Head Hunters Smoke Up the Block

If you happened to smell burning rubber this past Saturday, it wasn’t just the heat. It was probably the Brooklyn Grudge Race Block Party, on the corner of Throop Avenue and Kosciuszko Street.

Hosted by the Brooklyn Head Hunters, the local chapter of a national street and track racing club, the party brought in custom car enthusiasts from across all five boroughs for a day of cold beer, barbeque and burnt rubber.

Every year for as long as anyone at the event could remember, the Brooklyn Grudge Race Block Party has taken over Throop Avenue between Lafayette and Kosciuszko to host a big block party, car show and on-the-street burnout contest.

This years, as in years past, the block was lined with souped-up muscle cars, classic Caddies and Lincolns, Dusters, Barracudas and other circa-1970’s American makes, each with a custom paint job-- some with boyish decal jobs and names like Double Trouble, One Bad Fish or Purple Haze.

Other stranger vehicles-- a three-wheeled motorcycle emblazoned with names like “#1 Bitch," for example-- also made an appearance, as proud owners posed for pictures and an enterprising man ran a booth printing instant digital photos which ended up displayed on the dashboard of each steed.

Two young ladies, Mooka and Mo Jones, both donning Head Hunters 2011 shirts, moved about the crowd selling raffle tickets. Their father, who goes by Head Hunter G, runs the Head Hunters. They estimate the club has been around for twice as long as they have -- “50, 60 years, maybe.” The block party is “for the kids, for the people,” they said, an opportunity to show gearheads from all over a little Bed-Stuy hospitality.

“Everybody comes from different boroughs, usually we chat online,” explained Bobby Hollywood, from Astoria’s Small Block Posse. He was documenting the event for his website. "The block party gives everyone a chance to get together away from the message boards or the racetrack. Usually, New York car clubs get together at Englishtown, NJ’s Raceway Park, when they’re not racing one another on the Nassau Expressway."

Today, the racetrack would be Kosciuszko Street.

A soul food stand churned out plates of fried whiting, shrimp and chicken, while a makeshift DJ booth in a bicycle rickshaw played classic oldies. All this eventually would be eclipsed by the main event: the burnout contest.

Hundreds of revelers piled up on parked cars, derelict loading docks, and on the empty trailers that had been used to bring in street-illegal cars -- some even climbed trees for a better view of the action -- while the organizers dumped water on the ground to prepare the asphalt for the burnout contest.

Car after car lined up, engines revving, whipping the crowd into a frenzy, finally rocketing down the narrow street, being sure to avoid a station wagon that had been double-parked in the worst spot imaginable: about 100 feet from the start line.

The third car to go didn’t look special --  no decals, no candy paint, and its front end was banged up.

But its owner, Lonnie, reminded the crowd that the driver is as important as anything else. Lonnie smoked his stock Camaro Z28 halfway down the block, at a 35-degree angle, stopping only for the speed bump placed in the middle of the block (to prevent driving of this sort), just outside of P.S. 25’s yard.

Lonnie then parked his car at the other end of the street and walked back down Kosciuszko, arms above his head yelling, “Now what! Now what!” to the cheering crowd still doused in tire smoke.

“If it wasn’t for the speed bump, I’d have went all the way down the block!” joked Lonnie, a Newark, NJ native, while enjoying a post-victory Corona. “I don’t want to rip the exhaust [pipe] off!”

Car after car would burn out down Kosciuszko, as the day faded into night and the crowd, along with it.

And although each car displayed its own special bravado, not one would outdo Lonnie and his stock Camaro.