I was chatting with a group of coworkers about a week ago. We commute on a shuttle bus to a distant parking lot, so we don’t know each other very well. It turn out this other guy and I have the same model car, and we chat about it briefly, and he talks about how he’s modified his car with a nitrous oxide tank for drag racing. Some others chime in with questions like what does it cost to do that, does it damage the engine, etc. He sounded pretty knowledgeable, but I don’t have enough background to tell if he was bullshitting. Finally, someone asks him where he races. He gets a little sheepish look and says that he and his car pals race on the streets in “dead” parts of town.
I think I said something like, “Whoa, that’s way more dangerous than anything I would do”, and dropped out the discussion. I was pretty shocked that anybody would admit to a bunch of strangers that they engaged in dangerous, stupid and criminal hobbies. Especially a HEALTH CARE PROVIDER. And then I thought it would be a good thing to shut this guy down.
That’s really about all I know, except that if I choose to I could find out some more about this guy with a little more investigation. If he has the same model car as I do and we park in the same lot, I ought to be able to find it – but I’ve never seen another of my model in the lot. Then again, he probably works a different shift than I do, because I almost never see him in the bus. Or he commutes in a different car.
FAIKFS, the guy is just a bullshit artist rather than a street racer. I’m certainly not going to buddy up to him enough to get invited to a race, and the police certainly aren’t going to tail the guy around till he races based on a story like mine, so what would be the point of making a report? Can anybody tell me if modifying the car is in and of itself with a nitrous tank illegal in Wisconsin? I would think the guy wants the car to be street legal, but clearly he’s not rocket scientist material.
Any non-police, non-employer, options? I want to stop this guy’s street racing in my town, I don’t want to cost him his job (whether it would or not if eventually proved true I don’t know).
At times when I’ve thought about this I wonder whether this is all a little Gladys Kravitz-y, and I should just mind my own business. What do you think?