Feeling the need for speed
Jack Hazan performs tricks on his bike along with a friend
Jessica Kwok
August 8, 2011
Filed under Features, Student Life, Top Stories
It isn’t hard to tell that he has the thrill of riding in his blood. It’s in the way he easily rides his bike, in the way he casually pops a wheelie or jumps a ledge. But his bike isn’t where he channels his love for racing – it’s through cars that he expresses it.
High school student Jack Hazan has a passion for both driving and modifying cars, a pastime he picked up from his father, who was a mechanic.
“I used to go to work with him sometimes, and I learned how to take apart stuff and use tools,” Hazan said. “After he passed away, I had all his tools, so that’s what I do now.”
Hazan often spends his spare time upgrading his friends’ cars as well as his own.
“I trick the cars out, and although I don’t have a lot of money at the moment, I’m just trying to make them run good, handle good,” Hazan said.
When he isn’t in the garage modifying his car, he races on the streets with friends and even strangers.
“On the road, it’s just me and the car,” Hazan said. “We’ll just pull up next to some random Honda Civic and just ask them if they want to race, and we usually dust them because I have a V6 Accord and it hauls [great].”
Hazan eventually plans on selling his car and buying a Datsun510 to “trick it out.”
“I want to turn it into a race car. It’s a slow car, but I want to make it go fast though,” he said. “I’m going to get a cage put in and it’s going to be sweet.”
For Hazan, racing is more than a hobby: it’s what he knows.
“I like driving, I like going fast, I like the thrill,” he said. “It just feels good driving a car in a way nobody else can, or not very many people can.”
