"I been laid down on the side of the road with a gun against my head, had my bike confiscated by the police and seen friends killed street racing," says Rickey Gadson, a slightly built racer with bright orange wraparounds who was once probably the most famous street racer in the States and is now one of the most widely respected pro drag racers. He acted as consultant and as a stunt rider on the film Biker Boyz and was even sponsored by Factory Kawasaki for years. "Course, I had to stop street racing then," he says.
I meet Gadson at Rockingham Raceway ("The Rock") in North Carolina, the epicenter for the sport. The Rock offers street racers a safer place to race. "We convinced the racers that they wouldn't be arrested if they came here," says Steve Earwood, owner of the drag strip, a fiftyish man with liquid blue eyes and a Carolina drawl. "So now we got 'em all here with the bikes, the bling, the 50 Cent and all that crap."
Afterdark Underground is as close as you can get to street racing without the cops showing up. Modifications to bikes are closely guarded secrets. During practice runs no times are posted up, as this would give bettors an unfair advantage. Once or twice the scoreboard unintentionally lights up, leading to furious cursing in the direction of the announcers box: "Yo motherf*cker, you do that one more time and I'll bust a cap in your ass!" shouts one, gesticulating wildly. His investment in the race may well have been compromised.
Each year that Earwood offers an Afterdark program attendance has quadrupled. "Road racing is for the wine and cheese crowd," says Earwood. "What we have here is the backbone of America. Listen to hip-hop, the music booming in the pits-the rhythm is the same as drag racing.
"Of course, I hear there is some betting that goes on here, too," he adds with a sly grin. "But of course I would never encourage that. I hear there is a race on this evening for around $40,000, which, when you're not paying tax, must be like winning $60,000 in the real world."
The buzz tonight is all about Richard Gadson, Rickey's nephew and protg, who Rickey has been training to assume his not inconsiderable mantle. The Gadsons are from Philadelphia and have lined up a race with a local Carolina outfit. As darkness falls, huddles begin to gather wagering over the big race: Richard Gadson on a Kawasaki and a local called Curtis on a bike called "Swerve," a GSX-R1000. A man with a white baseball cap and a doo-rag handles the money, as bets are taken and the conditions of the race are "discussed" with stern words. An hour or so later the bikes can barely make it to the start line through the members of the shouting horde, who have tight rolls of Benjamins gripped in their fists. Most bet on Richard Gadson.
The bikes creep to the line. Gadson folds his body tight around the tank, his eyes dipped behind the fairing. And with a little preamble, green lights flash, and the bikes blister off the line like rockets. Gadson leaves first. Everything seems to happen in slow motion, despite the fact that they hit the end of the 11/44-mile in 8 seconds. Giant scoreboards at the end of the track, without showing times, declare Swerve-the local-the winner.
This is a total shock. Then follows shouting-"cheat"-screaming and boos as money reluctantly changes hands. The bikes return and full-scale arguments kick off with furious allegations of cheating and use of nitrous. Eventually the bikes are dismantled in front of everyone, amid more shouting. Richard Gadson says to me later, anxiously: "I hope no one thinks it's my fault-the other bike was just too fast"
Amid the scrum, one man in a greasy baseball cap whispers, "That GSX-R is the fastest on the East Coast-the custom crank came all the way from England." Eventually, the Gadsons concede defeat, and though more grudge races are lined up, few have any money left to bet. The only real drama comes when a no-name New York racer throws caution to the wind and races street racing legend Keith "Shine" Dennis. He loses, both times.
A few weeks later, I meet Ronnie again in Philadelphia, at a bike shop in one of the toughest parts of the city. As the stacks he races for get bigger, street racing becomes more dangerous-both in terms of whom he gambles against and also in terms of the sheer speed and ferocity of the machines he rides. He's not going to give it up, though.
"I'll never stop this," he says. "The only problem I have is that it takes a long time just to get a race off." That said, there is an unspoken code of respect among street racers. Despite the tough talk and the insults, there is a loyalty to each other. "We call each other's mothers all sorts of names, but you know for sure these guys would have your back in any situation," he says.
Any losses he had earlier in the year have long been forgotten. Again, he lines up races in garbled cell phone conversations. "I'm like a crackhead, man," he says. "The dope man looking for one more high." And with that he streams off into the night with a fistful of dollars and a screaming engine.
In the world of cable TV programming, the SPEED Channel's "Pinks" really is a low-buck, grassroots effort. It's been this way from the beginning, when the grudge racing show first gained attention on the Internet, beckoning high-octane gamblers to race in front of the cameras for the right to keep their ride. Only difference is "Pinks" is now the number-one-rated reality show on SPEED Channel (You mean it's not "Texas Hardtails?" -Ed.).
SSB recently caught up with 42-year old "Pinks" host and creator Rich Christensen as he eyeballed exotic hardware at the tony Barrett-Jackson automobile auction-a radical departure from the claptrap drag strips where his popular TV show takes place. "I've been working 15 years for this moment," Christensen told us (declining to expand on his stint as a soap opera actor...). "I've had hundreds of ideas shot down by the networks, and now we're the number-one reality show on SPEED."
"Pinks" makes for undeniably good reality TV. Although the action is occasionally spotty (sometimes reminding you why you no longer hang out in the Pizza Hut parking lot on Friday night after high school football games), it more often than not effectively captures the free-form, anything-can-happen world of underground street racing, and occasionally hits the mark dead-on.
The vast majority of the shows focus on high-stakes grudge matches between car racers, but occasionally bike owners race for pink slips. One recently taped episode focused on the high-dollar, high-tech world of East Coast 60-inch drag bikes, matching up none other than Maryland International Raceway track operator (and 60-inch record holder) Jason Miller with perennial MIROCK 60-Inch champion Mikey Slowe. Miller scored lots of free swag from parts purveyors, and trash mouths were trucked in all the way from Philly to provide a Greek chorus and make for better TV. Another just-in-the-can episode had well-known motorcycle drag racer Chris "C.J." Johnson playing his game to perfection: Let's just hope that the notoriously four-wheel-centric SPEED Channel doesn't lose its nerve and cut the bike programming at the last minute, in favor of more grudge matches between cages.
"Here's the deal with bikes," said Christensen. "My original concept was 85 percent bikes, 15 percent cars. But once it got going, the network wanted more cars. I'm still gonna shoot six specials with motorcycles. I'm looking for all kinds of bikes. I'm gonna take motorcycles to whole 'nother level once we get going. That's what I ride, that's where I live. The guys out there in leathers? That's intense!"
But Christensen says in the end that it's the off-track action-the wheeling and dealing, the trash talking-that makes "Pinks" such great TV. "I'm a radio/TV major-I can barely put gas in a car. But what I love is the human drama in the negotiation. At the end of 'Pinks,' you should know everything you need to know about that person. When you're put in that pressure cooker, we're gonna see how you react. I mean, a guy lost his $70,000 Nova on my show last week."
A Nova? Once again we're back at that Pizza Hut, with Boston tunes blaring through Jenson Triaxials...
Two-wheeled or four, "Pinks" (check it out online at www.pinks.tv) will continue shooting at MIR, Tulsa Raceway Park, Speedworld Motorplex (Surprise, Arizona) and a yet-to-be-determined track in Florida. "SPEED's very pleased, and they're giving us 100 percent support," Christensen says. "We'll just keep doing all the hard work to keep delivering the best show possible." And no doubt we'll get to see plenty of big mouths-car and bike owners alike-lose their rides.