Like a lot of the E-85 crew, Jimmy works from home as a mechanic and raced professionally before he was old enough to have a driver’s license. You see somebody while doing something you love, it’s scary.”īut, he added, “It didn’t make me think twice about continuing.” Jimmy, from Queens, races for as much as $600 in a 1995 Honda that he hacked by moving the gas tank to the trunk. Jimmy was there when Mello ran his last race. Hearing about the speed bumps, one racer at E-85 shrugged it off and mysteriously said, “We have ways to work around. His most recent action was to order the deployment of speed bumps along Review Avenue. “I never thought I would be on the enforcement end.”īut not long after he became captain of the 108th in January, Gibbs prioritized putting a stop to the racing. “Maybe, when I was a kid, I allegedly went there and watched ,” he admitted. Michael Gibbs, of the 108th Precinct, which counts the avenue in its turf. “Racing has gone on there for at least 30 years,” said NYPD Capt. Spookily, the spot, in the shadow of the Kosciuszko Bridge, is known as “Cemetery” for the Calvary graveyard that lies alongside it. Paramedics pronounced him dead on the scene. In January, at a hot street-racing spot along Review Avenue in Long Island City, a racer nicknamed Mello smashed into a street pole at high speed.
Although he sometimes races for money - as much as $600 per run - this one “was for competition,” he said.Ī regular participant told The Post that racing has led to crashes on the Belt and Southern State parkways. The race lasts less than 30 seconds, then the expressway traffic is allowed to resume its normal flow.īack at E-85, Jimmy accepts a fist bump in celebration of his win. The opponents scorch down a quarter-mile of blacktop, getting up to 120 mph and leaving behind smells of burnt rubber and spent E-85. Standing between the two cars, a man forcefully drops his arm in a simulation of a starting flag. His opponent, also in a Honda, does the same. Out on the highway, all cars brake to a stop, blocking traffic.Īt the front of the pack, Jimmy spins his front tires (a procedure known as a “burn out”) to improve traction. A Queens gas station sells E-85 - racing fuel. Leading the way is Jimmy, a 22-year-old from Jamaica, Queens, behind the wheel of a 225-horsepower 1994 Honda Civic with the gas tank re-situated in the trunk to enhance fuel flow. Suddenly, cars skitter onto the street, spewing exhaust as they head for Nassau Expressway. “I’m not letting anyone get in the way of my passion.”Īt the gas station - colloquially known as “E-85” for the racing fuel it sells - word spreads that two contenders are ready to go. “This is the thing I’m passionate about,” said one racer, alongside his Acura Integra, its hood removed to reveal a spotless engine. Most every weekend, racers meet up - as The Post has previously reported, the areas with the most 311 complaints are Richmond Hill’s 124th Street, Frances Lewis Boulevard in northern Queens and Leo Fracassi Way in The Bronx - to race illegally, at speeds of up to 160 mph. They pass joints, talk about horsepower, and issue challenges to race. Clutches of twentysomething guys - and a few young women - group around customized, low-to-the ground Hondas, Mustangs and BMWs. on a recent Sunday at a gas station in Queens, heavy-duty auto engines rev conspicuously.
0 kommentar(er)
