[Plummit]

Sorry no tazings or beat downs here. This is actually pretty cool. For $25 you can race your car against police a police cruiser at a drag strip. In the FL town where they are doing this, they've seen a massive reduction in illegal street racing.

This seems like the right way to do "community policing," rather than using the club and shocker. Link to officer.com

MIAMI --

If you talk to Anthony Gonzalez, you will realize quickly that there is no talking him into slowing down on the road.

"Adrenaline rush -- the closer I feel to getting killed, the more I love it," Gonzalez said.

The trick is controlling the passion for racing from spilling onto public roadways.

"How fast have you gone?" Local 10's Sasha Andrade asked Gonzalez.

"One-hundred-sixty, 170," he replied.

Police officers are redirecting people like Gonzalez from the street to the County Line Drag Way. The program is called Beat the Heat. Once a month, officers will race anyone over the age of 18 for $25.

"You could bring your mother’s minivan. You can bring a pure racing car. It doesn't matter," said Officer Jose Ayala with the Medley Police Department.

"We're actually getting a lot of kids and adults alike come here and say, 'We used to race in Davie. You probably used to chase us around, and now we're here on the track and we want to race your car,'" said Officer Ron Bradley with the Davie Police.

Officers said they have seen a drastic reduction in illegal street racing since Beat the Heat started in 2007.

"We used to have races in the warehouse district almost every Friday, Saturday night. They've completely stopped," Bradley said.

Racers told Local 10 that they actually prefer the track.

"It's better and it's safer," one racer said.

The next Beat the Heat race is May 23 at 7 p.m. at the County Line Drag Way on Okeechobee Road.

 

[manimal]

haha...thats awesome! although i hope they're using chargers and not crown vics. the 0-60 in my crown vic is atrocious but the few police package chargers we got in...well that's a different story

 

[Plummit]

A bunch of the towns around here (N. of Boston) seem to have at least one of the chargers in their stable. How fast?

 

[MikeD]

I bet they start tasing anyone they beat. And tasing anyone who beats a cop...

 

[splat]

That is great.

How come I have the feeling they don't use a "Stock" cruiser

 

[JohnE]

If they had some drug dealer confiscated hot rod...that would be coolllllll...

 

[MMike]

Wouldn't this be an easy way for cops to gather license plate numbers for "potential offenders"?

 

[1453]

sounds like a good idea.

In the entire bay area down to Monterey the nearest drag strip is in Sonoma. And we wonder why kids go racing on the streets late at night.

 

[MikeD]

Wouldn't this be an easy way for cops to gather license plate numbers for "potential offenders"?

What good would that do them?

They still need to catch someone in the act of breaking a traffic law to do anything about it...

 

[1453]

What good would that do them?

They still need to catch someone in the act of breaking a traffic law to do anything about it...

with the upcoming license plate tracking system, like those already in traffic monitoring in UK, should be easy for the cops to "keep an eye" on those license plate numbers.