A Drag Racer’s Rx

This man knows firsthand about the thrill of drag-racing — and he has some ideas about how to stop what has become a deadly rage in New Haven.

Rafael Fuentes used to drag race himself, illegally, as a 17-year old.Now 37 and the father of three kids, 19, 16, and 13, Fuentes owns an auto shop that works on racers — only on legal, professional racers, he said, the kind he himself drives in contests around the Northeast, and, occasionally, wins.

A son of Fair Haven, Fuentes went to the Sound School in its first years and then graduated from Wilbur Cross in its automotive program, which he described as first rate. His busy shop on Poplar and Chapel, a neighborhood hub, is the successor to a previous one on Ferry Street; before that Fuentes worked for Moroso Performance Products in Guilford, designing oil pans and other features for racing cars.

In addition to family, cars and racing have been Fuentes life’s focus. He’s angry at the young kids, whom he points to with a dismissive gesture of his arm, who are ruining a sport he loves and endangering a city he cares about.

Drag racing and its problems are hardly new to the city, Fuentes said, but the numbers of street racers, especially those drawn to New Haven from out of town, point to a growing problem. That was highlighted by a crowd of more than a hundred along Long Wharf Drive two weeks ago when an out of control drag racer killed one spectator and injured another.

Click here, here, and here, for previous stories on the fatality and the drag-racing problem.

In response to the death, city officials are working on a set of temporary and long-term responses to drag-racing.

While all that percolates, Rafael Fuentes says he has a clear prescription for steps New Haven needs to take to stem the increasingly deadly activity.

The Independent sat down with him at AutoAuthority, his shop at Poplar and Chapel, not 25 yards from one of the city’s most problematic stretches, River Street. Here’s what he said:

NHI: Do you think that one installation of a choke with Jersey barriers over on River Street is working?

RF: Absolutely not. I hear it all the time. ​‘The frickin’ idiots are racing up to the barriers, on both sides.’ What you got to do is stagger them at two or three other spots, not a choke in the middle, but angled on the sides. The 18-wheelers of course need to do business there, but that would do it on River Street.

NHI: What about other trouble spots, like Long Wharf, where the fatality occurred?

RF: There, you use not cruisers, but undercover cops. Cops who are visible will make everyone scatter, of course. But let the undercover call in the license plates. A cop as a witness, and then you have a conviction. Guess who the cars are licensed to? It’s often the parents who the kids go to and say, Gimme this or that for my car. The parents are paying the insurance. That’ll change fast. And the witnesses, the spectators too.

NHI: You want to fine spectators too?

RF: Absolutely. It’s dangerous for all of us and them too. I think there’s a law on the books already. A hundred dollar fine, yes.

NHI: What do you think of the idea that you hear from some kids that if there were a place to race legally, they’d do it. Would that help solve the problem?

RF: I know the main gripe is that there’s no place nearby. There used to be a track in Colchester, but it’s long been built around by big rich houses and racing will never come back there. There have been attempts over the years, by the Indians. I don’t know why the state doesn’t seem to be interested. But I’ll tell you, I’ve been to races where I see kids, even some from this area, occasionally entered, and what happens when the race is over? You see them, especially if they lose, it’s all about their egos and they start racing on the city streets right outside the track. So enforcement and sanctions are absolutely necessary. If they want to do it, they should do it legally, professionally, but that’s not going to solve it without, you know, sanctions.

NHI: How could they drive legally nearby?

RF: I used to do, like I told you, in New York City, when I was a kid, illegally. But when someone, a kind of mentor, took me to a legal track and then you race and you see your time in the quarter mile, you know, all written out on the paper, a quarter mile in 10.09 seconds going 134 miles an hour, you have a new relationship to racing.

NHI: So, wait a moment. You think if there were an alternative, it would help.

RF: It might. But that’s right: The kids’ biggest gripe now is that there’s nowhere to do it legally. Most of the tracks are too far away for the kids to get to — Englishtown and Atco in New Jersey (where I won this trophy), and Maple Grove in Pennsylvania. The closest one for local kids would be Lebanon Valley Dragway, New York. If you go on the website, seems they have a day for street racers. Might help.

NHI: How would it work?

RF: Well, the kids would have to drive there, or haul their cars, and pay the gas, and there are not too many tolls, which is good. They pay to enter. Most of the tracks the fees, and gas and tools are too much. I think the biggest drawback for getting kids to go up there is they worry something will go wrong with their car and they won’t be able to get it back.

NHI: What’s the solution?

RF: If the city, for example, set up some kind of program — like it used to be in places, when there was bad graffiti in the Bronx and the city gave the graffiti artists a wall … Then, if they provided, say, a tow truck and a driver to help out up in Lebanon Valley at the track, then, yes. The kids wouldn’t have the excuse that there’s nowhere to go.

NHI: You work on street cars here ever?

RF: The kids? Absolutely not. The only local work I do is remote starters and car alarms. My clients are racers but from all over, Florida to Cape Cod, professionals I’ve met over the years. Problem is this car here, for example, a 1994 Toyota Tercel, is professional, everything about it, it even has this parachute that you need to slow it down. I put a lot of work into and it goes 160, 170 miles an hour. But the way cars are built, kids can put very little work into their cars, and the thing can pretty soon go 130. That’s very dangerous on the street. The only safe speed on the street is 30 mph. I don’t touch cars from the street. I don’t do repairs even; that’s a different license.

NHI: But the kids know you…

RF: Oh, yes, and the cops too. You know on Friday night when the racing starts here, I could go out River Street to go home, but I don’t. The cops know I’m associated with racing and they sometimes stop me. But I could talk to these kids if we had some sanctions, and some alternatives. It’s very, very dangerous. Do you know that at the races, not only do I as a driver have to sign a waiver, every spectator has to sign one too?

NHI: So what’s your next step?

RF: I’m a member of the NHRA (National Hot Rod Association), and they have a program to help protect the sport. It’s called RASR (Racers Against Street Racing), and I’m going to try to bring that information to the Fair Haven Management Team meeting next week. Maybe they or the aldermen can bring some of the ideas to the mayor or the police chief.

NHI: What’s your opinion of what the new police chief is doing in this regard?

RF: Well, like I said, undercovers on Long Wharf, and call the parents and you tell them next time your kid gets caught racing, the car will be impounded, that’ll make a difference. And if it happens again, the car will be crushed. The new chief is from Pomona [California]. In Pomona they have a big track. In that city, illegal racers get their cars crushed, and the owners watch. The new chief knows this. And they did that in the 1980s in New York, at Hunts Point in the Bronx, at Fountain Avenue in Brooklyn. If you think you’re going to lose your car, you stop.