Some Dark And Historical Moments In Drag Racing

There are two schools of thought as to the origin of drag racing. Some say it began with the birth of Wally Parks, one of the most successful and influential figures in the automobile race community, in 1913. Parks went on to establish the governing body for the sport, the National Hot Rod Association, forty years later. Others trace the first historical moments in drag racing to when hot rodders were shredding lakebeds in the Mojave Desert.

Forty years after Wally Parks made his first appearance, a young woman in Peru was giving birth to Jose Carlos Chavez Vernaza, Pepe for short. Pepe turned out to be an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Probably not the future the young woman on the delivery table had in mind. Pepe was also one of the major players in a historical drug investigation in Portland. His partner, James Francis Barnard, was the racer. Barnard's two loves, the coke business and drag racing, dovetailed nicely. The racers bought the goods, and the profits went into Barnard's fuel tank.

Ray Tercek was the FBI Special Agent charged with the task of closing down the operation. Sensing that traditional methods would not be up to the task, Tercek knew that nothing short of a federal prosecution would bring them down. Tercek opted to use a strategy known as historical drug investigation. Using this technique, he and his team indicted, prosecuted and locked up the major players in the Chavez-Barnard operation.

A federal grand jury has the power to compel testimony under grants of use immunity. It is what gives historical drug investigations their leverage. Its success depends on the ability of law enforcement officers to do their job free from the interference of the bureaucrats.

Drugs and drag racing make a lethal combination. The drugs give the drivers the edge they need to take the high risks they need to get ahead. Racing attracts betting, big business with all that drug money floating around the track. Such is the seedier side of motor racing.

One way Portland drug investigators acquire intelligence about drug deals is to infiltrate the race scene. Tercek wrote a book about what turned out to be the nation's largest drug conspiracy investigation. He may have written about it there. One thing was certain. Once it became clear that the investigation into Chavez' activities cleared the way for a larger investigation, traditional means of policing weren't going to work.

Tercek and his team had the names of 200 people in the conspiracy, in five different countries. Between them, distributors, couriers, bookkeepers, chemists, smugglers, packagers and street dealers, the Chavez crew had shifted more than half a ton of snow. The wholesale value of their capers, in 1980s money, was fifteen million dollars.

The trial to bring down Barnard took a week. The jury spent just 3 hours in their deliberations. Barnard went down for five years. An historical for Barnard, too, it seems. Justice eluded Jose Carlos Chavez Vernaza on that occasion. He got away scot free. Must have been a faster driver than his mate.

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