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BBC MUNDO RADIO
(Aug. 15) -- A popular offroad race in southern California ended in tragedy last night, when a driver lost control of his truck and smashed into a crowd of spectators, killing eight and injuring 12 others.
The accident happened just 12 minutes into the California 200 race, which was being held at Soggy Dry Lake Bed 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The annual event attracts tens of thousands of spectators, who line the 50-mile dirt track and watch all terrain vehicles careen across the Mojave Desert, hitting speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.
Eyewitness David Conklin, a photographer covering the event for an offroad magazine, told The Associated Press that the Prerunner truck flipped and plowed into the crowd after hitting a jump known as "the rockpile" about two miles into the race. "There was dust everywhere, people screaming, people running. When I got up to the vehicle I could tell that several people were trapped. There were just bodies everywhere," he said, adding that he "saw one woman with a major head wound lying in a pool of blood. Someone else was crushed beneath the car."
San Bernardino County Fire Department spokeswoman Tracey Martinez told the Riverside Press Enterprise that seven ambulances and 10 emergency helicopters rushed to the crash, and transported 12 people with critical injuries to nearby hospitals. Incredibly, the driver emerged almost unscathed from the wreck, but had to flee the scene when the crowd started "throwing rocks at him," Jeff Talbott, inland division chief for the California Highway Patrol, told the paper.
He added that some members of the crowd had been standing just 10-feet from the dirt track when the crash occurred. "There were no barriers at all," said Talbott. Footage of last year's event on YouTube shows drivers performing stunts close to spectators, who are standing behind a thin orange mesh.
The crash is the latest in a series of race accidents that have proved fatal for spectators. In February 2008, a car smashed into a crowd that had gathered to watch an illegal drag race on a suburban street in Accokeek, Maryland, killing eight people and injuring five. The two drivers were charged with vehicular manslaughter. Darren Bullock, 22, was sentenced to 15 years in jail, and 20-year-old Tavon Taylor, is still awaiting trial.
The previous summer, six young people were killed, and 22 more injured, after a dragster lost control as it performed a burnout routine at a fundraising festival in Selmer, Tenn. The Australian-born driver, Troy Critchley, 38, was sentenced to 18 months probation.
And this February in Chandler, Ariz., a woman was killed at the city's Firebird International Raceway after a tire flew off a crashed dragster.
The accident happened just 12 minutes into the California 200 race, which was being held at Soggy Dry Lake Bed 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The annual event attracts tens of thousands of spectators, who line the 50-mile dirt track and watch all terrain vehicles careen across the Mojave Desert, hitting speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.
Eyewitness David Conklin, a photographer covering the event for an offroad magazine, told The Associated Press that the Prerunner truck flipped and plowed into the crowd after hitting a jump known as "the rockpile" about two miles into the race. "There was dust everywhere, people screaming, people running. When I got up to the vehicle I could tell that several people were trapped. There were just bodies everywhere," he said, adding that he "saw one woman with a major head wound lying in a pool of blood. Someone else was crushed beneath the car."
San Bernardino County Fire Department spokeswoman Tracey Martinez told the Riverside Press Enterprise that seven ambulances and 10 emergency helicopters rushed to the crash, and transported 12 people with critical injuries to nearby hospitals. Incredibly, the driver emerged almost unscathed from the wreck, but had to flee the scene when the crowd started "throwing rocks at him," Jeff Talbott, inland division chief for the California Highway Patrol, told the paper.
He added that some members of the crowd had been standing just 10-feet from the dirt track when the crash occurred. "There were no barriers at all," said Talbott. Footage of last year's event on YouTube shows drivers performing stunts close to spectators, who are standing behind a thin orange mesh.
The crash is the latest in a series of race accidents that have proved fatal for spectators. In February 2008, a car smashed into a crowd that had gathered to watch an illegal drag race on a suburban street in Accokeek, Maryland, killing eight people and injuring five. The two drivers were charged with vehicular manslaughter. Darren Bullock, 22, was sentenced to 15 years in jail, and 20-year-old Tavon Taylor, is still awaiting trial.
The previous summer, six young people were killed, and 22 more injured, after a dragster lost control as it performed a burnout routine at a fundraising festival in Selmer, Tenn. The Australian-born driver, Troy Critchley, 38, was sentenced to 18 months probation.
And this February in Chandler, Ariz., a woman was killed at the city's Firebird International Raceway after a tire flew off a crashed dragster.
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