A small business owner in Kansas City has created a legal option for street racing
Written by admin on December 26, 2025
At illegal side shows or street takeovers, drivers show off their skills and their cars. Now a side show advocate in Kansas City says he’s created a legal way that drivers can take part.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Illegal street takeovers known as sideshows plague many cities. In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, in a sideshow, drivers spin cars at breakneck speeds in public intersections. They disrupt traffic, can pose a threat to spectators and have been deadly in some instances. But in Kansas City, a small business owner has created a legal and safe space for all the showboating. Brandon Azim from member station KCUR reports.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Let’s go.
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BRANDON AZIM, BYLINE: On a weekend afternoon, hundreds of spectators surround a giant asphalt pit in a Kansas City neighborhood. They’re watching drivers of modified cars burn rubber and do 360s around a tower of tires. Twenty-year-old Colin “Vegas Baby” Jones stood behind a safety barrier of tires and boasts about his 2008 V6 Mustang.
COLIN JONES: Honestly, a lot of people don’t like this car because they think it doesn’t have horsepower. But you get a welded diff and nothing under the hood – just nothing. Just a straight stock 4.0 (ph) – and this thing is going to rip.
AZIM: Jones says he expected one day to be arrested for his share of illegal drifting, but he says the adrenaline rush is just too seductive.
JONES: It’s a mesmerizing sensation, that’s what it is. Back in the day, their version of it was going out to the drag races and souping up their ’70s cars. Our version is different. It’s modern times, and we like to get our cars sideways.
AZIM: Jones is happy he now has this legal spot called the Throttle Dome, where hard braking and explosive speeds are allowed.
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AZIM: At a downtown intersection six miles away, Kansas City Police Sergeant Phil DiMartino stands where illegal sideshows have occurred in the past. He says sideshows, legal or illegal, are a breeding ground for injuries.
PHIL DIMARTINO: It’s an element of danger that exists. These vehicles have crashed out. They’ve been involved in accidents.
AZIM: And there has also been violence. In 2023, there was a fatal shooting of a 20-year-old suburban man who was a spectator at a Kansas City sideshow. So multiple cities, including Kansas City, have taken steps to limit these car stunts from happening on public streets. For example, in Oakland, California, the city installed white poles at intersections. Kansas City did something similar by adding rumble strips to slow spinning cars. Sergeant DiMartino says they decrease pop-up shows, but the data shows otherwise. Citations from sideshows increased from 171 last year to 204 in 2025 as of mid-December.
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AZIM: The Throttle Dome has been open since May. Owner Desmound Logan bought the land where the dome is located and established it as a business to provide both a safe drifting space and a place where drivers can modify their cars.
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AZIM: He says he got fed up with watching drivers get hurt and risking the safety of spectators and the community. He also says because of the 2023 shooting he lets it be known that anyone found to have a weapon can’t participate and will be asked to leave.
DESMOUND LOGAN: This is the safest place to be as far as the car community. And there’s no guns, no grenades, no knives – none of that. We take all that out right there at the front.
AZIM: Logan’s dream is the police will see the Throttle Dome as a possible solution that the two could manage together.
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AZIM: Back at the track, Colin Jones prepares to lower himself into his gleaming red Mustang. He said he knows the risks involved in street racing, but in this safer space, he’s willing to take them.
JONES: It was everything that we could have dreamed of into one place, and Kansas City needed it desperately. What Kansas City really is, it’s lowriders, it’s nice cars, it’s big donks (ph).
AZIM: He hopes the Dome’s popularity will move dirty, dangerous sideshows away from the streets and get others to provide more legal spots for sideshow enthusiasts to display their talents.
For NPR News, I’m Brandon Azim in Kansas City.
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