Muldrow streets bear scars of burnouts

There‚s no question that burnouts occur, especially at Muldrow‚s annual Cruise Night.

“You can look at the road and see. You won‚t have a problem findin‚ some black marks,” Police Chief George Lawson says of the lingering after-effects of the crowd-pleasing practice of spinning tires, creating billows of acrid smoke and leaving black rubber marks on the pavement.

To be sure, evidence of the event‚s favorite pastime are apparent more than five weeks after the Aug. 6 extravaganza. Black marks scar Shawntel Smith Boulevard (U.S. 64) for two miles from Inola Drive near the football stadium east to Wilson Rock Road, with most of the rubberized badges of honor between Fargo and Dogwood streets.

The event, coordinated since 2014 by Rick Russell, has always included burnouts — sometimes openly advertised and encouraged, sometimes discouraged (wink, wink) — and the official position of Muldrow police is to curb the practice as much as possible. But limited resources — Lawson says four officers were on duty during the ninth annual cruise, which also had to respond to other calls in the community — and the public‚s encouragement of the thrill-seeking habit make police enforcement of any traffic laws problematic.

“We tried to get to some that were out of control, but you just couldn‚t do it. The traffic was just so congested and everything,” Lawson says of what he called “the biggest and the best cruise night that we‚ve had.”

Then he gave examples of the obstacles police encounter in curbing burnouts, a more stringent enforcement strategy promised after issues arose last year.

“That‚s the way we tried to handle it, but like I said, we might be goin‚ east and the other car‚s goin‚ west, and so we‚d radio to one of the other cars to try to get to ‚em, but you just couldn‚t do anything, because everywhere from probably Piggly Wiggly to the high school, all of the side roads were packed because people would turn off and then come back in there. You just couldn‚t do it, you couldn‚t get to anyone,” the chief said.

And spectators don‚t help discourage burnouts.

“The public that‚s sittin‚ on the sides of the road didn‚t help much,” Lawson said. “There was people out there that they would bring a bucket of water and throw it out there on the road. Cars would come up there, and it makes their tires spin a lot easier. Of course, everybody‚s like, ’Spin ‚em up,‚ and they‚re gonna do that.

“We get up to where they dump the water out, I probably told five or six people that were thrown‚ water out [onto the street], ’Please don‚t throw water out there,‚ but then I come out there and there‚s fresh water. They‚re gonna do it, because we were sparse,” Lawson said.

Lt. Brad Roberts agrees that putting water on the roadway to encourage burnouts is an unavoidable practice, but one that could have unintended consequences.

“It‚s just a recipe for disaster. If you wanna end it where there ain‚t never another cruise night, it‚s a good way to have it happen,” he says. “Luckily, out of all the years this has happened, we‚ve not had one accident. Usually it goes pretty smooth.”

Roberts acknowledges burnouts are commonplace at Cruise Night. “They‚ve pretty much come to expect that, they look forward to it.”

Evidence of frequent burnouts is still on Muldrow‚s main thoroughfare, and it‚s been noticed.

“There‚s several of the directors (town trustees) that don‚t really care for [Cruise Night],” Lawson admits. “And it‚s not that it‚s trashy. There are some areas that there is trash that has to be picked up, but the biggest thing is it‚s all of the black marks on the road whenever it‚s done and over with. It just kinda pulls [civic pride] down with the way the road looks.”

So are burnouts illegal? “It just depends. In my opinion, if the concern is for the black marks on the road, there‚s nothin‚ you can do about that. In a takeoff position — in my opinion, it‚s not the law — my opinion is, as long as they don‚t start getting out of control, if they just wanna chirp their tires for minute or something like that …” Lawson says. “There are statutes that you could write ‚em [a ticket] for doing that, like improper start from a stop up to reckless driving. The actions of a few ruin it for everybody else.”

Roberts added that “there‚s a couple of different things at play on that. The only thing I can think of that you could remotely do is reckless driving. I don‚t think Oklahoma has an excessive acceleration law.

“The question would be on reckless driving, did they operate in a manner that was in disregard for personal property or individuals,” Roberts postulates, admitting that application of the law, at least in this situation, is open for interpretation. “It‚s like a big rabbit hole, you go down one law to another. Sometimes you‚ve just gotta pick your battles.”

If police clamped down on traffic violations, Lawson could see that being the end of the annual organized event.

“One of our fears is that, if the town decides not to do it, and everybody just gets on Facebook and starts sayin‚, ’Hey, we‚re goin‚ to Muldrow for a cruise night‚ that‚s not sanctioned, and all of a sudden, we‚ve got two guys workin‚ …” Lawson said of what could happen on a night when thousands of people and hundreds of cars just show up.

Such an occurrence, Lawson fears, would be a repeat of 2021.

“It got out of control last year. There weren‚t enough people out there monitoring it,” the chief recalls, citing an instance of drag racing that occurred eastbound on U.S. 64. “I wouldn‚t say that it was out of control at all this year, and I think it was a lot safer for everybody that was out there, but we still got black marks on the road.”