“The first day, he was so occupied with driving that he basically just disappeared for 24 hours,” she said. Tony’s former partner, who prefers to stay anonymous for discussing private matters, recalled his ecstasy waiting in line at Hong Kong’s motor department to restore his muse. Tony converted his California license to a Hong Kong one at the first possible opportunity. His father moved him back to Hong Kong, hoping that it would put Tony’s life back on track. Tony regularly ran afoul of California police for possessing weed, and he was constantly getting kicked out of school. He wasn’t great in school, and the driving exam he took a few months later, when he turned 16, might have very well been the only test he’d ever passed with flying colors. But his budding racing career was cut short when his parents moved him from Shanghai to Los Angeles to attend high school.ĭriving came naturally to Tony. He was good at it, winning enough races to get sponsorships. They had gasoline engines and made proper exhaust noises-the closest thing to a real car that a boy his age could get his hands on. Over a decade ago, a 10-year-old Tony spent his days racing radio-controlled cars in Shanghai, where his father worked at the time. But they believe it traces back to his unmoored childhood and teenage years. From what exactly? His friends could not say for sure. Sure, the 23-year-old relished antagonizing the police on the road, but his urge to race stemmed from a desire to escape. Hong Kong police declined to make anyone available for an interview but said it would “continue to take stringent enforcement against dangerous driving behavior.” Some experts attribute the spike to Hong Kong’s pandemic restrictions, while others blame it on a lack of enforcement action. Illegal street racing rose sharply in the months after the protests, with the number of reports about such high-speed pursuits increasing by 40 percent to more than 150 in the first 11 months of 2020-about one illegal street race every other day-according to the South China Morning Post. “I think the people who hate the cops at the protests are similar to the racers. “The relationship between police and Hong Kong people is the worst in the world,” Roger explained as he coasted along Hong Kong’s affluent Clear Water Bay district, while Tony and Lewis waited at a nearby meeting spot. Now, with street protests now severely limited by authorities, he rebels by racing as a “fuck you” to the powers that be. “I do think that street racing is a form of protest against the Hong Kong government,” said Roger, a racer who backed the 2019 opposition movement from the sidelines by supplying protective gear to front-line protesters. A wrong move could be deadly: a hair too fast on a bend and you’d spin out, a mistimed overtake and you’d risk a head-on collision. On most nights, the first racer would set off on a course to the end of the road, with the rest hot on his tail, waiting for a chance to overtake on the notoriously tight road. Now dotted with Chinese military barracks, the road is quiet at night-until the 800 horsepower beasts come down or police sirens start blaring. The pavilion, with a pagoda-style roof, sits near the highest point of Route Twisk, a road built by the British Army in the early 1950s that cuts through largely uninhabited hills in the northern part of the former crown colony. Jamie is a fake name, and like all other drivers interviewed for this article, Tony spoke on condition of using a pseudonym due to the legal risks of street racing. This one’s new, it’s 800 horsepower.” One after another, more cars rolled in at the pavilion, waiting for a race. “That’s the fastest car here,” said Tony, standing next to his beat up old Honda with a cigarette hanging from his lips. Another car rolled around the bend and pulled in-an orange Nissan GTR.
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