Why did blacks start driving 807 horsepower Dodge Charger Hellcats?

From the New York Times news section:

Sleepless in Seattle as a Hellcat Roars Through the Streets

The modified Dodge Charger roaming Seattle’s downtown by night has infuriated residents. But it seems no one can stop it.

By Mike Baker

Reporting from Seattle

May 29, 2024

As much of Seattle tries to sleep, the Hellcat supercar goes on the prowl, the howls of its engine and the explosive backfires from its tailpipes echoing off the high-rise towers downtown.

Windows rattle. Pets jump in a frenzy. Even people used to the ruckus of urban living jolt awake, fearful and then furious.

Complaints have flooded in for months to city leaders and the police, who have responded with warnings, citations, criminal charges and a lawsuit, urging the renegade driver to take his modified Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat from the city streets to a racetrack. Instead, the “Belltown Hellcat,” with its distinctive tiger-stripe wrap, has remained on the move.

For hundreds of thousands of people with Instagram accounts, the driver is a familiar character: @srt.miles, otherwise known as Miles Hudson, a 20-year-old resident of one of the Belltown neighborhood’s pricey apartments. For all the aggravated residents who view him with increasing disdain — “Entire neighborhoods are angry and sleep deprived,” one resident wrote their local council member — many more are tracking his escapades on social media, celebrating a life unencumbered by self-consciousness or regret.

When Mr. Hudson posted a video (350,441 likes) showing his speedometer topping 100 miles per hour during a downtown outing to get boba tea, a follower asked: “How does it feel living my dream?”

In the American Graffiti days of six decades ago, this hot rodder would have been some juvenile delinquent greaser, perhaps with an Italian or Polish name.

In contrast, blacks weren’t really into fast cars that much. 1970s blaxploitation movies tended to feature pimps in Cadillac Eldorado convertibles with curb feelers driving 3 miles per hour as they chatted up the fine ladies on the sidewalk.

But the demographics of fast car nuts has changed a lot in this century, for reasons I’ve never seen explained. White kids seem to fear and disdain cars these days. So the 27th paragraph of the article is unsurprising:

… Mr. Hudson declined to talk to The New York Times without payment, but he told a reporter at The Seattle Times in March that the city needed to focus its attention on other problems. “There are way bigger issues than a Black man with a nice car who makes noise occasionally,” he said.

Of course, car crazes go through different ethnic cycles. For example, the turn of the century saw Asian-American youths driving modified Japanese import Rice Rockets.

But what’s the story behind the black Hellcat fad?