JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Sometimes teens go overboard when they're having fun in the summer, especially while driving.

But now police are encouraging them to race on an actual track, not in the roadway.

Every weekend across the city streets of America, young adults illegally race cars. It's a pastime that pop culture sometimes glorifies, as seen in movies like "The Fast and the Furious."

But illegal street racing, because it is uncontrolled and unregulated, is especially dangerous.

Police gathered Monday to address the local issue of illegal street racing, which they said has been making a comeback in recent years, especially among teens. They look back to 2007 as a prime example.

"One-hundred-seventy-four people died, carnage on our streets," Sheriff John Rutherford said. "In that same year we were No. 3 in the country -- not in Florida, in the country -- for 16- to 19-year old traffic fatalities."

This summer the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is launching "Beat the Heat," a nationally recognized program that educates teens about the real dangers of reckless, high-speed driving.

It also gives teens the opportunity to head down to the Gainesville Raceway and show some of their muscle in a real, legal drag race.

"Drag race against the heat," Rutherford said. "And if they win, they get some sort of trinkets, a shirt, 'I beat the heat,' you know that kind of thing."

Teens will race against officers who will be driving a 1979 Chevy Malibu certified drag car. The car has been used as a visual aid to demonstrate the differences between street racing and drag racing since the program began in 1984.

Beat the Heat hopes to save lives this summer through education, and to combat the issues that accompany illegal street racing, like auto theft and injury to innocent bystanders and motorists.