Illegal street racing has been part of the American car culture since there were cars to race, streets to race them on and speed limits to break.
The subject is visited by movie makers every decade or so, the latest attempt being Universal Pictures' "The Fast and the Furious."
It opened with a big box-office take last weekend, attesting to the drawing power of a film featuring fast cars and fast company.
But "Fast" is getting decidedly mixed reviews from many in the automotive industry and the compact and import auto racing scene it attempts to depict.
Among the movie's detractors is the Specialty Equipment Market Assn. (SEMA), a Diamond Bar trade group that represents the $1.2-billion-a-year compact car performance and appearance equipment industry whose products are so prominently portrayed in the film.
In a statement issued days before the film debuted, SEMA spokeswoman Rosemarie Kitchin applauded the movie for publicizing the import and domestic compact car scene, but condemned it for glamorizing "street racing, the illegal and unsafe practice of using public streets for speed contests."
The races are exciting to watch on screen, but "send the wrong message to novice and amateur racers," says Len Monserrat, a Miami-based racer who drives the B.F. Goodrich Tires/Dynamic Turbo Mitsubishi Eclipse at import races held on National Hot Rod Assn.-sponsored drag strips. "Racing is great--on the racetrack," he says. "On the street, it's not only illegal, it's incredibly dangerous."
But Adam Saruwatari, another star of the import drag racing circuit, says the film was likable. "I enjoy going to see movies [like this] that stretch reality and have a good ending," he said. But he added that viewers have to remember that it is a movie and not be influenced by its depiction of street racing.
The movie, directed by Rob Cohen and produced by Neal H. Moritz, is the first full-length feature film to take on today's world of import-car street racing. It explores the cars and characters behind a band of street racing outlaws, led by Dominic Toretto, a character played by actor Vin Diesel. The racers finance their cars by hijacking trucks filled with consumer goods.
When big-city cop Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) goes undercover to expose their criminal exploits, the plot thickens as he is forced to decide where his loyalties lie and what his limits are.
