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SIERRA VISTA — Two muscle cars pull up side-by-side to a stop light. One driver looks at the other and nods. The other revs his idling engine.
What happens next is where former NBA star Cedric Ceballos wants to come in.
Ceballos is part of the Anti Street Racing Awareness Campaign, which is designed to get drag racers off of public streets and into contained, safer venues. He was on hand Saturday at Donovan Dodge in Sierra Vista, taking pictures, signing autographs and spreading the gospel of this innovative approach to combatting a deadly sport.
“A lot of people are losing their lives drag racing,” Ceballos said. “It’s been going on for years, back to the days of horses. We just want to give them an alternative to come out and race.”
 Excited basketball fans, Ann Cappari, on the left, and Cyndy Altle talk with Cedric Ceballos at Donovan Dodge. The former star player for the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers signed autographs and photo ops at the car dealership on Saturday. (Suzanne Cronn-Herald/Review) |
The group recently put on its third race night at Firebird International Raceway and Ceballos wants to expand the idea to all corners of the state.
“At this point high-speed crashes are killing more people than are dying in the war right now,” Ceballos said. “We’re not only saving lives, we’re giving them a different outlet. If they’re not qualified for NASCAR, not qualified for drag racing, this give the ordinary Joe a chance to be race king.”
To quell the outbreak of races in the scenario described above, the group hands out “challenge cards,” that one muscle car owner can hand to the other driver before the light turns green.
“We give them a stack of about 10 challenge cards that’s good for three free races to really hype it up,” Ceballos said. “We make the environment a lot like (professional) wrestling. You wear the belt, you strut your strut, you come out to your own music — everything.”
Donovan Dodge was holding a raffle for a Dodge SRT 10 quad cab to help raise money for the program.
The 6-foot-8 Ceballos played in the NBA for 11 seasons, retiring in 2001. His brightest days were with the Phoenix Suns in the early 1990s. He averaged 12.8 points per game on the last Suns’ team to reach the NBA Finals.
He may be most remembered however for winning the 1992 All-Star Weekend Slam-Dunk Contest with his blindfolded dunk.
“Actually, Magic Johnson gave me the idea and I just kind of ran with it,” Ceballos said. “This was after his (HIV positive) announcement and he was just shooting around, staying in shape. He said, ‘Dee Brown closed his eyes and won (the year before). You should just go totally blind.’ ”
Ceballos was traded to the Lakers in 1994 and went on to play for the Mavericks, the Suns again, the Mavericks again, the Heat and finally the Pistons. Upon retiring, he returned to Phoenix.
“I started at Phoenix and it felt like home,” Ceballos said. “I just loved the whole atmosphere of the Valley. It just felt right.”
Ceballos currently is a member of the Suns’ alumni board and is the team’s voice on radio, television and in-arena promotions.
Ceballos said the Suns teams of the early 1990s would easily handle today’s Suns who have reached similar levels of success.
“We would kill them; it wouldn’t even be close,” Ceballos said. “Every position you have a dominant force.”
Ceballos said the Suns of a decade-and-a-half ago would have the edge at every position except at his position, small forward, where he deferred to Shawn Marion.
Ceballos said the anti-street racing plan hasn’t had many detractors who might argue that encouraging young people to drag race, whether in a racing venue or not, will just create more speed demons.
“Everybody we’ve talked to said, ‘I wish they would do that somewhere else,’ ” he said.
