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The Need for Speed (2 of 5)
The Origins of the Culture, or "Go, No Show"
From the beginning it was all about who had the fastest car on the half-mile.
People would take their cars to deserted roads, racetracks, or other different
spots like the canyons, and race each other for money, pink slips, fame,
honor, or simply for bragging rights. Movies such as "Rebel Without
a Cause," "Grease," or any of a score of other teenage-oriented
B-movies from way back in the 50's, served to capture and document this time-honored
American youth tradition.
In the beginning, however, nobody respected Asian racers. The white people
sat around their Firebirds and Mustangs (known as "muscle cars")
and laughed at the Asians rolling in their "Rice Rockets." But they
didn't laugh long. Pretty soon, Asians using all manner of engine modification
started blowing the American cars off the scene. Many of the bulkier American
cars couldn't beat the engine power to weight ratio of the lightweight Japanese
imports, and that's even without "squeezing" (i.e. using a concentrated
nitrous oxide injection into an engine for a quick burst of power).
And thus the scene was born, and was even documented in a roundabout way in
such movies as "Better Off Dead." Remember the scene with the two
Asians in the car, one of whom was announcing the race like Howard Cosell,
as they squared off against John Cusack? Even these movies couldn't ignore
the growing Asian racing scene.
"Asians Race, We Don't Cruise"
Interestingly enough, there is a great deal of misinformation about the relationship
of the Asian Car Crew scene to the Chicano Lowrider scene. A lot of people,
for instance, say that the Asians bit off the Lowrider scene and copied the
style of Lowriders. This belief couldn't be farther from the truth since Asians
definitely saw themselves as racers, not as Lowriders. The original Asian Car
Crew heads were less into what their car looked like than how fast their cars
were, and that's why they never emphasized modifications such as hydraulics.
The dropping of a Lowrider to emphasize a style wasn't as important to a racer
as how fast the car went. What mattered to these racers was speed, and that's
the real reason why Asians dropped their cars. Asians dropped their cars to
lower the center of gravity of their rides, so that on curves and turns, their
cars would be less likely to tip over. Why else would car racers even today
emphasize under the hood modifications such as sway bars that allow their cars
to take tighter turns on curves!
Need for Speed 3 - Crews, Culture & Gangs
