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An excerpt from Drag Kings . Photos and writing by Rebecca.

Big Willie Robinson III is a street racing expert. Almost every thing written about Big Willie mentions three things: his size (at 6-foot-6, 300 pounds, the Vietnam vet once competed for the Mr. America title), his title as founder of the National and International Brotherhood of Streetracers Association, and his dogged passion for the Brotherhood Raceway Park.

Big Willie opened the Brotherhood race track, located on Terminal Island in Los Angeles. It was built for street racers by ex-street racers and that meant it was the only race track in the world that was open from Friday 5 p.m. until gates closed Monday a.m. That also meant if you wanted to race at 4 a.m. you wouldn't do it on the street because the track would be open. As Big Willie explained, "You can't expect a guy to go home at 10 p.m. and just park his car."

The response was phenomenal. Not only did incidents of illegal street racing dip to record lows in LA when the track was open, but so did the crime rate. LAPD cops were quoted in Times' articles, calling Big Willie's program, "a miracle..."






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We have been having a string of bad luck in the past few months below is a list of just a few strings of bad luck that so-cal has experienced...

If we had a safe place to race none of this would be happening the problem is that the laws are not preventing us from racing it's just giving us less places to do it so people just race wherever then can get a race off and lately it's been on crowded streets...

Nov. 25th 2006

 A  2001 camaro crashed on the top end of a popular street in so-cal wrecking 6 cars and destroying his car... cops came made sure nobody was hurt told the driver of the camaro it was his problem deal with the owners of the cars that were wrecked and left.... looked expensive!!!!!!!

Nov. 26th 2006

One of our guys called 'Da Mailman' crashed his 10.Ooh notchback stang this morning. Totaling it on one of the streets out here. Nobody was hurt and the carnage was remove before the five 'o' got there. Since the cops have been hitting us hard lately, races are going on early morning and in strange places like and alley that is used in downtown Los Angeles. The alley is very dangerous and cars faster than 11's usually don't race there. An 11 sec 2001 Camaro ate #### past the finish line and took out 6 parked cars, totaling all 6 and destroying his Camaro. Nobody was hurt. One of the hangouts, the five 'o' blocked the exits except for one and block all the streets but one leading to the freeway. They escorted us out of their town, what a joke. We have been going to a street some 90 miles away that is part of a wash. It is 2500 feet of concrete 10 second cars can hook with little to no burn out, we were there from midnight to 5 am and can see for over mile away in each direction when cars are coming, and it so dark out there that cops cannot sneak up by turning their lights off.

Nov.12th 2006

#### cops are resorting to busting street racers like they were drug dealers...

Street racing has become so underground that if you dont know someone you usually cant see a decent race.
The cops are aware of this and have resorted to DrugDeal Tactics...

A friend of mine was set-up on Saturday night by some cops...they locked up a race with some new guys and got #### even the spectators it was a set-up..


This #### is getting crazy

I personally encounterd these cops about two and a half weeks ago when we were at a local spot on a thursday nihgt and we set up a race between a friends cobra and a new GT

We went to the street and some guys were fallowing us??? We went to the street they did also we thought they were just spectators. The did the race and thr roads got blocked by the cars we thought where spectators..


My friends Cobra was on payments His finance company decided they could take the car from the repo yard and keep it because it was used in illeagal activities they gave him the option to pay of the 28,000 dollar balance or lose the car and whatever you made in payments and a repo would show up on his credit.

Thats some #### up #### watchout who you guys are racing

i would love to see Terminal Island open up again. I was barely of driving age when they closed it down, so i never got to go there. The sad thing is, you always hear rumors of it opening up again but nothing happens. Any local cruise night you will hear talk of it or hear Willie's name thrown out there. After hearing rumors for years now it makes some of us just jaded. I would love to see it open, but will it ever? Irwindale is a really nice track and all, but most of us out here want a 1/4 mile . Terminal Island would be great, but when will talk of it ever move past just talk?  

yes having a track open all night to prevent street racing would be  awesome,but your stories about guys blatantly breaking laws made to keep their asses alive draw any sympathy atleast not from me.how about all street racing comes to a halt for a while and then all the racers have a ralley/march on city hall or something a little more mature than just saying *** it we'll race in an alley? druggies shoot up in alleys and buy drugs there too so maybe the cops are right in treating the racing like a drug transaction because the way you make it sound,these guys have addiction and it ain't helping any legit racer's reputations.it's a race,it's a fast car,it's fun.is it worth someone's life? especially an innocent bytstander? we need some better arguments other than,if we can't have a track we'll do it anywhere anyways.most car owners i know that want to race are 40 hour plus a week types,good people,hard working.we all deserve a place to play.i am with you not against.  

i have to agree with cam on this one. and how can you complain you get busted with 200 "spectators"? in my book thats 200 crediable witness' that could either A call the cops or B TESTIFY against you in court!!! street racing is a felony and people are not doing days in a county jail but YEARS in a state PRISON!!!!! in my opinion it is not worth the risk to race a 17 second honda on the street or any where else for that matter. you dont want to be busted but still HAVE to race here's a simple solution: DITCH THE WITNESS' ALL 200 OF THEM and go some where out of the way IE not an ally/ residential street  head to your local expressway/limited access highway and go from a slow 10 mph roll or if you do it late enough you can launch from a stop.  you have a few things in your advantage this way #1 cops can come from ONLY 1 direction (behind you) and if you are dumb enough to run you should already be rolling fast enough that a cruiser cant catch you #2 its limited access no side streets to worry about cross traffic. #3 no mom and pop out for a sunday drive to accidently kill #4 the biggest one of all no WITNESS'  by the way  i am NOT advocating street racing but i know we are all guilty of it once and a while so as a member of the law enforcement community AND a car guy these are my SUGGESTIONS only do as you wish with them

I have to agree with the last two on this one.  I engage in sanctioned, organized racing on a professional level.  The cars go 120 to 185 MPH for up to 300 miles in a race.  IT IS A DANGEROUS SPORT!  I don't even drive the car but I have a top-of-the line G-Force fire suit, a head sock, complete set of Impactanium underwear and Nomex gloves.  People that race on the street generally have a T-shirt and a pair of levis, no catch fence and no walls to protect spectators, no safety crew and no ambulance on site.  THIS IS JUST STUPID!  I have lost a couple of friends over the years in racing but every one of them was in the car willingly and had good safety equipment.  I have never seen a spectator injured let alone killed.  The point being that if you are going to endanger the lives of innocent people you deserve to go to prison.  There  is plenty of legal racing around.  There is absoultely no need to race on the street.  If you have the money to own a serious race car you have the money to run it legally at a race track.  So the short answer is if you go to jail for racing on the street you are getting exactly what you deserve.  A friend of mine that used to run a C modified in the 1970's had a bumper sticker that said "Drag Racing isn't Street Racing".  He was right you are wrong.    If you want the track opened up so bad, organize you friends and do it - then maybe you can be the legend.  

you said it perfect  thank you

Agreed again.  I get into big loud arguements with my son who is a emphatic defender of organized street racing.  He doesn't stop to think of all the things that could happen to spectators, or what might happen if there were a crash.  I totally disagree with his defense of street racing, but one point does come up that I can't argue with.  In the greater Seattle area, there really isn't a good place for street racers to go after hours to race as there are moratoriums on noise after 9:00 PM at the closest racing facility which is Pacific Raceway Park.

It's nothing against the Pacific Raceway Park management.  They got the cards they were dealt by King County, and the thousands of homes in at least a dozen new housing developements in the area.  I personally think the residents should take the noise since they chose to build near the track.  But the guys that have money in their cars can't compete with the homeowners that paid for $500,000 homes and are paying taxes to King County.  That money carries a big stick, and unfortunately keeps the track closed even during prime racing times.  Heck they even kick the big boys off the track during the Pacific Northwest Nationals, so the population lobby in that area is strong.

As a result you have people like my son, and others who don't have a good second choice other than to street race.  I personally believe that King County and the City of Kent need to look at the problems they have with street racing and decide what is the better thing to do.  Is it a better thing to piss off the people near the track until midnight, or to have people killed on the street?  To me it's a no brainer, but being employed in a governmental agency I know that what makes sence and what prevails are almost always two different things.

My big question is and always has been that there is a first class facility at Pacific Raceways.  Why not use it?  I guess the answer is  rhetorical. 

My rant for the day - Bowser

For the LA/So.Cal group last I checked the California Speedway/Dragway was open every other weekend. Their website's down so I couldn't check for sure. I've raced there a few times and it's a full 1/4 mile.

*Website is up and here's the link to the site and schedule for '07

http://www.californiaspeedway.com/dragway/

http://www.californiaspeedway.com/documents/revised_2007Schedule.pdf