Fatal crash highlights dangers of racing culture
By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer
Logan Fujimoto's car was his prized possession.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
It ate up his money, his time, and in the end, his life.
A photo of Logan Fujimoto and auto magazines were among the offerings dropped off in his memory at the scene of the accident that claimed his life.
The blue 1993 Acura Integra landed at the bottom of the Wai'alae Road overpass just after 4 a.m. Saturday. Fujimoto lost control on the eastbound H-1 freeway during what police say was a street race with a white Volkswagen Jetta, which left the scene. Fujimoto's prized possession took him airborne over a guardrail and into a sign post.
A makeshift memorial now stands there, decorated with flowers, notes, car magazines and a toy race car.
The tragedy has Fujimoto's family in 'Aina-Haina suspended in disbelief at the idea of a happy 18-year-old racing to his death just days after his graduation from Kalani High School.
This was the boy planning to move to the Mainland next month to study auto mechanics at Universal Technical Institute in Phoenix. He was the responsible son. The good driver.
But Honolulu Police say he also was a risk-taker whose death is the focus of an investigation by the police vehicular homicide section and CrimeStoppers detectives who are looking for tips about the Jetta that fled.
Fujimoto crashed to his death on the way home from a party in Mililani. Speeding was the single largest contributing factor in the accident, Traffic Division Maj. Jeffrey Owens said. Police have yet to determine how fast Fujimoto was going or whether there were other contributing factors.
Some in Hawai'i's racing circles say his risk-taking was part of a bigger phenomenon that may become more popular this month with the release of a movie called "Fast and the Furious," a film about street gangs in Los Angeles that adapt sports cars into weapons to race illegally.
Thrill seekers
Fujimoto's family says he wasn't a racer and that his involvement with a group called Virtual Racing was just an informal bunch of young men interested in cars.
Tom Bryant lamented the tragedy. But the vice president and director of Hawaii International Racing School says parents need to educate themselves about the racing culture in Hawai'i.
"It's easy in hindsight to look back and see young people in the same situation as I was," said Bryant, who had a history of close calls as a youth because he turned an interest in cars into street racing. A former competitive racer in Japan and Korea, Bryant now teaches young people to race in a safer environment.
Police may never be able to rid the islands of street races that have been around since the days of "Rebel Without a Cause," but regulated races are emerging as an alternative, said Mike Thompson, webmaster of islandracer.com.
"Some people are just looking for a big thrill," he said. "When a car pulls up next to you, you want to see who's the baddest, and you're not thinking about the consequences."
The rise of drag racing
Legal drag racing has become so popular that each major island has a racing outlet, and some racers spend money to take their cars from island to island because of the lure of the game and prizes that reach into hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said.
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| Police Maj. Jeffrey Owens of the Traffic Division said police are still trying to determine how fast Fujimoto was driving when the fatal crash occurred.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser |
There, two cars race for a quarter mile and come to a dead stop on a strip monitored by a line crew. On weekends, teenage crowds swell to 700 a night, manager Paul Giovanetti said.
"When I get calls from parents, I tell them if I don't let him race here, he's going to race on the road and become a statistic," Giovanetti said. "Over here, he's not going to be a statistic. I invite the parents down, and they have a little bit different attitude once they see it."
Fujimoto sometimes attended raceway events to look at the cars. His name was unfamiliar to local racers, but the Virtual Racing car club is one of 92 Hawai'i car clubs listed on an online magazine called speedhawaii.com, run by racer Steven Smyth.
Two fast cultures
There are two cultures of racing in Hawai'i, Smyth said, a legal one and an illegal one. He said fatal accidents on Hawai'i's roads often lead people to confuse the two.
"The real racers go to the racetrack," Smyth said. "We're kind of tired of fingers being pointed to us every time there is an accident."
Honolulu police aren't sure how many accidents can be attributed to racing, Owens said, because police don't always know unless people involved tell them.
In this case, witnesses told police about the Integra racing the Jetta. Police are asking anyone with information to call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300, or the vehicular homicide section at 529-3499.
Staff writer Tanya Bricking can be reached at 525-8026 or at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com
