By PATRICK GOWER
There is a code of honour among South Auckland's boy-racers: if you race someone and get beaten, that's the end of it; if you want a rumble, it's one-on-one.
That code vanished when Chris Chan-Sau was gunned down and his car shot up by a group of rival racers.
Chan-Sau was at the Gull service station on Te Irirangi Drive in East Tamaki for the Saturday night illegal street drags when a turquoise Mitsubishi Lancer VR4 with the registration plate SIK NIS pulled-up.
A gunman began blasting holes in Chan-Sau's pride and joy - also a souped-up VR4 - as he stood nearby.
Chan-Sau ran after the gunman. As he threw a bottle, Paul Murray got out of the car, lined him up in the telescopic sights of the .22 semi-automatic rifle and cut him down with a shot to the chest.
Murray, who had been on a speed and cannabis binge since his release from prison two weeks before, was making a payback "hit" on the Bad Boy Killers gang of boy racers.
He then turned the gun on those milling around in the forecourt below and fired several shots into the crowd, screaming "bring it on".
Murray then jumped back in the car and took off.
Chan-Sau was lucky to survive the May 12 shooting; the 25-year-old apprentice mechanic and father-of-two received 35 stitches and spent nearly a month in hospital.
Yesterday, Paul Louis Murray, 23, was jailed for 10 years for the shooting after admitting the charge of grievous bodily harm. Clutching his SIK NIS cap, Murray held back tears as Judge Patrick Treston added a six-year non-parole period.
The shooting of Chan-Sau provided a glimpse into the underbelly of Auckland's boy-racer scene.
Each weekend, hundreds of cars gather at hang-outs such as the East Tamaki Gull station and race at ready-made drag strips such as Te Irirangi Drive until police break them up and they move on to the next one.
Within the scene, police say, organised gangs drive around in packs, fighting each other.
They also say there is a hardcore criminal element within this scene: stand-overs, stolen parts and cars, racers with criminal records for violence and armed robberies.
In court yesterday, Murray's lawyer, Kevin Ryan, QC, said the shooting dealt summary justice to the Bad Boy Killers, a gang, formed in Otara several years ago, with up to 80 members across Auckland.
"The Bad Boy Killers go around threatening people, stealing, pushing cars off the road and participating in what can only be described as criminal activity," he said.
BBK members deny this, saying they are unfairly targeted by police and feared by other boy racers.
But Mr Ryan said Murray's sister, who owns SIK NIS, had been caught by the BBK, her car damaged and threats made.
Murray decided to do something about it. It took just one phone call to hook up the gun and ammunition. Its supplier has not been caught.
Two carloads went with him to seek revenge. Armed with baseball bats, they jumped out and took on some of Chan-Sau's mates.
But Chan-Sau was not a BBK member. He says he left the gang a few months before, when they "went soft".
It was Chan-Sau's car that made him a target. The black VR4, complete with roll-cage, is like those required by the BBK and was famous in the boy-racer community.
In it, Chan-Sau clocked 12.6 seconds for the quarter-mile.
He still goes to the drags, hanging with his two brothers and other former BBK members, and says a lot of the heat has gone out of the scene since he took the bullet.
His car is still one of the fastest.
Racer code lost in hail of bullets
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