll go full retard on the breakdown.

[ragingclue]

Originally Posted by TK-421

This happened last Saturday night in Tampa just off the western side of the Gandy Bridge. I was about 100 feet away from it. Craziest shit I may have ever seen. I have the whole story behind it if you want it but be warned - I'll go full retard on the breakdown.

Yeah man, have at it.

[NYCGP]

Originally Posted by TK-421

This happened last Saturday night in Tampa just off the western side of the Gandy Bridge. I was about 100 feet away from it. Craziest shit I may have ever seen. I have the whole story behind it if you want it but be warned - I'll go full retard on the breakdown.

Let's hear it.... and btw.. Stop street racing TK..

I will say one thing... Was anyone else waiting for the token shirtless dude? Like, when he finally appeared in the video it was an "OHHH there he is" moment..?

[Express]

Oh heyyyyyyyy ss

[Alpine Whiteboy]

Subaru won...

[NYCGP]

Originally Posted by Alpine Whiteboy

Subaru won...

You mean the Nissan...? That shit definitely made it further..

[Alpine Whiteboy]

Originally Posted by NYCGP

You mean the Nissan...? That shit definitely made it further..

Silver WRX@1:52

[Greenkirby21]

Were they ok??

[boymonkey]

So they stopped on the highway thinking they can use it as a drag strip? Not surprised by the outcome.

[import36]

damn TK...you still writing up the story or what?? let's have it...

[CoconutPete]

Originally Posted by boymonkey

So they stopped on the highway thinking they can use it as a drag strip? Not surprised by the outcome.

First thing I thought...

[MisterSkiMask]

Originally Posted by boymonkey

So they stopped on the highway thinking they can use it as a drag strip? Not surprised by the outcome.

Seriously, WFT is wrong with people?!

[sanf]

the drunk driver seems to be the unlucky one. anyhow, i hope everyone is okay.

[CollinsE90]

I have no interest in seeing this video.

[Q4P]

Originally Posted by boymonkey

So they stopped on the highway thinking they can use it as a drag strip? Not surprised by the outcome.

kind of wondering about that as well

[TK-421]

inb4 tl;dr - I warned you

So here goes. First off, let me start off by saying I was not racing - I go to these with my friends to watch and hang out. I'm not one to dick measure with random vtec kids who don't give a fuck and will pit maneuver you if you walk them. My car is my car and I build it so it entertains me and no one else (mostly for drift anyway).
/rant

Anyway here's some info first to set the scene. Tampa is arguably the biggest stage for street racing in the nation. A big reason for that would be the many long bridges and causeways that are essentially a green zone for letting your car loose because there's no room on them for police to camp out. Now what usually happens is on Friday and Saturday nights (occasionally Sundays too), people come from miles around and even other cities to either the Courtney Campbell Causeway or the Gandy Bridge. The northern circle is the Courtney Campbell Causeway while the southern is the Gandy Bridge:



Last Saturday, I went with a bunch of my friends to Causeway, as it's called. Now usually there's a pretty decent amount of cars, say 50 or so. This night in particular was the wildest I've ever been to. Easily a couple hundred cars showed up. Now how everyone goes about this is they come from the Tampa side of the causeway (the east heading west) and turn at the 4-way traffic light intersection at the western red oval on the map below onto a strip of paved road on the southern part of the causeway between the guard rail and the water. There's a grassy part with palm trees between this paved road and the guard rail that the cars park on to watch. How cars go about racing is they go back to the intersection to line up.*



At this time (past 11 at the very earliest until maybe 3-4) there's hardly any cars driving on the causeway. People who race will wait until any traffic passes and line up stopped next to each other and race from a dig or go at it from a roll with one car doing the traditional 3 honks to start it. The cars would go for a little while then slow down and pull into the second red oval on the map below to go back to where they were and rejoin the other cars. Now there was every car you can think of there with most being your typical vtec cars to built supras, 240's (there was even a real S15 o_O), turbo liter bikes, full bolt-on C6 Z06's, and even a '69 Chevelle SS with mirror black paint and the factory 396 but built to the extreme (hardly any BMW's there with the exception of my E30, a stock white E30 with no brakes, and an E36 or two). Because of how many cars there were, races were happening literally one after the other for a couple hours. Eventually, a police car came. Now we had seen a few pass by but all they did is slow down a bit but kept on going. This one, however, pulled into the turn lane of the intersection and put on his lights (no sirens). At this point everyone dipped in every direction but nothing crazy like when the opening street race in The Fast and the Furious was broken up. Traffic lights were obeyed, turn signals used, no burnouts, etc.

At this point, most of the baller cars either headed home or to meetups with their people. Other cars went south to the Gandy Bridge. Where the cars meet up is just after the western part of the bridge where there's a dirt area to the south where people park and a side road to the north where cars park on. I was on the side road where you see the red arrow:



Now there were far fewer cars that came over to Gandy but there were still more than usual - I'd say maybe 50-60. I was one of the first 15-20 cars to get there and was there for a good hour or so until any racing started. At some time after 3 am, the very first race is about to begin. 2 Hondas line up between the 2 points where the spectators are on the westbound road with their backs to the bridge. A flagger goes in front of the cars to start the race. As they start building up revs, I see a Nissan SUV (X-Terra I believe) come flying down the bridge going 80-90 mph. Thoughts are going through my head like "he's going pretty damn fast... Wait, this is only a 2-lane road with 2 cars stopped dead in both lanes... If he tries to avoid them, he could quite possible flip........ Holy shit." The Nissan slams into the hatch with no attempt to brake or avoid it. A huge cloud of metal, glass, and plastic shoots into the air with the X-Terra getting airborne, flipping onto its roof and the hatch being shot forward like a Hot Wheels car when you push it through that launcher thing. It was hit so hard the radiator burst. People rushed to the SUV with one guy taking a wrench out of his car, smashing the windshield so people could get the driver out... who was apparently drunk off his ass while the driver of the demolished Civic got out under his own power with no major injuries (...wtf?). The driver of the wrecked hatch got into another person's car and hauled ass outta there so he could go home and report his car as stolen so as to avoid any trouble from the law, civil suits, and his insurance denying his claim (that is if he had any). As for me, I stuck around to see if I could help but didn't do anything as there was an EMT who was watching the races too and was taking care of the Nissan driver. I didn't get a wink of sleep that night.

I didn't go back on Sunday night to either Causeway or Gandy but I imagine there was a heavy police presence and very light turnout if any at all. Everything happened so quickly but felt like slow motion.


/full retard

[FDfranklin]

Originally Posted by TK-421

This happened last Saturday night in Tampa just off the western side of the Gandy Bridge. I was about 100 feet away from it. Craziest shit I may have ever seen. I have the whole story behind it if you want it but be warned - I'll go full retard on the breakdown.

Yeah pretty much why I never go out there is because shit like this ALWAYS happens. I live walking distance from the bridge also. If your going to race on that bridge the best time is mid day lol

[FDfranklin]

Originally Posted by boymonkey

So they stopped on the highway thinking they can use it as a drag strip? Not surprised by the outcome.

Its a bridge that is pretty much always empty late at night but yes still very retarded.

[RambleJ]

Originally Posted by boymonkey

So they stopped on the highway thinking they can use it as a drag strip? Not surprised by the outcome.

+1 come on now, Really!! There has to be some warehouse districts somewhere to do some friendly, out of harms way type of fun.

[Q4P]

TK, I am going to make the guess that place will be so looted with cops that there won't be too much street racing going anymore out there.