Thought y'all would enjoy this story from today's Boston Globe ... For Baghdad's young men, boredom fuels a need for speed By Anne Barnard, Globe Staff, 4/4/2004 BAGHDAD -- They come in Trans Ams and BMWs, in souped-up Toyotas and brand-new Isuzu Troopers, in rickety Volkswagens that date to 1983. They sport tight nylon shirts and jeans; some slick back their hair under a generous layer of gel. It's 9 a.m. on a Friday, Iraq's day off -- time for Baghdad's drag racers to burn up the asphalt at Jadriya Lake. The park surrounding the man-made pond beside the Tigris River is one of the few open spaces in the city that hasn't been taken over by US troops, and the two-lane road that rings it just happens to make a perfect racetrack. Fadi Hani, 23, named his 1988 Volkwagen Golf after a cartoon character, a talking car called Bomba. Don't be fooled by the paint missing from its left rear panel, he cautioned: Bomba is fast. On workdays, Hani confessed, he likes to race Bomba against his friend's BMW on a crowded shopping street, flooring the pedal from a dead stop until smoke fills the street. "Like a kebab shop," he said. With sports clubs still struggling to recover from the sadistic management of Saddam Hussein's son Uday, with movie houses in decline and nightlife nearly nonexistent, Baghdad's young men are bored -- including the ones who rake in money selling or servicing the tens of thousands of imported cars estimated to have flooded into the Iraqi capital in the past year. Drag racing, it seems, is the natural solution. "We don't have a lot of places like this in Baghdad. It's all trash and rubble," said Hani, a mechanic. "The weather is nice. You can see the river. And at least we can enjoy our cars once before the carjackers take them from us." The drivers and spectators are in some suspense this morning. There's a rumor the races may be canceled because of a dispute between the Iraqi Olympic Committee and the tourism board over who controls the land, which was converted to a park in the last months of Saddam Hussein's rule. But the cars keep rolling in. Haitham Daoud, 28, started organizing the Friday tournament two months ago. The idea was to give young men a place to race where they wouldn't risk speeding into an unexpected US checkpoint and a hail of bullets. "There is a financial aspect, too," his brother Ahmed Daoud, 34, said with a grin. The races help promote the family car dealership. The winner takes home 15,000 dinars, about $10. As they wait for the two-car drag races to start, drivers show off their moves in the parking lot. A black Mercedes -- a "presidential" car like the ones Ba'ath Party officials once drove -- traces a perfect figure eight on the asphalt. Tires screeching, a green Toyota loses control and careens into a rusty pile of crumpled metal. The biggest cheer goes to the underdog -- a 1981 Fiat missing its headlights. It manages a couple of doughnut spins, its radiator dripping onto the asphalt, before it limps off to the side. At a time when life in Iraq sometimes seems to be all politics and violence, the scene is almost sweetly innocent. Fahel Ragheed, a computer technology student with a James Dean hairdo, watched intently from the curb. He's seen "Rebel Without a Cause," he said, but what really touched his soul was the 2001 Vin Diesel drag-racing movie, "The Fast and the Furious." "I love it too much," he said, with a solemn shake of the head. The undisputed star of the morning is Nashwan Shabib, 28. He drives a red Trans Am with checkered-flag decals. He bought the 1997 model for $7,800. "They've tried to carjack me twice," he said. "I just speed up." Shabib pulled into the center of the lot and gunned the engine. The air filled with the smell of burning rubber. He veered heart-stoppingly close to a concrete wall. One of his doughnut spins left a black ring on the pavement no wider than the length of his car. "This is good!" said Ahmed Saad, 22, a contestant in a gold-sparkled polo shirt. Ahmed Daoud, fielding cellphone calls about car deals, shook his head. "A good driver shows his ability by driving fast," he said. "Not showing off." Two blue-and-white police cars pulled up. "Brothers!" one officer shouted. "Everyone take his car and go away." Omar Mohammed tried to argue that the police will save lives by providing a place for the drag racers: "Do you want us to go hurt people in the street?" Another spectator shouted, "No freedom!" Sergeant Talib Ahmed insisted he's canceling the race for safety reasons. "They don't have official permission," he said. "We're afraid there could be a car bomb." "Bull, the kids won't give them what they want, bribes," said Nael Alwashah, 20, whose T-shirt says, "Hard Rock Cafe Baghdad: Closed for reconstruction." An Iraqi-American, he liked to drag race in Philadelphia, where he worked until he came to Iraq to work for a security firm. Outside the gate, drivers resumed their stunts on a well-trafficked street. The police don't seem to mind. They were busy with a fight -- a man who said he owns the parkland was pummeling the face of a tourism official. Hani blamed it all on ***ala Nasri, a Syrian pop singer whose music video features car stunts. "They shouldn't show us these things," he said, beaming. "It's a bad influence."
"in rickety Volkswagens that date to 1983"!! Wow! does anybody on HAMB own anything that NEW?? I guess we're the third world...
Now that was a great read! Reminds me of my days in the Phillippines. Picture 57 Chevys with WWII Jeep motors and Studebaker ******s.
Hey, John, there's someone new in town. You gonna go after 'em? Hey, listen, Habib... If he can't find me.....
[ QUOTE ] And at least we can enjoy our cars once before the carjackers take them from us. [/ QUOTE ] Sounds just like Fresno.
Great lunchtime read. The antics sounded very cartoon like. Then the Keystone Kops come to break up the fun. RB
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