Chasing common sense off the road

I begin today by bringing you a brief synopsis of the movie “2 Fast 2 Furious,” currently raking in millions at theaters near you:

Roar! Screech! Smash! Squeal! Drugs! Rev! Slam! Fight! Bikinis! Guns! Crash! Kill! Kiss!

2 much 4 u? Me 2.

The movie celebrates speed on any street at any cost while elevating the English language with phrases such as “Man, we hongry” and, whispered to one’s car with a lover’s passion, “C’mon, baby, let’s see what you can do!”

I saw it for research. I swear. Street racing is on my mind these days because real people are dying out there and because Big Willie Robinson still can’t get a safe place for the kids to race.

Willie is president of the National Brotherhood of Street Racers, a subculture folk hero whose aim is to get the speed demons off the street and onto a real track. He’s been trying to do that for almost 30 years with varying degrees of success. They call him Big Willie for obvious reasons. He’s 6 feet 6 and 300 pounds of muscle and sweat. When Willie jabs a fist the size of a pot roast into the air to make a point, the room vibrates.

I was with him in 1993 when he was opening a track at Terminal Island. Its motto was “Run Whatcha Brung.” You could race anything you wanted, under strict conditions of no booze, no drugs and no fighting. Violate any of those rules and Big Willie wouldn’t ground you or dock you on points; he’d kick your butt.

Car lovers and street-racing maniacs came by the thousands. Gang bangers mingled with high-paid professionals, and bikers with speed-fancying ladies who lunch. All Willie wanted to do, he’d say, was to “increase the peace,” and his track exemplified that quest. The races were as serene as a gathering of nuns at a tea party for the pope.

Big Willie’s original Brotherhood Raceway operated on Terminal Island from 1974 to 1984, but the Port Commission took it away to, ironically, store cars. Backed by mayors Tom Bradley and Richard Riordan, Willie got another track in 1993, but that was taken away two years later so the Port could build an export terminal.

“Keep this in mind,” Big Willie told a crowd of racers back then. “The harbor department don’t want you here. They don’t want Big Willie here. They don’t want racing here. But we’re here.” But only for those two years.

“I’ve been to many, many funerals since then,” he was saying the other day at his home in Inglewood. Unlike the dark suit and derby he’s often worn in official appearances, Willie was dressed in his traditional street clothes: dungaree pants, a black T-shirt and a black leather vest with a Brotherhood logo on the back.

He’s a firm believer that street racing and street crime go down when a Brotherhood track is in business. He has many adherents, and he’s happy to show you written endorsements from cops, politicians, bureaucrats, judges, union leaders and a former car-loving publisher of the L.A. By God Times.

“If I were to put a race track in Israel,” Willie says in a voice that scatters birds, “I’d have the Jews and Palestinians racing each other instead of killing each other!”

Like a giant out of mythology, with a 58-inch chest and 21-inch biceps, Willie, now 60, is an awesome figure, but not awesome enough for the Port Commission. He considers the “harbor people” his biggest enemies in efforts to reestablish a track, and Mayor James K. Hahn his biggest disappointment. Willie says Hahn promised to support the Brotherhood’s efforts for a new track if the Brotherhood would support his bid for mayor in 2001, but now he won’t even answer Willie’s letters. Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook, a spokesman for Hahn, says he is unaware of any such deal.

When I telephoned the port’s chief operating officer, Bruce Seaton, to ask about the possibilities of a new track on port property, I received a snappish “I don’t talk to reporters.” Middlebrook said he’d call me back but never did. Those are the attitudes that Willie is facing. And meanwhile, movies like “2 Fast 2 Furious” will continue to feed a furious desire to race on city streets, and the death toll will continue to rise.

The City Council has approved an ordinance that would allow police to permanently confiscate cars used in street racing. Hahn will probably sign it. And Big Willie is going to increase his efforts to open a Brotherhood Raceway again. “The kids keep calling me and saying they want a track,” Willie says. “I say I’m working on it. But I can’t tell them to stop street racing. They won’t listen to me.”

And I doubt they’re going to pay a lot of attention to that ordinance either. If they won’t listen to Big Willie, they sure as blazes aren’t going to listen to Little Jimmy Hahn.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.