[Mike]

the reason it seems that the honda crowd is because honda built SO many cars and sold them at low prices, and the fact that parents buy them for their kids as economy starter cars but mods and motorswaps are as easy as playing with legos, there is so many of them that no matter what terrible story you hear about street racing, or cars with idiot drivers, there is usually a honda involved.

people have to remember that street racing has been around for as long as streets have been around. the older members here will be able to tell stories of single digit AMERICAN cars being trailered to the back streets all around the area and raced. in those days it took money to build a competitive car, and more money to get a race. so the drivers were more experienced and the races were more secretive.
going back to the cheaper imported cars, you have younger, less experienced drivers out in these cars, and then you add the movies such as the fast and the furious series and it brings the street racing scene from a backroad high stakes secret to a frontpage mainstream problem. now whenever a "modified" car is involved in an accident, the general public automaticly assumes that the person driving it was racing, or showing off in some other illegal way. unfortunatly this has spread to anyone driving any kind of sport compact or real sports car that isnt in a midlife crisis.

you can compare this directly to the gang problem we face.....if two gang members have a shootout and kill each other, it dosent make the news, but if one of them hits a bystander, its front page news and a public outrage. either way the outcome is the loss of a life, but one sells newspapers and the other dosent.