“It’s implanted in you when you’re a kid, and it stays with you,” said Sulayman al-Shulukhi, 29, who races every weekend night here and has adopted a 1950s greaser look: slicked-back hair, polo shirt with the collar up, jeans and white shoes.

He proudly showed off the modifications he had made to his Subaru Impreza: a carbon fiber spoiler, an intake valve, a special ventilation system, a turbocharger. He then jumped in the car for a ride along one of the racing strips near King Road, not far from Jidda’s Red Sea coast.

“We get up to 120 kilometers per hour on this part” (about 75 miles per hour), he said, as he accelerated down a perilously short trip of highway, “and 200 on this next one.”

As he drove, Mr. Shulukhi narrated a tale of a recent accident on this road in which a friend’s car had caught on fire during a race, and another one in which a driver had spun out of control and died after his car burst into flames. His world is full of driving disasters and driving heroes, some of them local men. He frequently invokes the racing movies “The Fast and the Furious” and its sequels, and “Death Race.”

Later, when the roads have emptied out a bit, it is time for some drifting. Raif Mansour al-Dammas, a skinny 21-year-old who looks much younger, gets into his beat-up white 1980s Nissan and revs the engine until white smoke pours out. Admiring shouts go up from a cluster of young men.

Then the car leaps forward, accelerating furiously, and breaks into a sudden skid, spinning around, nearly colliding with a concrete barrier and leaving thick black marks on the pavement. A stifling smell of burnt rubber hangs in the air.

Image Saudis admired cars before a night of racing in Jidda, where little public entertainment exists. Credit... Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Standing nearby, Mr. Shulukhi explained that he and his friends, who all race Subarus, were not really drifters. The distinction is more about social status than activity; he and his friends are mostly middle class and do not see themselves as outlaws.