THE Gumball 3000 rally, which began advancing from Cambodia before making its loud presence felt in Malaysia recently, is a subculture popularised by Hollywood's successful Fast and Furious 23-year movie franchise.
Local celebrities and social media influencers also joined the 100-odd soiree, gleefully simulating street racing's fictional anti-heroes. The franchise's influence inspired hypercar gangs worldwide, some fancying themselves as Dominic Toretto, the movie's chief protagonist, while others are devoted groupies.
The franchise celebrates anti-heroism and anarchic freedom, suspicious of the establishment and toying with shady activities. Besides driving these hypercars, hardcore racers possess the mechanical skills to create souped-up cars that accelerate at breakneck velocity.
Far from amused, federal traffic police showed videos of Gumball drivers for what they are: speed demons misusing emergency lanes, cheered on by adoring crowds during the Malaysian pit stop.
Parading exotic cars bearing foreign plates, the drivers competed in spontaneous races while breaking traffic rules.
In the meantime, traffic police could only issue the standard warning: drivers must obey traffic laws or risk police action.
What we'd like to see is traffic police catching the drivers red-handed although it's hard to imagine a regular patrol car matching a mean machine's horsepower.
If traffic police do manage to barricade one such car, other than charging the driver with serious traffic offences, we'd like to see the vehicle impounded or better still, publicly compacted. That'll teach these marauders who scoff at our traffic fines because they have contingency funds to settle "cheap" summons.
The hypercars must be compacted the same way the authorities deploy a steamroller to crush pirated software, CDs and DVDs.
Interestingly, street racers share the same psychological make-up with their poor cousins, the mat rempit, riders of souped-up motorcycles.
From our perspective, both subcultures are mindless but for the proponents, it beats being cooped up in cramped, low-cost homes sans privacy, bored to death by the banality of their fate. We understand the fixation with high-octane thrills but such desires have limits: breaking traffic rules is a no-no. These groups preach tribal loyalty, constructing new forms of family values that override the classic nuclear or extended family.
The subcultures advocate equality that reduces socio-economic imbalance and autonomy pushing individual freedom that smashes structural barriers. They also strive for tribal interdependence, also with people they trust outside of the "family", and recognise that these relationships are connected to their well-being.
The subculture builds a genuine community, just like people who join political parties, social organisations and even corporations. It's just too bad that they are founded on cultism, illegitimacy and danger.