In our new film, we traverse the moonlit A-roads of Britain to embed with one of the most notorious and misunderstood youth subcultures of the last 30 years: the boy racer scene.
Since the trend of teenagers modifying their "affordable" cars with go-faster stripes, neon under-lights and dump valves really took off in the 90s, the media and public have been wary of boy racers. The government have attempted to force them out of town centres with CCTV, the cops spend their nights hunting them in unmarked cars and ASBOs have resulted in countless cherished Fiat Puntos and SR Novas being seized.
Understandably, this has driven boy racers to abandon the bright lights for the industrial areas, country lanes and car parks where they can blare happy hardcore, jungle and bassline and pull off handbrake turns to their hearts' content. Or at least until the police show up.
In the film, we follow the boy racers as they try with varying degrees of success to unify the scene in their local area. In Essex, we find car meets with hundreds of kids in kitted up cars, showing off luxury paint jobs and bass systems that ruin their girlfriends' hair dos. In the North, boy racers take to dual carriageways to find their own fun – which, in the past, has had grave consequences.
The summer brings with it super-sized car festivals, where everyone goes to race, get wasted and get their picture taken with pouting, bikini-clad promo models.
Cars get scrapped, street races get dangerous and things get wild in a B&Q car park. Boy Racer is a timely spotlight on what kids in souped-up cars are doing today – or tonight – in every town in the UK.