People drag-race on the main avenue here in broad daylight, and the police just stand by and watch. That is, until the commissioner steps up to hand trophies to the winners.
A newly flush Poland has a new hobby, cars, and the faster, the better. Nowhere is that more clear than here in the country’s second most populous city, where municipal officials struggled in recent years to deal with an explosion in the number of illegal races on public streets and a raft of complaints from residents nearly driven off the road by them.
As a result, municipal leaders in Lodz (pronounced “Woodge”), deciding that if you can’t beat them, organize them, set up events in which proud car owners, overwhelmingly young and largely male, could challenge one another head to head over a quarter-mile of closed road downtown. The city government even spent close to $20,000 to buy timing equipment, with the local emergency services providing fire trucks and ambulances free of charge.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, thousands of people turned out to watch the organized races, called Street Legal, with the earsplitting roars of tuned-up engines and the brimstone scent of speeding tires. The monthly events, which are open only to local residents, have made Lodz’s racers the envy of others in Poland and earned the city the unofficial title of the country’s street-racing capital.
“The Polish soul has always been drawn to horses, and today it’s horsepower.” said Lech Ryszewski, 60, chairman of the Lodz Automobile Club and a former rally driver and stuntman.
A generation ago, Poles living under Communism had to wait years to own a car, if they were ever able to. The changing of the guard politically made automobiles more widely available, but they were still out of reach financially for many families. Poland’s recent economic success, coupled with the ease of importing used cars from Western Europe since the country became a member of the European Union in 2004, has meant a surge in car ownership.
Mix in a stronger currency, rising employment, higher wages and expansion of consumer credit, and the car has gone from being a luxury to an expectation.
Poland’s latest hero is Robert Kubica, the country’s first driver on the prestigious Formula One open-wheel racing circuit. But Poland still lags behind its more affluent neighbors, with few tracks and ragged roads. To reach the highest levels of auto racing, Mr. Kubica had to leave Poland and move to Italy.
So young Polish racers turn to the streets instead. In Lodz, groups with names like Storm Riders, Red Line Racers and Night Crazy Drivers were holding impromptu racing events, with no guardrails to keep spectators from crowding the roads as the cars hurtled past.
With so many new drivers on the overcrowded roads, and the young racers also present, safety had become a huge concern.
This year the police joined forces with the automobile club and a group of racers from the illegal racing scene. With money from the city for the timing equipment, they started holding races monthly. And now, illegal racing had been reduced by 80 to 90 percent.
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