California: Police Raid Car Enthusiast Gathering, 'Generate Revenue'

Police issued a total of forty-eight tickets for "engine modifications" with police accusing the owners of the parked vehicles of being street racers. Another fifty tickets were issued for paperwork violations, dark window tinting and lack of a front license plate. The most revenue, however, will be generated from the fees imposed on twenty vehicles that were confiscated. Despite labeling the parking lot raid as taking place at a "street racing venue," Riverside Police offered no evidence that any street racing actually took place.

Across the state, gas tax funds are regularly used to fund similar crackdowns that generate big revenue. In 2004, the California Highway Patrol issued a total of 101,553 "modified car" citations worth $10.5 million according to CHP data obtained by TheNewspaper.

Riverside police may have put a dent in local street racing Friday when about 100 officers raided a parking lot on Valley Springs Parkway, where suspected racers are known to congregate.

Police from Riverside and other agencies shut off the exits to the lot to inspect more than 150 vehicles. Officers wrote a similar number of citations, including 48 for illegal modifications common to street racing, according to a police news release.

Twenty vehicles were towed from the scene as part of a crackdown funded by a $503,000 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, according to a police news release.

Police spokesman Steven Frasher said officers had been monitoring illegal activity in the lot for weeks. The large number of people who received tickets for illegal modifications common to street racing confirmed officers' suspicions that the lot was a hotbed of street racing activity, he said.

"Almost every vehicle that was there, even if they weren't street racing, they were ... an audience," Frasher said, adding that the lot was full of skid marks left behind by racers.