"Racers' pump up the volume

In this automotive competition, it's the power in the speakers, not under the hood, that counts.

SARASOTA - It is not a quiet Sunday afternoon. It's loud, very loud, just the way Andrew Harper of Miami likes it.

"I had the sixth-loudest street vehicle in the world" last year, Harper said, boasting about his accomplishments in dB Drag Racing. It's a competition in which the dB stands for decibels, no drag racing occurs and a car's sound system is the star, not its engine.

DB Drag Racing is a relatively new phenomenon, a hobby for the boomingest auto sound systems and the people who love them. It has local and regional competitions that lead to national events (www.termpro.com/dbdrag/)

To get as much sound as possible, contestants install 1000-watt power amplifiers and pairs of 12-inch bass speakers, called woofers. Some even install customized door or roof panels or fill their doors with concrete to keep the sound pressure level, or SPL, up inside.

"Well, I can tell you I probably have $4,000 in woofers and amplifiers" in the car, Harper said.

On this particular Sunday, the competition attracts a crowd mostly of 20-somethings to a strip mall on old Route 301 to see how their audio levels stack up against others.

The loosely structured auto show included prizes for wild, import, domestic, lights, interiors and, of course, best in show. Some young men fussed over their fancy cars and lined up their trophies from past contests as other contestants rolled in.

Sedans leaped and lurched about, powered by the hydraulics of low riders, while SUVs arrived seeming larger and more menacing than usual. No matter the type of vehicle, they all had one thing in common - serious sound.

The featured event was the officially sanctioned dB Drag Racing competition. Decibel is a measurement of the loudness of a sound, which is the point of the competition.

Cars were driven into the garage of Autotronics, a custom car shop, to get their sound pressure level assessed. The crowd gathered around the computer monitor that displayed the recorded decibel levels, evidence that this was indeed the main event.

Two at a time the cars had a microphone, connected to a computer, placed in the passenger compartment. The contestants either put in ear plugs or got out of the cars and turned the volume up, way up.

The computer recorded the highest decibel reading the sound systems put out. Some contestants even leaned against their car doors in an effort to keep the sound pressure from escaping. While not ear-shattering, standing a few feet from a car sounded like an approaching Florida thunderstorm.

Instead of playing techno or hip-hop selections, contestants are required to play the same, single low tone, like protracted thunder, because it makes the testing more accurate. Quite a few cars recorded more than 150 decibels.

How loud is 150 decibels? A 747 taking off on a runway 300 feet from you is about 120 decibels, average street noise is 85 decibels and a library is 35 decibels. And get this: The winner of last year's overall competition in Nashville, Tenn., reached 177.7 decibels.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration prohibits prolonged exposure to sounds above 115 dB, according to an article by Wayne Harris, the creator of dB Drag Racing.

"We had windshields broken here last year," said Gordon Daniels, who turned his car-customizing hobby into a successful business. He opened Autotronics in 1996 and hosted the event.

Autotronics sells a full line of car customization supplies, from chrome mufflers to high-power audio systems, and has been involved in dB Drag Racing since 1998. The competition is good for his business.

"Right out of high school I was working for a restaurant chain and they taught me a lot of business skills," Daniels said. "I turned around and applied it to my hobby. It's fun. I get paid to come to work and play for eight hours a day."

The computerized readings for the competition eliminate errors and judgment calls, Daniel says, so contestants can't complain at the end of the show.

If a contestant scores enough points at a local event, such as the one in Sarasota, he can go on to regional semifinals, where the competition gets tougher.

So why do people put so much time, effort and money into their cars?

"Just for fun, no money, just bragging rights and big trophies," said Harper, the Miami contestant.

Shop owner Daniels had to think about his answer. "I suppose as a teenager I was always doing something "trick' to my car to make it stand out," he said finally.

"The movie The Fast and the Furious was like a two-hour infomercial for us," Daniels said. "We couldn't keep products in stock after that movie came out."

The dB Drag Racing event appeared to be free of alcohol and infinitely safer than street drag racing. But there is some danger.

DB Drag Racing founder Harris is a former car audio product designer and writer. In his article "Sound & Silence" (www.termpro.com/articles/hearing.html) Harris says he has suffered hearing loss and has tinnitus, a permanent hearing impairment characterized by a continuous noise in the ears.

That hardly sounds like a recommendation for the hobby, but he says what you don't know can hurt you. He urges people to take precautions when dealing with an audio system with booming power.

First, use common sense. If you are listening to a system and the volume hurts your ears, turn it down. Second, if you like to "feel" the music, wear approved ear plugs. Finally, buy an inexpensive SPL meter from Radio Shack. They may be less accurate than a computerized setup, but they cost less than $100 and let you know what's safe.

After all, if you damage your hearing, what good is all of that audio equipment? Daniels echoes those sentiments.

"A good analogy is, just because your gas pedal goes to the floor, does it mean you should hold it there all the time?" Daniels said.

- Roy C. Jones is an adjunct instructor in the business technologies department of St. Petersburg College.

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