Stunt drivers say if city wants mayhem car stunt meetups around city to stop, they want a designated space
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Newly-released video shows the scene from inside a ring of fire during a car stunt show on Lower Wacker Drive over the weekend.
It is all part of dangerous driving stunts playing out downtown and in many other parts of the city. But CBS 2's Sabrina Franza talked with some drivers who say they have a solution.
On the thoroughfares and parking lots of Chicago, drivers doing donuts and screeching for sport are nothing new. Lower Wacker Drive was the scene of a sideshow early this past Sunday morning, in which some of the spectators were stood in the middle of a ring of fire around which drivers spun.
We are now hearing an explanation for the ring of fire on Saturday – but also about some drivers' hope for a safe space to spin around.
"There's always that one person that just takes it out of control; that makes it an even bigger mess than it already is," said one sideshow driver.
Such drivers call themselves swingers. Franza talked with three of them on Lower Wacker Drive.
They did not want to reveal their names because of a possible police crackdown, and said mayhem and rings of fire are not what they're about.
"Don't judge everyone over one thing that happened, because besides that, all the good stuff isn't highlighted," another swinger said.
Surveillance video Saturday night into Sunday morning showed hundreds of people on Lower Wacker Drive at a sideshow – with drivers drifting and doing donuts, and then a group jumping out of a fire pit.
It is not exactly legal, but sideshow drivers want to change that.
"If the city wants to be done with this, they should just give what the people want," a driver said. "They want a place to spin their cars."
They want a event with both permits and permission - taking the noise away from a residential area; an event which they can regulate, and check cars for things like gasoline that might be used to start a ring of fire.
"People watching, you know, when cars come in - checking to make sure they don't bring stuff they shouldn't bring," a first driver said, "and also, it would take a lot of people off the streets, and would give them a place to do all this."
It is not actually an original idea. In Detroit, organizers worked with police to open a legal spinout zone – so as to keep the sideshow in a designated space rather than all over the city.
"It's been going on for like over a decade now," the other driver said.
We asked Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) about that idea. He has a different solution.
"The solution is motorists obeying local traffic laws, and when they don't, the Chicago Police Department needs to crack down on that illegal activity," Reilly said in a statement.
The alderman added, "I don't see a scenario where the city will ever provide a drag racing facility."
But a driver reiterated: "This would be a solution – giving the people what they want."
Ald. Reilly admitted that the Chicago Police Department is strapped for resources overnight to handle such sideshows.
Right now, we haven't heard of any arrests associated with the Lower Wacker Drive meetup over the weekend. Police told us they did not receive even one report about that night, and no one was hurt.
