Tom Disney's weekends begin with the roar of modified engines, the aroma of burning rubber and the adrenaline rush of acceleration.
The 21-year-old is a regular at Capitol Raceway in Crofton on Friday nights, where he has the freedom to drive his black 2001 Mustang GT as fast as he can.
Before the crowd of more than a thousand, Disney can drop the clutch at the starting line, jump to about 105 mph and finish the quarter-mile race in about 13 seconds.
"This is the big thing with the younger crowd," said Disney, whose day job is installing drywall.
Forget the mall. Don't even mention anything as passive as a movie. Car enthusiasts such as Disney prefer to spend their weekends ogling cars, talking cars, racing cars.
When they congregate in parking lots in Baltimore, Washington and the municipalities in between, police often chase them away. When they race on public roadways, they risk being ticketed, suffering personal injuries and hurting other motorists.
But tracks such as the one in Crofton, the 75-80 Dragway in Monrovia in Frederick County, Mason-Dixon Dragway near Hagerstown and others in Maryland offer relatively safe raceways and serve as sanctuaries where car culture reigns supreme.
Kim Cunningham, whose family has owned the Crofton track since the 1970s, said about 350 drivers pay $15 each week to race and up to 3,000 people pay $10 to watch.
When weather gets cold, the race time switches to Saturday afternoons, Cunningham said.
After a run at the track, Disney can park in line for another race and get out and feel how the speed warmed his street-racing tires.
When his girlfriend and friends are there, they can all stand around the car and talk about quarter-mile times and how to improve them. Otherwise, he is free to wander between the row of cars, peer under open hoods where bags of ice melt on hot engines and converse with other gear heads.
Henry Hutton of Glen Burnie was checking the oil on a recent Friday night in his Nissan Spec-V Sentra.
"It doesn't matter what race or religion you are," the 20-year-old said. "All that matters is you've got a fast car, and they can see how much time you've put into it, and they respect you."
Of course, the same acceptance applies to age. It isn't just the younger crowd that car culture attracts, infects, calls.
On any given Friday night, guys like Tom Borzilleri, 58, of Bethesda show up to race. Borzilleri is an economic consultant by day who is still getting the hang of pushing his silver Mazda RX7 to the limit.
"You have all of this noise in your ears and all of this adrenaline," he said. "You drop the clutch and you're off. It's great fun."
There are children, too, like Kyle Hicks, 6, and his brother, Darius Hicks, 11, playing with toy cars in the stands while their father, Terris Hicks, 37, tells a newcomer about the purple 1984 Mustang he races up and down the East Coast.
"It has a regular engine," says the man who was bitten by the racing bug 18 years ago. "But the nitrous really wakes it up."
For many racers, nitrous oxide is a favorite addition. The nitrous provides more oxygen to the engine, causing fuel to burn faster and adding speed.
Big business
Modifying cars has been a pastime for each generation of car-crazy kids practically since the first parents handed down an old auto.
Car modifications is a $26 billion industry, according to a spokeswoman for the Specialty Equipment Market Association. In the past seven years, the segment of the industry catering to compact cars has grown from $295 million to $1.5 billion, she said. It is expected to grow by another 50 percent this year, she said.
As this growth has taken place, the younger generation has focused its attention on a different type of car to improve than in decades past.
"Most people are getting out of V-8s. They like to start with something slow and see how fast they can make it," said Kenny Smith of Glen Burnie.
Like Disney, he drives a black Mustang, but most of his peers prefer to start with a four-cylinder import and build up.
Suzy Sorensen, 19, and her boyfriend, Tony McClure, 18, fit into this crowd with their cars.
Sorensen drives a white 2002 Acura RSX Type-S. McClure has an electric blue, 2000 Honda Civic Si with Integra Type-R, five-lug patterns for the wheels and a white 1995 Honda Prelude VTEC.
People like McClure, who works at a smoothie stand in Annapolis Mall, have helped the car-modifications industry grow -- McClure is responsible for at least a few thousand dollars' worth. Both of his cars are in varying states of disrepair. The Arnold resident pushed his Civic so hard it broke an axle.
"I revved it up to four grand," he said, "dropped the clutch and just, 'Snap!'"
He recently had $2,200 worth of new Japanese pistons, intake valves and valve springs installed in the Prelude but when it started overheating at the track, he decided he needed a new radiator.
This reduced him to another week of watching Sorensen. One of the few young women that regularly race at the track, she said, "When I race people, guys think it's great that I have a fast car and know what I'm talking about."
Jessica Lupinek, 18, is more typical of the women at the track. She watches her boyfriend and his friends race from behind the starting line and then waits with him for the next race.
"All of the guys here, I guarantee they'd rather put money into their cars than into their girlfriends," she said.
Few complaints
While this complaint might hang over many of the car enthusiasts at the track, Anne Arundel County spokesman Matt Diehl and Greater Crofton Council Vice President Torrey Jacobsen say they have heard nothing more than a few noise complaints about the track.
Some raceway patrons say the track makes public roads safer.
"The racetrack is getting the kids off the street on Friday night so they're not racing on the street," Hicks said.
Most of the drivers agree.
"Ever since I came here, I hardly ever street race, unless I don't do well here," Disney said. "Then I need to ... so I can say, 'I'm still fast.'"