4 Connecticut men charged after high speed drag race in Yaphank

A drag race over the weekend in Yaphank — with more than 100 spectators, 50 vehicles and speeds reaching upward of 100 mph — led to four Connecticut men being ticketed once the racers had dispersed, according to the Suffolk County Police Department.

The race came to police attention from a 911 caller complaining about what a department news release later called "a large gathering of vehicles," at about 1:10 a.m. Sunday on Express Drive North, west of Sills Road, part of the street takeover phenomenon vexing police forces and annoying neighborhood residents.

In Sunday's incident, officers "observed vehicles racing before the vehicles dispersed," then later detained "a truck towing a trailer carrying a race car and arrested four people," the release said.

That driver, the press office wrote in an email, had been attempting to flee the scene of the race. The race car was visible when the truck was pulled over, at about 1:20 a.m., on Express Drive North, the email said.

Charges against the men — Christian Vargas Hernandez, 28; John Maldonado, 33; Lawrence Torres, 30; and Efrain Rivera, 35, all of Meriden, Connecticut — include violating a law against unlawful speed contests, sideshows and races, the department wrote in the release. Vargas Hernandez was also charged with reckless driving and unlawfully using a motor vehicle to flee a police officer.

None of them could be immediately reached for comment.

The press office didn't explain the basis for the charges against Maldonado, Torres and Rivera, the three men who appeared to be passengers at the time the police pulled over the vehicle.

All are due in court at a later date; the race car, along with the trailer and truck, was impounded.

Illegal drag racing on Long Island dates back to the beginnings of the founding of the Island as a car suburb.

Newsday reported earlier this year that in Suffolk alone since November 2024, when its police department's Takeover Task Force started, at least 122 takeovers have been dispersed, 13,002 summonses issued, 105 arrests made and 154 vehicles impounded.