Hulk Hogan's Son Featured in Rides Magazine

Even as the passenger in the car Nick Bollea was driving lay in a hospital bed with possible head trauma, the September 2007 issue of Rides magazine hits newsstands featuring an interview with Nick bragging about his driving record, racing career, and driving on Florida's streets where he will "get on the bridge and smash the gas."

The feature in Rides is entitled "Young and Relentless" and includes a photo of Nick with four of his nine cars, including the yellow Toyota Supra he was driving the evening of the crash.

There is no doubt Nick is a speed junkie. The seventeen-year-old's cars are souped up, and his collection includes an 800-horsepower Dodge Viper, a 550-hp Viper, and twin 700-hp Supras including the now-destroyed, banana-yellow one. He has racked up at least three speeding violations in just over a year of driving. Nick brags to Rides about being stopped by police three times in a matter of minutes on a trip from Miami to Tampa. Each officer clocked his speed at over 100 mph, only the third officer wrote a citation, Nick brags, because they knew him as a celebrity.

In the magazine, Nick describes the yellow Supra and one of the Vipers which he has also painted yellow, as "pussy magnets" and remarks that when girls see the yellow cars, "panties start dropping off."

In addition to female conquests, Nick is a professional drift racer and speaks of successes on the black top as well. He speaks to the magazine about beating an Enzo Ferrari, a Lambroghini LP640, and a Lambroghini Gallardo in his cars. When the reporter asks Nick if he races other members of his family, Nick responds, "We always go out and run each other." Though he doesn't specify whether this is done on the track or the highway, it's difficult to imagine his sister, Brooke's Expedition or his mother, Linda's Mercedes-Benz pulling next to one of Nick's hot rods at the starting line.

There is speculation that Nick may have been racing his father on the evening of the crash. At least two witnesses report a cat-and-mouse game that Nick was playing with another car, a silver Dodge Viper, both heading east on Clearwater's Court Street at the time of the accident. Clearwater police are continuing their investigation, but have publicly denied that Nick's father, Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, was behind the wheel of the Viper or was anywhere in the vicinity of the accident.

Terry Bollea has reportedly flown in a top brain surgeon to evaluate John Graziano, the passenger in Nick's car the evening of the accident. Though he was treated and released hours after the crash, Nick, a long-time friend of Graziano, has remained at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg with Graziano's family. Other family members, friends, and members of the community held a candlelight vigil Wednesday night in Clearwater's Glen Oaks Park near the scene of the crash.

As reported by TampaBayOnline.com, Nick's parents bought him his first car at age 14. His license plate read COEHSP, which means, Nick told a reporter, Capable of eluding high-speed pursuits. An unfortunate prediction in Rides magazine states, "The streets ain't safe no mo.'"

On a more personal note, I live about 3 miles from the spot of this crash. I drive east and west along Court Street almost daily. My children's school buses travel the route, and my own 17-year-old son drives his own car there. Nick and his family are lucky that it was only his car that was involved in this tragic accident.