Cops Are Behind Fast Teens

Liz Miles remembers the first night she showed a cop the awesome power that lurks beneath the hood of her bright orange 1968 Chevrolet Camaro -- the 350-cubic-inch engine she rebuilt herself after school.

The cop was a Goober, street slang for some fool who runs with an automatic transmission, and the 17-year-old knew the contest was over before she even hit the accelerator. “I looked over at him -- through my illegally tinted windows -- and thought, ‘There’s no way you can catch me.’ ”

Pedal to the metal, she soared with the adrenaline rush of beating a black-and-white off the line -- watching that cherry-top recede in her rearview mirror as the groupies along the blacktop began to roar.

Fifteen breathless seconds later, Miles urged her muscle car across the finish line first, the hapless officer lagging half a dozen car lengths behind. After that the high school senior was hooked, a convert to a legal new venue for her high-velocity escapades: Not the winding back roads of the wine country, but a quarter-mile strip at the local speedway.

Every Wednesday night between May and November, the fast and furious of a new generation test their mettle against police normally out to squelch their adrenaline-amping fun. They take on uniformed officers in their own squad cars -- lights flashing, sirens blaring, no holds barred.

The dozen police agencies that comprise the “Top the Cops” program at Infineon Raceway, a short spin north of the Golden Gate Bridge, say there’s a method to their apparent madness: Illicit street racing has moved from rural roads to crowded suburban thoroughfares, causing more accidents and imperiling bystanders.

From San Ysidro to Santa Rosa, the illegal duels rev into high gear each summer, when young drivers are more prone to mimic the antics of such movies as “2 Fast 2 Furious,” due out today, the sequel to the 2001 summer hit about the supercharged world of L.A. street racing.

All this spring, California Highway Patrol officers statewide have been gearing up to thwart teens who want to match the unbridled action they see on the movie screen.

“We saw a rise in the racing after the first ‘Fast and the Furious’ came out and we expect another one with this movie,” said CHP spokesman Max Hartley. “School is about to get out and we have a lot of kids with nothing but time on their hands. For us, this movie could not have been released at a worse time.”

Plenty of young people own the same Hondas, Ford Mustangs and Acuras featured in the “Fast and Furious” movies, many with dangerous nitrous oxide added to boost performance.

“They see the stunts and they say, ‘Wow, I can do that in my car,’ ” said Hartley. “They don’t realize that these are movie sets with stunt drivers performing on closed streets. But we won’t stand for it. When this movie comes out, we’re going to be out there as well. And we’re going to be aggressive.”

Authorities recite a litany of grim statistics: In the last decade, more than 68,000 teenagers have died in auto crashes, making motor vehicle mishaps the leading cause of death for young adults nationwide, according to the Insurance Group for Highway Safety. The number of fatal crashes nationwide attributed to street racing rose to 135 in 2002, up from 72 the year before, federal statistics show.

From 2001 to 2002, the number of citations issued for street racing and “exhibition of speed” in California rose more than 10%, according to the CHP.

“These contests have been around as long as kids have souped up their cars,” said Santa Rosa Police Officer Alan Schellerup. “But now there’s more traffic, more people to get in the way. The cars weigh less but run so fast they can literally break apart upon impact. It makes drag racing a more fatal endeavor.”

Communities have tried to battle the trend by passing laws to confiscate cars caught street racing. Even spectators can face $1,000 fines and six months in jail.

Top the Cops, along with a similar program in San Diego and “Beat the Heat” races in Texas and elsewhere, allows teenage drivers to test their limits in a structured setting where cars are checked by mechanics and seat belts are mandatory. So far the California races have been unmarred by crash or injury.

But there’s another benefit: a bit of relaxed face-time between two groups usually pitted as sworn enemies.

“When they started racing, the kids called every cop a bad guy and officers figured every teen was a ticket waiting to happen,” said Infineon manager Georgia Seipel. “Now there’s less stereotyping on both sides.”

Many cops are themselves car buffs, so the competition gets fierce. One veteran was caught breaking the rules--sneaking a set of racing tires onto his patrol car for extra speed. For many teens, the mere glimpse of a standard-issue police Ford Crown Victoria can be a menacing sight. But not out at the track.

“I’ve raced 50 different cops and never lost,” said 20-year-old Sara Polley, a former competitor who now works at Infineon. “It’s so great to see a red light in your rearview and step on the gas instead of hitting your brakes.”

Many officers don’t mind playing the bad guy -- the Apollo Creed in a teenager’s Rocky fantasies -- in exchange for an unguarded moment with a teen after the race, when they hand out trophies and safety brochures.

Each season, a dozen teens qualify to race against police during a three-day pro hot-rod event at Infineon, which draws 150,000 spectators. The crowd roars its approval when a teenager wins, booing when the police prevail.

Sometimes the races are more circus than competition. Barking dogs hang their heads out of K-9 units, tongues lolling. One flustered 17-year-old girl lead-footed it off the starting line -- in reverse. Another enterprising teen raced his mom’s Rolls-Royce but got caught after she happened to catch the event on TV.

Schellerup is a regular racer, facing off against teens young enough to be one of his own sons. The 48-year-old accident investigator has also witnessed the unsettling alternative to sponsored races.

Last spring, he worked one of the most emotionally wrenching cases of his career: At age 16, Jeremy Swanson died while racing his Honda Civic against a stranger he encountered on a four-lane straightaway in Santa Rosa. In his mind’s eye, the investigator can still see the parts of the sporty Honda, strewn for hundreds of feet along the tree-lined road.

Going 100 miles an hour, Swanson faced off against 19-year-old Michael Gurtovoy’s BMW 325. When Swanson failed to negotiate a slight turn, his car spun out of control, smashing into a tree and shearing in half.

Pinned inside, Swanson died hours later. Gurtovoy received a year in jail for vehicular manslaughter.

Weeks later, in a suburban town nearby, Christopher Carr tested his red two-door 1995 Honda Civic against a friend in a snazzy Mazda. The 17-year-old also lost control on a turn and the car wrapped around a tree. Shards of windshield glass were found embedded in a wooden fence hundreds of feet away.

At the time of his death, Carr played guitar in the school band and worked at a local In-N-Out Burger to repay the money his mother had lent him to buy his car. The friend, a juvenile, has been charged in the death.

Schellerup admits that he’s a parent first, a cop second. He’s troubled that Carr had competed in Top the Cops events, but did not stop street racing. It broke his heart when Swanson died -- the pain magnified when he learned that Jeremy’s sister had died as a passenger in a car crash nine years before her brother.

The worst part is attending the autopsies. “It makes me think of my own sons,” Schellerup said. “It makes me want to get the word out: Speed kills.”

*

Liz Miles likes a little dirt under her fingernails. She’s a “wrencher,” a car enthusiast who spends her time immersed in the obsessive world of auto mechanics.

She started dreaming about cars at 14. Two years later, at 8 a.m. on the morning of her 16th birthday, she snagged the very first driving test appointment at the DMV. Then she went out and bought a vintage Camaro with a four-speed transmission and a 5.7-liter engine.

Each Wednesday, she makes the hourlong drive to Sonoma from her home in Danville in Contra Costa County. She wears a tomboy muscle shirt and jeans, her reddish, shoulder-length hair hiding her freckles. She wants a career working on high-performance cars and helps teach an auto shop class at school.

She’s unpopular with girls who take the class just to meet guys. “I steal their spotlight,” she says. For Miles, boys take a backseat. She scans a sea of teens waiting to race: “I don’t look at boys. I might check out what they’re driving, though.”

The teen went a year before telling her mom about her Infineon racing. “I said, ‘Please, Mom, I’ll wear my seat belt.’ ”

Since then Miles and her friend, 17-year-old Nicole Sterley, have become addicted to the sheer noise of the speedway, the whine of the engines, the acrid smell of burning rubber and the good-ol’-boy croon of the race announcer named Lane, which echoes off the mostly empty grandstands.

On a recent Wednesday, Miles learns her police race opponent will be Santa Rosa Officer Schellerup. Amid the din of the engines, he tries to get her talking.

“What kind of car you got?”

Her eyes narrow. “A Camaro. What you got?”

“A Ford Crown Victoria,” he says with a smile.

“Oh, I’ll beat you,” she fires back, flashing her own wicked grin.

*

Idling at the starting line, Schellerup peers across at his teenage rival. But all he sees is his reflection in the orange Camaro’s tinted windows.

With a smoky screech, Miles spins her tires to build up heat for better traction off the line. “She’s really serious about this,” says a nervous Schellerup. “You know, she has a bigger engine. And I outweigh her by 800 pounds with all my equipment.”

Miles’ best trial time was 14.2 seconds. Schellerup posted a 16.2, earning him a two-second head start in the heat.

The black and white and the shining orange Camaro perch at the starting line, both drivers eyes glued on the “Christmas tree”--the vertical light stand that signals the start of every race. Four yellows switch on, one by one. Then the green. Taking off too early means a red light and a race forfeited.

Schellerup glares at the lights, flipping on his siren just before the green. Then he punches the gas and hunches forward, urging the lumbering Crown Vic ahead, accelerator pressed firmly to the floor. Then, over his left shoulder, comes a flash of orange as Miles shifts into the last of her four gears. She flies past him and across the finish line at 95 mph.

“These kids may have speed, but there’s something they don’t have,” Schellerup says, pointing to his radio. “They can’t outrun a dispatcher and they can’t outrun a police helicopter.”

Then he hears the announcement that Miles had bolted too early from the starting line. He’d won the race after all. “That’s too bad,” he laughs. “I guess I psyched her out.”

He sidles over to the girl’s window for a final chat. Like any teen caught speeding, she hands over her driver’s license. “Sorry if I was going too fast for you, Officer,” she says.

Schellerup walks back to his car: “I like a kid with a sense of humor.”