Features

The racers start late on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, well after midnight, and head up to the end of Route 142. It doesn't happen every week - it's sparked on the web at short notice. The route is well scouted and the cars are in constant radio contact with strategically placed scouts lower down.

According to the racers, the police pop up to say hello every now and then, but mostly keep their distance - they know that they're scoped from miles away and wouldn't have a chance to make any arrests.

There are no cops here tonight, so the racing begins. The idea is to go at maximum speed and put as much pressure on the other guy as possible by sticking as close to his rear bumper as you can manage. The other key to canyon racing is to drift - the original canyon racers in Japan were drifters and the tradition is continued here. The drivers kick the cars into slides well before the apex.

From our vantage point, we can see a lot of the corners and the first pair, the M3 and Cayman, are closely matched. It's impossible to resist having a ride in one of the cars, and I choose the 350Z Turbo owned by 'Mr P'.

P is 28-years old, works in computing and drives like a maniac - but a smooth maniac. He dons gloves and we're off. We race against an Integra and its light weight more than makes up for its power deficit, especially downhill. The brakes on both cars are amazing.

As he flings the Z from one hairpin to the next, with the Integra no more than two feet off his bumper, P tells me a story about one night when he ran out of fuel on the way back from a race. A copper gave him a ride down to the garage.

"I think he felt sorry for me. Little did he know what I'd been doing just before he found me."

The vibe I got from these guys is that they have a certain amount of common sense. They're not idiots - they simply enjoy the challenge of the road, and the last thing they want to do is hurt an innocent motorist. They don't need the authorities to protect them, they tell other people what they're doing and, as much as possible, keep their racing far away from the public.

At 4am, as the cars dissolve into the LA dawn, heading their separate ways. I can't help thinking that if I lived in LA, I'd have to be a canyon racer. It's not legal, it's not particularly smart, but it's a pure and proper way to use a fast car.

Bill Thomas