The explosive popularity of the Discovery Channel’s Street Outlaws program has taken the racing community by surprise — the street racers from Oklahoma City have given the channel a ton of exposure, and have been turned into celebrities of sorts in the racing world in the process. But they’re quickly finding out that their notoriety precedes them. A planned taping for this coming weekend in Romulus, Michigan — just outside Detroit — was swiftly cancelled when the city of Romulus realized what they had set themselves up for.

According to ClickOnDetroit.com, the taping that was planned to take place on Smith Road near Merriman (just outside the Detroit airport) has cancelled the permits obtained by the show’s producers.

The show, which glorifies the concept of illegal street racing and blurs the lines between street racing and drag racing has been the subject of numerous online discussions relating to its legality and the portrayal of the racing action.

According to the report, the city says they were misled by the show’s producers and has now cancelled the shooting action. It says that the city’s police and fire departments were in agreement with the plan — which was explained to them that all of the action would be staged. 

That notion goes completely against how the show presents itself — that the action is real and the racing is as presented. Wayne County, Michigan, has been cracking down on street racing, so maybe the cancellation of the taping goes a bit deeper than any of us think. 

Whether it goes down or not, one thing is for certain — that Street Outlaws is starting to cause the non-racing population of the nation to sit up and take notice.