The images race across the screen.

James Dean. Steve McQueen. John Travolta singing for his Greased Lightnin', then racing for it. Everyone getting 2 Fast 2 Furious about The Fast and the Furious.

These cinematic scenes provide a hint of life in the Valley's drag racing scene.

"Don't let 2 Fast 2 Furious fool you," Phoenix police Sgt. Randy Force said. "Young men have been driving cars fast since cars were invented. We weren't waiting for Fast and the Furious to happen."

Legendary racer turned teacher Bob Bondurant, who was inducted last month alongside Darrell Waltrip and others into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, said the movies tend to hype the excitement of racing over efforts to make racing safe.

"They want something that's spectacular," said Bondurant, 70. "Spectacular sells movies. Safety doesn't sell movies."

The owner of the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Chandler, who trained James Garner for the 1966 film Grand Prix and Paul Newman and Robert Wagner for 1969's Winning, was eager to plunk down his money to see this summer's 2 Fast 2 Furious, too.

"It's still exciting to watch," Bondurant said. But professional drivers say it's even more exciting to be behind the wheel. "I look at racing as man overcoming the machine," he said. "When I'm racing, I want to be quick. I want to be smooth. I want to win."

For Glenn Piller, it's the adrenaline rush of pushing the envelope.
"It really comes down to the ability to take a vehicle, whether it's your motorcycle or a car, and just take it to its limits," said Piller, 30, of Chandler. "It's just a rush of going fast."

185 mph Corvette
In his case, that's as fast as 185 mph in his 2001 Corvette. His license plate: ICULUKN.  Piller can even record you looking with a video camera he mounted on his customized roll-bar above the driver's seat, although he says he uses the camera more as an analysis tool to monitor the gauges after a high-speed run. Piller figures he has invested close to $100,000 in his car, almost half simply modifying it with high-performance parts, including a special motor, transmission and an extra 150 horsepower through a nitrous oxide fuel boost.

"That's what you do to compete," he said. "Why do people ride roller coasters? It's the feeling of going fast. The feeling of the wind in your face. Sometimes you look back and go, 'Wow, that was stupid.' Usually that's because you did something wrong. It's always going to have an appeal. People always want to go faster."

All of the modifications let him go from zero to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds and cover a quarter-mile in 11.6 seconds. But he doesn't race his Corvette much anymore. It's car shows now Instead, he'll trot it out most Saturdays for the weekly car show at the "Rock 'n' Roll McDonald's" at the Scottsdale Pavilions near Indian Bend Road and Loop 101.

Piller said he is not interested in testing the law and his own patience with street racing. He prefers to take his motorcycle, a 2002 JXSR 1000, out on the tracks at Firebird International Raceway in Chandler or Speedworld Motorplex in northwest Phoenix.

Younger kids

"The street racing scene, it's a lot of younger kids who don't have a lot of experience, and there's a lot of obstacles out there, like other people," Piller said. "It's one thing if you want to hurt yourself, but it's another if you might hurt other people."

Plus, he added: "It only costs $15 to do it on a track."
That does not stop lots of other motorists from challenging him as he drives along the Valley freeways and open roads.

Usually, he said, a souped-up car will pass Piller on the road, spot him, then downshift, slow down to Piller and signal him in an effort to race the next half-mile or mile. "I've never been in my car and not have somebody try to race me," Piller said.

Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers and Scottsdale police have cracked down this year on all sorts of speeding along sections of the Loop 101 freeway in northeast Phoenix and Scottsdale.

State law beefed up penalties for illegal street racing last summer, making it a potential felony and allowing offenders' drivers licenses to be suspended for as long as a year.

Finding right road

Phoenix police Sgt. Laura Liuzzo, who heads up the cruising and street racing detail in the Maryvale precinct, said the problem areas for street racing, year-round, range from southwest Phoenix to Deer Valley, wherever the racers can find an open stretch of unpatrolled road.

A recent Saturday night found young men and women in souped-up Hondas, Toyotas and Mitsubishis, darting around the streets of southwest Phoenix, zipping up and down Buckeye Road and 51st Avenue, and congregating in parking lots of gas stations and convenience stores.

Signs at some of the stores warn the motorists not to loiter.
So do Phoenix police, who methodically match the racers' moves.
"We just catch who we can catch," Liuzzo said.

Former street racers

Decades ago, Bondurant and his generation were those street racers."I remember when I was a kid, we had street racing," Bondurant said. "We'd block off a couple of streets." Lookouts would flash their lights as code.

If anything is different now, Bondurant said, the Valley's suburban development has overtaken many former country roads.

"Now it's a lot tougher," he said. "You have to go out there."



Reach the reporter at sean.mccarthy@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-6868.