ARTIST STATEMENT
“The Afterburn” offers a rare and unfiltered glimpse into Chicago’s street takeover subculture—a movement that thrives in the margins of urban life and ignites both admiration and outrage. For a month, I immersed myself in this world, chasing a prominent “takeover” group through the city’s streets. With insider access granted by the group’s founder, I documented fleeting moments of defiance and spectacle, as drivers performed for mere minutes before being forced to flee by Chicago police. Each night brought a relentless rhythm of motion and evasion, requiring me to adopt a raw, run-and-gun approach to photography.
This essay highlights the tension and complexity of this controversial subculture. Takeovers are celebrated for their adrenaline-fueled performances but criticized for the chaos they leave behind, including physical risks and property damage. Yet, their rapid spread across the U.S. reflects the explosive energy of a generation redefining car culture on its own terms. Through black-and-white 35mm film, I sought to capture the fleeting, chaotic beauty of these moments while exploring the idea of spectacle in public spaces—spaces that return to silence by dawn, marked only by tire tracks. I invite viewers to interpret these images as they wish, whether with awe, concern, or curiosity.
Background
Originating from the West Coast, "takeovers" come from a long family lineage of car culture, with roots planted in the Bay Area’s "sideshow" scene during the 1980s and ’90s. Sideshows were primarily harmless meetups where car enthusiasts gathered to show off their prized vehicles—often heavily modified and uniquely decorated. These events were as much about community and creativity as they were about cars. Shortly after this wave of car culture came the boom in street racing, again on the West Coast.. Drivers would wrench their vehicles to squeeze as much horsepower as possible to challenge other local drivers to rubber burning, gas guzzling, sprints in city neighborhoods. These street races were fast, raw, and risky—an underground sport born out of both pride and rebellion.
In recent years, however, a new subgenre of car culture has screeched its way into the limelight—for better or for worse. Known as “takeovers,” these spontaneous and often chaotic events have spread across the United States like wildfire, with a strong presence in lower-income neighborhoods of major metropolitan cities. Unlike the more community-rooted sideshows, takeovers are guerrilla-style spectacles that can erupt anywhere, at any time—blocking intersections, shutting down highways, and drawing massive crowds. With social media dominating youth culture, takeovers have pushed far beyond the limits of earlier car scenes. These events are designed for visibility—for the clip, the story, the repost. Drivers come not just to show off their skills, but to leave the biggest, loudest, most viral mark possible. For many, it’s about solidifying a legacy within a digital car community that’s as fast-paced and unforgiving as the asphalt they drift on.
The Drivers and Their Cars
Drivers range from novices to highly skilled showmen, some even sponsored by local mechanics and car shops. Some of these cars are known as “Strikers”—beat-up, often stolen vehicles used strictly for stunts and then abandoned, sometimes even set on fire after the event. Strikers are the expendable tools of the most extreme drivers, meant to hit hard, leave a mark, and disappear. Their presence speaks to the darker edge of takeover culture, where destruction and performance blur into one and consequences are part of the thrill. Most often, "Strikers," are Camaro, Challengers, Mustangs, and Cadillacs since these cars often sport high performance trim packages which are ideal for these drivers and the highly technical maneuvers that they perform.
Getting Plugged In
DISCLAIMER: To not jeopardize my contacts or their gatherings, I will be giving just the outline from how my expereince with documenting this event. My personal expereince does not cover how other groups may manage their events.
My first step in documenting takeover culture in Chicago was figuring out which group would best help tell this story. After digging through social media and watching local news clips, one name kept popping up. I settled on them. I started reaching out through DMs, but got no response. Can’t blame them—some random guy messaging to make a photo essay probably raised a few alarms, especially with the heat from local law enforcement always looming. After a few weeks, I started to let the idea go. Then one night, out of nowhere, I got a notification: the takeover account was going live and asking for media coverage—perfect. I jumped into the livestream, introduced myself, and shot them a message. I got a quick “read” and a reply that said something like, ‘hell yeah.’ Soon after, I was put in contact with their personal social media team.
At first, they thought I just wanted content from them—photos, videos, that kind of thing. When I explained I wanted to be there in person, actually document it on the ground, they were hesitant. But they told me to show up to a party on the South Side to meet the people behind the wheel. When I pulled up to the address, I stepped into a backyard pool party. It was lowkey—music, drinks, chill vibes. But within minutes, a line of unmarked cop cars started rolling down the alley, one after another. Officers jumped out and began pouring into the yard. I didn’t wait to find out what came next. I hopped a few fences, made it to the sidewalk, and started heading back to my car. “Party got busted, where am I supposed to go?” I texted the group chat. A few minutes later, I got added to an even bigger group chat—this one had both spectators and drivers. I stared at the most recent message: ‘First address drops in 10.’ My heart started racing. I dug into my camera bag, popped open my 35mm film canisters, and pulled the leaders out so I could reload fast on the move.
Ten painfully slow minutes passed. Then eleven. Then twelve. No address. No update. Was the whole thing canceled? I sighed and started buckling my seatbelt, getting ready for the long, quiet ride back home. Then my phone buzzed. The screen lit up the inside of my car like a flare in the hot Chicago night. One message. Just an address—no details, no instructions.
I plugged it into Google Maps and hit the gas.
Spin. Chase. Drop.
For the next month after being plugged into the group chat, I documented every event I could get to. It felt like a real-life game of cops and robbers—an address would drop, cars would spin, cops would show up to chase, a new address would drop. Spin. Chase. Drop. Spin. Chase. Drop. My late evenings bled into early mornings, usually staying until the very last car threw its final drift. The way these events worked was simple but surprisingly organized: spectators—non-drivers—would block off intersections or the entrances to parking lots. This gave the drivers enough space to perform wild maneuvers through open areas, tearing up intersections, big-box store lots, even exit ramps off the expressway.
Many times, I had to ditch my car a block or two away just to catch a few fleeting minutes of asphalt acrobatics—screeching tires, sparks flying, engines redlining—before bolting back to my car as the cops rolled in to shut it all down. These takeovers pulled me across the entire city. One night I started in Wicker Park, one of Chicago’s more affluent neighborhoods, and ended near O-Block—an area infamous for its violence and reputation. That contrast wasn’t lost on me. These events were city-wide, unpredictable, and operating on their own rhythm, regardless of where they landed.
Fortunately for me, the events I covered coincided with both Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) and Halloween—allowing me to capture moments where the energy of the streets blended with the spirit of the season. Drivers wore skeleton masks, spectators held jack-o’-lanterns in their hands, and some cars were decked out like rolling altars. It felt surreal, but also strangely fitting—this culture built on risk, pride, and legacy colliding with holidays meant to honor the dead and celebrate the veil between worlds.
Interview With "Suu"
I had the opportunity to interview one of the participants in these takeovers to gain deeper insight into the culture from a driver's perspective.
What does being part of this scene give you that nothing else does?
"This scene gives you an amount of freedom that’s almost unexplainable. A lot goes on that is very cool but unpredictable at times, you can do what you want but consequences are as easy as flipping a coin to the other side."
Has this lifestyle ever cost you something big — or changed you?
"The most this lifestyle has cost me is body parts for cars, tires for cars, and more gas. Thats just the least of this scene. This can cost you a while of your life if you make the wrong decisions. There is no time for hesitation is this scene."
How do you think outsiders misunderstand what takeovers really are?
"Because there arent no legal spaces in sum cities and states its looked at as really bad to people who aren’t enthusiast and really into cars no matter if its just watching them or being the driver. this is a effect of no legal pits and wanting to make the movement bigger. if it was only drivers most likely nothing would go as far as being terrible people, im pretty sure nobody wants to block the roads and stuff to do these meets but we have too."
What’s one moment from a takeover that still replays in your head?
"Alot of moments play back when you take the people you really been around you and know what you love and thats cars, I've took my friends on police chases and drifting around in circles with them is a whole different feeling when your done sliding and look over at your friends and they are hype, we dont get that type of adrenaline or happiness on the daily cause comes different cities makes different things that make peoples days worse or just harder to enjoy."
Is this just about the cars… or is it something deeper?
"This is about cars and supporting those friends and family who lost lives and lifestyles to this, incidents always happen out here but it just makes everyone go harder at the end of the day"
Foot Off The Gas
After a month of documenting this incredibly intense subculture in Chicago, I decided to bring my friend Ross Klein along for one final night on the streets. I wanted help capturing more raw footage—one last deep dive into a world I had been chasing for weeks. That night, I captured the image you see above: a police officer, dual-wielding weapons, arresting a driver who had just been pulled from his car. His crew stood nearby, frozen, caught between panic and defiance, trying to figure out how to regain control of the chaos erupting behind me. Later that same night, we ended up deep on the South Side, shutting down an intersection near a highway exit ramp. I thought I knew what to expect—burning rubber, flashing lights, the usual blur of power and spectacle. Ross and I got out, took position, and started filming. But then—gunfire. A burst of it. The sharp crack of bottles smashing on pavement. Then came the stampede—people running in every direction, screaming, ducking, trying to get out. Thankfully, no one was killed or seriously injured that night. But in that moment, everything I had been documenting came into razor-sharp focus. The danger. The beauty. The chaos. The control. And somehow, the decision to finish this project felt even more right.
"Takeovers" are a byproduct of many things—a combination of cultural evolution, social discontent, and raw creativity. They reflect not just where car culture has gone, but where our society is. Young people from overlooked, often impoverished neighborhoods are carving out new ways to express themselves, to rebel against a world that’s boxed them out.
It’s their way of saying, “I’m here. I exist. And fck you.” And maybe they’ll be forgotten as quickly as the donut video that gets a few hits online—but the tire marks they leave behind? Those are real. Physical. Loud. A message burned into concrete.*
It’s like they’re kicking down the front door of our safe little worlds, leaving burnout scars as proof that they were here—then disappearing into the night just as fast as they came, the sound of an engine roaring off into the distance.
Credits:
me