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- Jan 30, 2007
LONG BEACH - The souped-up car of an 18-year-old Lakewood street racer met the end of the road Wednesday, weeks after its owner was arrested in Long Beach for having a vehicle with an illegal engine.
Wednesday's crushing of Clifford Sung's 1995 Honda Civic hatchback - which contained a B18 CRI engine from Japan - was the first in Long Beach's history, said City Prosecutor Tom Reeves.
A number of deaths in and around Long Beach in the past few years have been attributed to street racing and the city is aggressively pursuing racers who flout the law, Reeves said.
"We have enough mayhem on our streets without illegal street racing," he said.
Sung was arrested by Long Beach Police
Department officers on Oct. 15 after they noticed his Honda's illegally modified exhaust system.
Once Sung was stopped, they saw other signs of illegal street racing, including a fiberglass hood and a sway bar on the back of the car, said Officer Brian Nystedt. A peek under the hood revealed the vehicle identification number had been chipped off the transmission, which is a sure sign of a stolen part, Nystedt added.
Sung was arrested on suspicion of multiple vehicle code violations, which could have been filed as a misdemeanor or felony, depending on a defendant's prior criminal history, said Auto Theft Detective Johnny Miyasaki.
Miyasaki took over the investigation after Sung's arrest and worked with the city prosecutor's office to secure a no contest plea from Sung - who had no prior convictions - to a misdemeanor charge two weeks ago.
In exchange for the plea, Sung was sentenced to probation and the judge ordered the illegally modified car to be destroyed.
Despite the loss of his car - which experts estimated to be worth $10,000 to $12,000 in purchased and stolen auto parts - Sung has been arrested a second time.
His latest arrest for felony auto theft occurred on Nov. 8, just one
week after he settled the street-racing case in court, Miyasaki said.
"The attorney called and asked me if we could work out a deal," Miyasaki said, laughing. "I said `No, I don't think so."'
Former street racer Matt Lee - who talks about the dangers of the illegal sport in honor of a friend who was killed in 1998 - estimated the cost of Sung's soon-to-be squashed engine and other car parts at about $8,000 to $10,000, while the car itself was worth just $2,000.
The lightweight Hondas are very popular because they can accelerate quickly on short runs. Most racers don't go much faster than 100 to 120 miles per hour, Lee explained.
"It's not about how fast you can go ... it's about how fast you can go before the next stop light," he said, standing in a Gardena tow yard surrounded by reporters and camera crews there to capture the image of the car's destruction.
The pressure exerted by the "pancake" on the little blue and black hatchback caused all the car's windows to shatter and the glass to rain down onto the hot blacktop. The loud buzz of the hydraulic crusher almost drowned out the metallic grunts and squeals that emanated from the Civic's frame and engine block as they were crumpled into a nearly unrecognizable mass.
Normally, when a car is crushed, the engine and other parts are stripped out, Miyasaki said. Because this car was ordered by the court to be destroyed, nothing could be salvaged, he said.
The only items Sung could have had returned to him were the flashy rims - which he had paid for - but his attorney declined the offer, Miyasaki said.
"When I saw him in jail last week I asked him why he didn't want his rims," Miyasaki said. "He told me that he wanted them, but his dad wouldn't let him."
Yo, I feel for dude, that hurt me to see dude car get crush. I didn't even know they crush your car for illeal parts, I justthought for caught street racing, damn. Dude should of stuck with a b18c1...
