Quote:
Originally Posted by Edmund No man.... not heard of it here in Pune.....but where do the street races happen???
Must be a spectacle......Tell me more...  |
This is the article he was talking about
FAST & FURIOUS
Speed Demons : In the dead of the night, at predecided locales, clandestine bikers race for big bucks
MANISH PACHOULY Times News Network
How far would Mumbai go for the sake of a thrill? Consider this — in the middle of a calm night, a few young bikers suddenly appear. They are speeding on expensive foreign bikes, trying to overtake each other. This is not a scene from a Bollywood thriller. It’s happening in real time. And Mumbai is witness to it for the last month or so.
City bikers meet at a few chosen points to race their bikes. And it’s not just fun and games here. Mumbai’s new trend has the betting circle enthralled — a lot of money rides on the fastest bike!
Bookies say that about seven to eight bikers gather once a week or once a fortnight at any of the predecided four places. These include the under construction ramps at Bandra, the J J flyover, the road behind Gateway of India and the Western Express Highway. “They gather after one am with a chosen crowd of about 30 people. Some of them are bookies and the rest are the punters known to them,” says a bookie.
He says that bets are placed on the time in which the bikers will complete the lap. The lap does not exceed two km.
However, the single rider race does not have all the bikers racing together. “Each biker rides alone and his timing
is
monitored. Their timings are then compared to decide the winner,” the bookie points out. He adds that two people are posted at the start and finish points respectively to cross-check the accuracy of the timings. Apart from the single rider race, there are races where three to four bikes compete with each other. There’s also more than one round to these races. The bikers have three to four such rounds. What is the moolah involved? “It’s over Rs 20 lakh per night,” says the bookie. He says that punters put from Rs 1,000 to Rs one lakh on bets. “There being three to four rounds of races, the amount goes high,” he points out. How do people gather for these races? “There’s a chosen crowd. The bookies who are into this, call their clients (punters) and give them the details on the time, date and spot. It’s only the previous evening that the time and spot is revealed,” says the bookie. The days of races are not kept fixed due to the threat of being picked up by the police, he adds. What do the bikers get? They are paid Rs 1,000 or more per night by their respective bookies. Apart from this, the winning bike owner also gets a commission from his respective bookie.