Time to make the donuts!
Locals with a need for speed played hooky and treated MCU Park’s snow-covered parking lot as their own personal racetrack during Winter Storm Niko on Thursday. Thrill seekers floored it and did donuts on the yet-to-be-plowed lot — the perfect way to spend the snow day, said one speed demon.
“It’s the best feeling in the world to put the peddle to the metal and spin around in the snow,” said Coney Islander Steve, who would not give his last name because he was driving his company’s truck. “I come here every year. A bunch of locals do. It’s just really fun.”
The car park has become a popular spot to drift in the snow in recent years, according to locals who grab friends and tear up the powder-covered pavement for hours.
Half a dozen trucks and drifters cruised the parking lot, spraying snow while plowmen worked around the roadsters.
“Yeah, we’re really not supposed to be here, but the guys who plow the parking lot give us a lot of leeway,” said Bensonhurster Milan Glosik, whose Jeep is outfitted with mud tires that let him rip through the slippery fluff. “It’s just a great open space. It’d be a shame not to.”
But the staff at MCU Park were not exactly pleased with the impromptu racing. It usually takes about four hours to clear the ballpark’s sprawling lot, but the donut-makers compound the task by compacting the snow, said one worker.
“It’s not so great for us trying to clear the lot because they’re compacting the snow and sheets of ice will form a lot quicker,” said a MCU Park worker who declined to give his name because he did not have permission to speak to the press. “But hey, I get the urge. If I wasn’t working, I’d probably join them.”
