Plain clothes police officers in unmarked cars stalked boyracers at the weekend, handing out more than 100 tickets.
Sergeant Mike Owen said the operation was carried out by road policing units on Friday and Saturday nights in Tauranga and Mount Maunganui from 7pm to 1am.
Seven police cars were used on Friday
night and six cars on Saturday, some were marked and some unmarked.
As a result, police were able to observe boyracers and watch their behaviour undetected.
While the boyracer crowds did not do burnouts, there were several speeding tickets and other offences committed.
``The [units] that were in [marked] cars would be the scout group, so we'd drive around and locate them, then we'd send our covert car in,' Mr Owen said.
``Basically we locate them ... it's not hard because members of the public ring up.'
Mr Owen said there was no particular reason this weekend was chosen for the operation, as boyracers congregated every weekend.
To prevent the boyracers fleeing, police in marked cars would target those at the back end of the convoy as they moved to the next location.
``All the marked cars would just move in and get the tail end ... and deal with them for whatever offences arose out of that vehicle,' he said.
``As they moved from Tauranga to the Mount, we'd just pluck a few off.
``We'd have four or five stopped at any given time.' The boyracers congregated on Takitimu Drive, SH29, between Te Maunga and Maungatapu and Marine Parade.
Mr Owen said several drivers were caught going more than 30km/h over the speed limit in 100km/h zones, the highest of which was 135km/h.
One driver was stopped for driving 98km/h in a 50km/h zone. His licence was immediately suspended for 28 days.
Fines handed out ranged from $55 for not carrying a driver's licence to $630 for speeding 48km/h over the limit.
Highway patrol units also targeted drivers taking the easy way out in the bus lane on Friday afternoon. Officers were stationed on Hewletts Rd for less than half-an-hour between 4pm and 4.30pm in heavy traffic and eight tickets were handed out to drivers in that time.
Last week, the Bay of Plenty Times printed photographic proof of 16 cars driving in the bus lane on Hewletts Rd in heavy traffic.
Those vehicles were a portion of 26 cars which drove in the bus lane in a 10-minute period last Monday.
