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Drag race
turned tragedy for
Leeward family

Prosecutors are expected to ask
for a 10-year sentence for one of the
drivers involved in a 1996 car crash

---

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

It was about 10:30 p.m. and they could hear cars screeching -- more like drag racing -- down Farrington Highway.

Harmony Valoroso and her younger brother were waiting for their oldest brother, Steven Jr., to come home.

Then they heard the crash.

"Bruddah coming home, he's with uncle at work. Let's just pray for whoever it is," Harmony Valoroso recalled. "Little did I know ... it was my brother."

Steven Valoroso Jr. died that night, his 19th birthday, after the Camaro he was riding in spun out of control, careened off a bridge and flipped, ejecting its passengers.

The 17-year-old driver of the Camaro had been racing with a truck driven by Ralph "Eddie" Clark Jr. on the narrow two-lane highway opposite Makaha Beach, going between 90 and 120 mph in a 35 mph zone, prosecutors said.

Clark was to be sentenced today for negligently causing Valoroso's death on Dec. 16, 1996.

Originally charged with manslaughter, punishable by a 20-year term, Clark faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree negligent homicide.

Prosecutors were expected to ask the court to sentence Clark to the 10 years.

Had the case gone to trial, prosecutors said they would have produced evidence that both cars were racing and that Clark's truck bumped the Camaro, causing the crash.

Both drivers were found equally culpable. The driver of the Camaro, a juvenile, was dealt with in Family Court.

According to the state, Clark and his friends were partying that night and as the only adult in the group, he had stopped to buy beer at the Waianae 7-Eleven. The groups were headed to Makaha or Keeau Beach Park to party when the crash occurred.

Steven Valoroso was a month away from leaving for Japan, where he had been recruited to train in the sumo stable of Musashimaru (Waianae's Fiamalu Penitani).

If that didn't work out, he told his father, he would go to the University of Hawaii and play football as a walk-on.

Harmony Valoroso said losing her brother that night was like losing a father. "What hurts me most is when I do find a man to share my life, he can't give me away."

Just a year older than Harmony, Steven kept his younger siblings in line, helped them maintain their grades and helped his parents by working during high school.

Her brother would tell them that there were was more to life than the Leeward Coast and that they had potential and not to let it go to waste, said Harmony Valoroso, a professional Polynesian dancer at Germaine's Luau.

"My brothers had dreams and goals. (Clark) took them away," she said.