Street car racing--it got a huge boost from some top-billed Hollywood movies, and it infected many impressionable car owners, many of them young and naive.

Illegal street car racing, as it is glorified in the movies, appears to be exciting, popular, and largely risk free. In reality, if you poll the fans and contestants, street car racing is exciting, popular, but not largely risk free. More bystanders and contestants are finding out the true risks of the event--the death or permanent maiming of friends (be they friends as contestants or bystanders).

Moreover, there's the hefty fines or sentences handed out by police in their crackdowns of street car racing violators.

However, illegal street car racing should never be confused with the sanctioned street car racing events that take place at racing outlets. These events have extreme safety measures in place, rigid rules to follow, and a governing body to enforce and enhance them. In this format, street car racing truly does have all three elements of excitement, popularity, and it is largely risk free.

Legal street car racing is the venue where art can imitate life, not the illegal venue that is currently plaguing so many communities.