Local car enthusiasts worried unsanctioned car rallies will ruin other events for everybody else

The City of Windsor is looking to crack down on unsanctioned car rallies in the city after videos of a weekend crash surfaced.

“When I seen it, it was pretty shocking to see that kids are street racing and blowing donuts in the same area. It's very unsafe,” said Fabio Faustino, co-CEO of South Point Drifting Club.

Hanging out just down the road with a different group of people, Alex Rocheleau said he’s worried that car rallies could end up with a bad rap.

“The way things have been trending lately with people disrespecting locations, I wasn't surprised that something bad happened,” said Rochelaeu, a local car club member. “People are going to have a bad taste in their mouth when they hear car gathering because of a few bad apples when the majority are responsible,” he said.

Coun. Kieran McKenzie is planning to ask a council question Monday, partly because of this event.

“I'm going to ask our administration to come back with a report that looks at the different tools that we might be able to implement in the community to address poor driving behaviours,” said McKenzie.

One of those tools could be a noise camera that could be installed on streets and in parking lots.

“You could put a camera up on one of these poles and right away you'll know because the cameras will know. When there's monitoring going it could immediately not only send a ticket to somebody but it can send an alert to Windsor Police,” said Coun. Ronaldo Agostino.

McKenzie added, “It's been tried in a number of different communities across Canada with varying degrees of success but as the technology continues to improve there might be opportunities for us to look at that.”

Rocheleau is also into drag racing but has to travel an hour into Michigan or two hours to St. Thomas to participate. He said would like to see sanctioned events held here.

“I hate to bring America back into it but there's places where the town will put on a legal drag on a public road that's shutdown with police, with fire trucks, with everything there to be safe and it's the biggest events they have in their town,” said Rochelau.

Faustino concluded by saying, “We're pushing as much as we can to make this happen in our local Southwestern Ontario area because we are lacking tracks and a place for people to come and fun safely.”