CHP MEMORIES

In my last "memories" post, I wrote that after working in the L.A. area for almost 4 years, I scored a transfer to the Santa Cruz Office. Getting out of the smog and congested freeways of Southern California was almost like starting over again, with a clean slate. I had returned to the area where I went to High School, and an area that I knew quite well. Except for the coastal fog, it was really nice to see blue skies once again.

I remember one particular evening when I started the graveyard shift, our briefing consisted mostly about illegal drag racing on the coast highway about 5 miles north of Santa Cruz. This was an ongoing issue that seemed to be getting more and more attention from various sources. There was even an article in the local paper about how this 4 lane stretch of Hwy 1 had become a hot spot for street racers, and hundreds of people were either participating or spectating, almost on a nightly basis during the summer months.

Due to the media coverage, the spotlight was cast on our commander to do something before someone was injured or killed. To say that the pressure was on for something to be done, would be putting it mildly. The problem for us was that there was only one way out to this temporary dragstrip, and that was to go through the city of Santa Cruz, and north on the coast highway. Every time we would go through town, the spotters who were positioned just north of town would use radios and warn the racers that the black and whites were on the way. There were countless times when we would show up, and see nothing but a crowd of people, with cars parked all along the highway. Nothing illegal about that, even though we knew what was going on. The key was to witness an actual race taking place, then everyone in the area would be in violation of the vehicle code, even the spectators.

My partner and I decided that it was time to take some of the pressure off, and find a way to get out there without anyone seeing us. We decided to try a simple tactic of coming in from the north, which required us to take a lot of back roads through the Santa Cruz mountains. We hadn't tried this before, due to the length of time required to navigate these back roads to a position where we would be north of the action.

It was a Saturday night and on a hunch that the racing would be happening, we took off right from the office, and set a course through the Santa Cruz mountains. It seems like it took us forever to reach the coast, but in reality, it probably was only about an hour. We intersected the coast highway well north of the dragstrip, and headed south, hoping to disrupt the action, and send a message.

About a mile north of the problem area, we could see lots of lights, indicating that something was happening. We pulled over and called our other graveyard car, in addition to putting out a call for assistance from the Sheriff's department. I figured that if we were going to make an impact, we were going to do it in as big a way as possible. While we waited for the cavalry to get in position at the north end of Santa Cruz, we had crept south to a point where we could actually identify the vehicles participating in the races. We were blacked out, and had inched our way along the shoulder where we watched several races, making notes on each vehicle involved. From our position, we couldn't tell how many people were in attendance, but it looked like there were several dozen vehicles, and perhaps a hundred or more spectators.

When our reinforcements were in position, we pulled out on the highway just as two more cars were lining up to race. Still blacked out, we were able to pull up almost right behind the two racers, and that's when we turned the world RED! The activation of our single red spotlight on the two vehicles in front of us, caused an instant flurry of activity. People were running all over the place, getting in their vehicles, and stampeding out of Dodge as quickly as possible. What they didn't know, was that at the same time we turned that section of Hwy 1 red, the cavalry was setting up a roadblock just north of Santa Cruz. With our vehicle descriptions, several drivers who were headed back into town, were cited for engaging in speed contests. We pulled over both of the vehicles who were getting ready to burn rubber, and both drivers were taken into custody.

The offense of engaging in a speed contest was, and probably still is a discretionary misdemeanor. What that means is that the officer has the discretion of either issuing a citation, or making a physical arrest. We knew that this story would make a splash in the local newspaper, so our intent was to make as big a wave as possible.

Two days later, the story in the newspaper was how the CHP and the Sheriff's Department had busted up the illegal drag racing out on the coast highway. Our Captain gave my partner and I credit for the bust, but more importantly, the media coverage of the event sent a message that illegal street racing on Highway 1 had become a whole lot riskier.

The irony of this event is that when I was a teenager, attending Watsonville High School in southern Santa Cruz County, I had been a participant in several drag races, and a spectator in many more, on this lonely stretch of Highway 1, north of Santa Cruz, CA.