HOUSTON — Harris County deputies said they will be on alert this weekend as thousands flock to Baytown for TX2K.
Although the event draws hundreds of street racers, the racing event’s founder says they don’t condone illegal street racing and says it has nothing to do with TX2K.
Nonetheless, officers say a multi-agency task force that targets street racers on Houston-area roadways will be on high alert to catch spillover effects.
“We tend to see a large percentage of offenders that are from outside of our area that end up getting caught,” said HCSO Lt. Simon Cheng.
He said the street racing task force is already making arrests.
“The most common outcome will be arrests from Class B misdemeanors to Class A for street racing,” Lt. Cheng said. “If there are other offenses involved, there can be felony charges.”
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office traffic crimes unit arrested a total of seven men during a series of traffic stops on Wednesday after they were allegedly street racing.
Among their charges: racing on a highway, unlawfully carrying weapons and possession of a controlled substance.
More arrests were made and more cars were impounded on Thursday night.
At the same time, TX2K is expected to draw the largest crowd in its history to the Houston Raceway where attendance could top 40,000.
“With this event that’s coming into our area this week, many times the offenders are from out of the county and from out of state,” Lt. Cheng said. “They come and participate in these illegal activities because they are advertised on social media by these underground groups.”
Lieutenant Cheng says the arrests made by the task force during past TX2K weekends were not of those participating in the event.
“The individuals who don’t have the type of equipment or vehicles that are, I guess, powerful enough with speed on that racetrack or similar racetracks, they’re the ones who still want to have fun,” Lt. Cheng said. “They’re the ones that wind up wreaking havoc on our freeways.”
TX2K president Peter Blach says illegal street racing has no place at the event.
“What people choose to do on their own time, we can’t control, but we don’t condone it,” Blach said. “Nothing that TX2K does leaves these premises.”
If imitators disregard the warnings from officers and are caught and convicted, penalties can range from probation to years in prison.
“If we can see that the person was a repeat offender or was under the influence of alcohol or drugs while racing, or caused injury or death as a result of racing, our officers will end up seizing the vehicle involved because it’s a criminal instrument at that point,” Lt. Cheng said.