I don't rememeber any guys I knew getting in that much trouble except for one guy that got booked into jail after being caught running on the Van Wyck Expwy. Even when we ( myself & a friend) ran his brother's Stage 1 Buick right past our H.S as it was letting out we never got caught as the car wasn't seen much since it was his brother's car. Funny thing about that was, the Buick impressed the Hell outta me & made me a believer in automatic trannys for musclecars. BTW, the car he ran against, and beat, was a brand new '71 Z/28. It's owner WAS pi@@#d!
Of course NYC was falling apart back then & the cops had better things to do than chase hotrodders around. Good thing too, as one of the better (?) streetracers I knew was a Housing Authority cop.