Engines snarl and pop against the quiet of a Massachusetts night, their echoes bouncing off strip mall facades and sleepy suburban streets.
Under a wash of neon lights — purple, green, red and blue — chrome-wrapped sedans, lifted trucks and vintage cruisers roll into the lot, each one a reflection of its owner’s pride and artistry.
To the average person, police officer or town official passing by, the gathering could appear concerning, as recent violent street takeovers have created chaos across the U.S., including in Massachusetts earlier this month.
That confusion, organizers say, is making it increasingly difficult to bring legitimate car events — which are all about expression — to communities across the state and beyond.
“People pour their hearts and money into building something unique … It’s like art on wheels,” said Javier Negron, 55, of Brockton.
For the past 19 years, Negron has hosted large-scale automotive lifestyle events and car shows across New England as founder of Import Evolution Enterprises, LLC.
Multiple event organizers have told MassLive they work hard to host legitimate car events with permits from their towns and cities, permission from business owners and proper police notification. Takeovers, however, are hosted in the hopes of creating chaos.
“Our agenda is very different from all these other kids,” Negron said of street takeovers.
As takeovers become more prevalent, organizers of legitimate car events in Massachusetts are looking to educate the public and take back their community.
Car meets or a street takeover?
Social media flyers advertise “car meets,” attracting car enthusiasts of all ages looking for a casual hangout to bring their cars and socialize. But that might not be the whole truth, said Deven McCurry, 23, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, host of Station Nation Auto Club.
Sometimes, those people are actually organizing street takeovers — a very different event than what McCurry and Negron organize, which are what “car meets” or “car shows” really are.
Certain aspects of the events are alike, especially to an outsider. All of these events involve modified vehicles and attract large crowds to outdoor spaces. But that, organizers say, is where the similarities end.
A car meet is a casual social gathering for automotive enthusiasts, who gather with cars at a set time to socialize in parking lots, with — or without — permission from businesses and informal awareness from police.
A car show is a more organized formal car event, typically involving trophies, prizes, food trucks, raffles and other activities, organizers say. They’re hosted by LLC organizers with event insurance, town or city permits and partnerships with businesses or police to use public or private property.
A street takeover is not considered a real event in the car community, each organizer said. It’s an illegal act that involves car owners and individual people in a coordinated effort to block an intersection and cause chaos, organizers say.
At the center of the intersection during a takeover, car owners will perform burnouts and doughnuts. Spectators may bring fireworks, smoke canisters and have been known to become violent against police and property.
Takeover participants “don’t really have a clear vision of what it is to be an automotive enthusiast,” said Gil Perez, 28, of Weymouth. He owns auto repair shop Stop & Stance in Pembroke and runs the StanceInn car crew.
“True enthusiasts don’t want to damage their vehicles by going to the street to start doing burnouts … it’s like a disorganized street party,” Perez said.
Consequences
Those in the legitimate car community are facing real consequences of the fear created by takeovers, especially following four violent incidents in Boston, Fall River, Randolph and Middleborough the first weekend of October. These involved a Boston police cruiser set ablaze, a blocked ambulance and a car driven at an officer.
“Now it’s hard to even pull a permit, because now the first thing that whoever’s in charge is going to think is, ‘Well, there was just a takeover a week ago. We don’t want anything to do with cars right now,’” Perez said.
The organizers said that when planning for a car show, they typically obtain an event permit from the town or city, and notify local police to obtain a detail.
If organizers are looking to host on private property, they will get explicit permission from the property owners — or even embark on a partnership with them, as Negron has tried with car dealerships.
But since the rise of street takeovers nationwide in the past five years — and the six-month-spike Massachusetts law enforcement has seen — “everybody’s just afraid it’s going to get to that point,” Perez and other organizers said.
Matthew Gaumont, 35, and from the South Shore, owns BeastCoast and hosts legitimate car shows with Negron across the East Coast. He said the locations where they are looking to host the events no longer trust them to be safe or fear it could turn into something dangerous.
They’ve been told, “’We don’t want to be liable for this and we don’t want to bring that kind of a crowd here,’” Gaumont said.
Street takeovers
Video of a recent takeover in New England was submitted to MassLive. It showed smoke filling the night air as a red Dodge Charger’s tires shrieked on the blockaded intersection’s pavement, below a flashing, yellow traffic light.
The car suddenly lurched forward, the driver whipping the wheel to send its rear tires into a tailspin. About 50 spectators shouted with glee and crowded dangerously close as the Charger carved doughnuts through the intersection.
The chaos was all lit by a mix of multicolored lights — green, red, and blue laser pointers flashing from the crowd, glowing business signs overhead and the strobing sirens of dozens of emergency vehicles trying to reach the scene.
“These takeovers look like fun — any kind of unorganized chaos as a kid looks like fun, right?“ Gaumont said. “But you have to remember that’s not the goal, and these people are getting hurt, really bad.”
Above all, glamorized videos of these takeovers — often overlaid with dramatic music — spread rapidly across social media in the days that follow, the organizers said. Videos garner hundreds of thousands of views, likes and shares across social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.
“It’s all about clout … and even if you get hit by a car, that’s even more clout, more followers you get. And if your numbers are really hot, you’re making money off of this, on TikTok and Instagram. It is crazy, just crazy,” Negron added.
How a 23-year-old from Rhode Island helps Mass. police with takeovers
As a teen, McCurry, 23, was drawn to the takeover frenzy on social media. The chaos and danger were apparent — but still, he loved cars.
Instead of going down the takeover path, McCurry built Station Nation as a safer, community-focused group. He’s hosted large-scale meets at the Raising Cane’s lot in Seekonk for the past two years, with permission from nearby businesses.
His most recent Station Nation meet was held on Saturday night, from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. Unlike a formal car show, McCurry’s event was low-key — no parking attendants, trophies or food trucks. Still, it carried a strong sense of community and was so packed with unique cars, it resembled an art gallery.
Owners popped hoods of their parked vehicles to show off engine upgrades, left custom lighting on to highlight bodywork and opened side doors to showcase rear-seat builds.
Children ran through the filled lot while parents stopped at neighbors’ cars, casually networking and admiring each other’s modifications. One father sold Matchbox cars at a folding table with his young son, the toddler excitedly staring out at all of the color and noise.
McCurry clutched a megaphone, telling enthusiasts to turn down their engines after rolling in and controlling traffic flow through the lot.
About an hour and a half into the event, two Seekonk officers arrived in cruisers and parked a few hundred feet away in the plaza with lights on but no sirens.
They told MassLive that McCurry is known to the department and regularly hosts Station Nation meets at the location without issue. However, on Saturday, they informed him that despite his granted permission from local businesses, he’d need to officially apply for a town permit to continue hosting future events — a request McCurry was happy to comply with.
Recently, McCurry has taken an active role in helping police identify takeover participants who show up at his events.
“I’ve never seen this many Challengers,” McCurry told Seekonk Det. Keith Perry on Saturday night, standing away from the event with the cruisers. McCurry proceeded to identify a specific few cars and their plates to Perry and the other officer, who appeared to take note on each vehicle.
But even with McCurry’s apparent aiding role, not all Massachusetts law enforcement was as keen to his event on Saturday. According to McCurry, several people leaving on Saturday night were pulled over by state troopers.
Though multiple stops were made, McCurry said only people whose cars had illegal window tints or were suspected to be driving stolen vehicles were cited. Some cars were impounded, McCurry said.
MassLive requested information on these supposed citations and impoundments. Massachusetts State Police did not respond for comment.
Getting teens off the streets
Some Massachusetts car event organizers are looking to high schools as a way to reach younger enthusiasts early — hoping to offer safer alternatives to street takeovers and education on what being in the car community is really about.
“If we can get these kids into car culture the right way, by the time they get my age, they’re going to be leaps and bounds beyond where we’re at,” said 35-year-old Gaumont.
He, Negron and Perez have a plan on how to do it. The organizers are looking to start a program that partners with high schools to engage teenagers in the car world right before or as they’re getting a driver’s license, by offering community service hours to students who participate in car-related activities.
These could include students having roles in the organizers’ car shows — anything from set up, takedown and judging — or working in automotive repair, detail, wrap and car customization shops.
“We can really get to the youth and say to them, ‘Hey, this is how we do it … without jeopardizing hurting anybody, getting arrested. You can really enjoy stuff, go home safe at the end of the night and have a lot of good memories,’” said Gaumont.
Negron added, “[Car culture is about] building community, purpose and creativity. It teaches discipline, patience, pride of your work.
“With these kids, if they don’t know no better, they’re going to keep going back to the worst … if they’re not taught something, they’re going to learn it the hard way,” Negron said.
While still a grassroots project, the trio are looking for anyone who’d like to partner with them on making their idea a reality.
And besides teaching automotive skills, the community hours and highlighting new career pathways — anything from media, to sales and to mechanical work — Gaumont said this kind of positive engagement in car culture is what will ensure its longevity.
“We’re all getting to an age where we’re going to have to start thinking about how to pass it off to the younger generation soon, and I think that that is our biggest challenge,” the 35-year-old said.
“I think we’re all trying to do that so that we can keep car culture alive … and show kids that this is the best way, the most fun way,” he said.
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