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Driver charged with racing adjusts to life without a GTO

Tuesday, November 25, 2008
(Updated 3:26 pm)

GREENSBORO - In a very real sense, Jarrod Bivins is grounded.

His Pontiac GTO is sitting in a Forsyth County Sheriff's Office impound lot with other cars seized in a street racing investigation that led to arrests Saturday night.

Highway Patrol officials continued to work Monday to arrest the remainder of the 32 people charged with racing-related crimes that troopers couldn't get Saturday.

Bivins, 19, who was arrested Saturday, was charged with prearranged speed competition and two counts of reckless driving. He said a few of his friends - other "car guys" - had also been charged with racing-related crimes.

"Mainly, we're just trying to figure out how we're going to get through this without losing our cars and drivers' licenses and going to jail and stuff," Bivins said.

Bivins declined to discuss the charges against him. But he said he had always been interested in cars and had a group of friends who participate in autocross events. He'd taken the occasional trip to a drag strip to race legally and had made cosmetic modifications to his car's exhaust and suspension, but nothing that made it faster, he said.

Troopers arrested Bivins in the parking lot of the Cook Out on North Main Street in High Point, a regular hangout for "car guys," Bivins said.

Bivins thought the car crowd might stay away from Cook Out for a few weeks, but they'll be back.

"A good percentage of people don't do stupid things," Bivins said. "They don't have anything to worry about."

Assisted by state Alcohol Law Enforcement agents and the Guilford County Sheriff's Office, troopers began serving warrants and seizing vehicles late Saturday after a 3-week undercover operation targeting illegal racing.

By Sunday, troopers had arrested 13 people and seized 12 vehicles. Seized vehicles are turned over to the sheriff of the county in which law enforcement officers say the offenses occurred.

Highway Patrol officials were unable Monday to provide an updated count of the number of people arrested and vehicles seized.

After Bivins was back home from the operation's command center at A.J. Simeon Stadium - his car traded for a court date - his mother went back and thanked the troopers for running the operation.

Julie Rouse picked up cheeseburgers and coffee for the troopers.

The way she looked at it, they might have saved her son's life.

"I back you guys 100 percent in what you've done," she told them. "If this is what it takes to stop it, it's a lesson learned the hard way."

 

Contact Sonja Elmquist at 373-7090 or sonja.elmquist@news-record.com

 

Accompanying Photos

Jerry Wolford (News & Record)

Photo Caption: Jarrod Bivins was charged with prearranged speed competition and two counts of reckless driving.

Comments

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razzle67

November 25, 2008 - 11:06 am EST

Poor guy, what will he do???? People like this are a pain, and make the roads dangerous. Buy time at the drag strip and do it legally instead of potentially killing someone else. When I was in the Mustang Club of America we would buy speedway time.

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