The solution

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The solution

Post by Draco »

It is tragic that these events take place and even more tragic that this has been happening for the last +- 15 years.

I have been part of the modified vehicle "society" for some years now and even though these tragic deaths happen regularly it seems the authorities can not come up with a solution, "what is the solution" you may ask, before we can answer that question, lets look at the problem. We were all young, we were all looking for thrills and spills, most young people dream of having a beautiful fast car among other things, many young people do not gro out of that and modifying and upgrading a car becomes a passion and for many a business, this will never change, there will always be a "society" meaning a large group of people that are interested in these kind of things.

For the last +- 15 years nothing changed, after all the deaths, all the crashes, there is no place where these normal folk can go and do what they do on the street, you have drag racing tracks scattered here and there, 2 professional tracks in Gauteng to be precise, now there lays the problem, 2 "professional" tracks, this means, you go there to drag professionally, you need a license, you need plenty of money and you drag against professionals. This is not a bad thing but the normal society does not want the "professional" setup, one of the tracks has drags on Friday nights where you can come and drag your vehicle unprofessionally, without a "racing" licence and so forth but the track is near Krugersdorp, now do you believe the people belonging to this "society" will drive around 70 km's(140km's there and back) from Pretoria, for an informal, unprofessional outing....the simple answer is NO.

There is another race track on the outskirts of Pretoria in Mabopaan called ODI, unfortunately they only support professional drag racing, apart from that, the track is also around 50-60 km's on the outskirt of Pretoria, again, same question, same answer.The result is they keep ending up in places like voortrekker road, a few years back Johannesburg had a track called westbank raceway which had "open" nights on Wednesdays where these unprofessionals could come and enjoy their passion informally in a rather safe manner, the track was closed down and guess what happened, it spilled over onto the streets again.

The owners of ODI tried using a part of the N4 magalies freeway that are not used and just standing there for this informal gathering on Sunday nights, it worked, illegal drag racing was curbed, they had a place to go and do what they like informally and safely off the streets, then there was complaints of noise, the authorities closed down the use of this unused "safe" informal track, guess what, voortrekker was on again, in the end it is a fact that this informal "sport" will never go away, all efforts to make facilities available to get these people to a safer environment failed causing them to go back to the streets.

The authorities are trying to eradicate these events from happening by using the law to try and stop upgrades and modification to vehicles, according to the authorities doing this decreases the safety of the vehicle, most upgrades and modification is done to a vehicle to increase the handling of the vehicle to be able to cope with the power, with other words, making it safer than the oem specification, the cold hard truth is, if the authorities want to stop modification of vehicles by using the law and stating that it is illegal, then all import of performance parts must be stopped, that means hundred thousands of jobs will be lost, an unimaginable amount of money will stop stimulating the economy, if you want to make modifying illegal, don't approve any performance workshops, don't allow any performance part shops, with other words, stop selling and marketing performance parts.

Question: Will this eradicate modification?
Answer: No

Question: Will this stop illegal drag racing?
Answer: No

Solution: Make easy accessible informal tracks where these people can come to regularly and you will almost eradicate illegal drag racing.

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Post by 300sx »

Solution: Make easy accessible informal tracks where these people can come to regularly and you will almost eradicate illegal drag racing
problem : nobody wants to take responsibility for safety at tracks like these, the city council certainly does not, they are too scared of liability.

thus the only tracks that can offer this kind of thing are the tracks that spend huge amounts of money on safety, to comply to that draconian overlord's regulations, aka MSA.

sorry, but this will never happen..
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Post by Draco »

What if every person coming to place like that takes liability....or responsibility for their own actions...

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Post by THEO 3K - ZN »

In DBN its bad, we have drag events at an air strip, which 3-4 hr drive.

Thats why we also use the streets. Sad bt untill something good happens, Illegal street racing will never stop.
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Post by Draco »

Something got thrue, I am not claiming it was because of me, it might have been someone with the same idea, when I posted this, I emailled a certain political party with the same contents as this post, yesterday I got an email back that it was sent to a certain councillar, last night on tv the tswane whatever announced on the news that they and the MSA are looking at using certain roads to let these "illegal dragsters" go and do their thing in a safer invironment...

It's a step in the right direction!!!

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Post by H8rlequinb »

Saw that on the news yesterday.Glad it got threw. Although I am willing to bet money that nothing will come of it.

It seems that in society today as long as you say you are going to do something that it will suffice and no one will question it.

But enough negativity. Lets start looking for places that we can organize this.
I have been driving around PTA for years always having " Could this be a drag racing spot" in the back of my mind. The problem I find with most streets is that if there were to be a 13B rotatory and the likes spooling up in that area within a week everyone will complain about noise. All the other streets are either not in a good enough condition, too isolated, dangerous with trees etc along that road etc etc...

So lets say the council provides the funds for 1km worth of tarmac ( Bearing in mind that 1km costs about 1 barr ) Where do we put this peace of tarmac so it's accessible to everyone and out of residential areas? Pretoria is very built up! So tell me where to place it and I am sure something can be setup.

Also, what determines if a car is allowed to run or not? I don't want to run alongside something worth 30k that might swerve into me due to dodgy tires... And just like that the litigation begins. Soon everyone needs MSA license and we are stuck at square one.

Just my 2 cents worth
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Post by Draco »

H8rlequinb wrote:Saw that on the news yesterday.Glad it got threw. Although I am willing to bet money that nothing will come of it.

It seems that in society today as long as you say you are going to do something that it will suffice and no one will question it.

But enough negativity. Lets start looking for places that we can organize this.
I have been driving around PTA for years always having " Could this be a drag racing spot" in the back of my mind. The problem I find with most streets is that if there were to be a 13B rotatory and the likes spooling up in that area within a week everyone will complain about noise. All the other streets are either not in a good enough condition, too isolated, dangerous with trees etc along that road etc etc...

So lets say the council provides the funds for 1km worth of tarmac ( Bearing in mind that 1km costs about 1 barr ) Where do we put this peace of tarmac so it's accessible to everyone and out of residential areas? Pretoria is very built up! So tell me where to place it and I am sure something can be setup.

Also, what determines if a car is allowed to run or not? I don't want to run alongside something worth 30k that might swerve into me due to dodgy tires... And just like that the litigation begins. Soon everyone needs MSA license and we are stuck at square one.

Just my 2 cents worth
It's to early to say anything, time will tell, I am sure they realize that if they don't succeed, this problem will not end.....

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Post by 300sx »

you cannot legislate people out of having fun.. (or whatever a person's idea of fun is)

make something illegal, and people will simply continue doing it, legal or not
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Post by future sx owner »

what about the zwartkop air forces base run way? dont think its runway its being used anymore!

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Post by andre_sx »

future sx owner wrote:what about the zwartkop air forces base run way? dont think its runway its being used anymore!
the BMW club has had a top speed run day there before not a bad idea

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Post by Draco »

future sx owner wrote:what about the zwartkop air forces base run way? dont think its runway its being used anymore!
Wery good idea!!!

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Post by Draco »

I have forwarded the idea to the counsillor I have contact with, lets see what they think of the idea....

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Post by H8rlequinb »

future sx owner wrote:what about the zwartkop air forces base run way? dont think its runway its being used anymore!
Are you a member of Mensa? if not please join ;)

Very good idea.... Oh and did I mention my sister's mother in law is the base manager for Swartkops? :shock:

As far as I know it is actually still in use but only for training and emergency military support etc. I am sure on Sunday evenings there will be no activity...

Will email her today to ask what the procedure would be to set this up...Why did I not think of this?????
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Post by Draco »

Dear Derek



Thank you very much for your e-mail and the good suggestions contained.



I am forwarding it to Allan Wheeler, our Non-Circuit Sporting Manager and Wally Pappas, the Drag Commission President. They will form part of the multi-party task team put together by the City of Tshwane and they will undoubtedly present your thoughts and suggestions.



Best regards

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Post by H8rlequinb »

Very nice... I read an article yesterday that says they WILL designate a area and that they will pay attention to it. Just funny... I was at voortrekker last night... not a single metro... but then again not a single racer either.
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