Car enthusiasts: ‘No one was really racing’ atop Aquarium garage

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – The people News 2 spoke with say there was no racing going on whatsoever. It was a car meet, which they hold regularly, and they never intended to cause any trouble.

Lowcountry car enthusiasts are working to clear the air after allegations of car racing at a Downtown parking garage, on May 6^th.

“No one was really racing,” Colby Lewis, who was at the parking garage on May 6^th, said. “There’s a bunch of Facebook groups that are talking about that and stuff. No one was really racing. People like to show off, so they’re showing off their car’s exhaust and stuff like that.”

They say it was simply a car meet, which they hold frequently, to meet others in the area who share their passion.

“Car meets,” Paul Price, owner of Wide Open Performance & Automotive said, “like you can see all these cars that come in here, it’s people’s personalities. People do their own little things to their cars. We hang out, we talk, meet new people. There’s so many people coming and moving into the area, and it’s making them comfortable. They get to meet other people that have the same likes.”

Alexis Kline says she and her husband attend car meets frequently and they never aim to be disruptive.

“There’s a misconception floating around saying that we’re racing,” Kline said, “or we’re street racers or we’re drifting or we’re doing stuff like that, which that has never been anything that we, as a car community, has ever tried to achieve.”

They say there are some people who come to the meets who act unruly, but they don’t condone their behavior.

“There’s people who come out to the meets,” Kline said, “who their only goal is to rip a donut in the parking lot, or to attract any sort of bad attention to us, and we’re the first ones to come up to them and ask them to leave.”

Charleston police says it is not illegal for them to meet atop the parking structure, but some of their actions may have violated the city’s noise ordinance.

“I would have to look at the totality of everything on that particular day,” Lt. Katrina Rivers from the Charleston Police Department said. “Just on what I saw though, I would say not, but again, I would have to look at each individual thing because the revving is illegal.”