Drag racing Car crashes into Crowd in Selmer

#4
#4
It is tragic and sad, but why would they allow drag racers on a public highway with no restraints to keep the cars out of the crowd?
 
#7
#7
tragic, but completely avoidable, and it doesn't matter a bit that this is the first time something like this has happened in the 18 year history of the event.

Matt Griffin, who was at the car show, has been drag racing for five years and agreed that running a dragster on a city street was a "pretty stupid thing to do."

"There's a button inside the car that you hold down, and it holds the front tires down during a burnout," said Griffin, 19. "If the throttle gets hung, or if your foot gets caught, then you'll take off and you wouldn't be able to stop.

"Most drag-racing tracks put down an adhesive to make your tires stick. You don't really do that on streets. Most drag racing tracks have a fence. Some even have a wall."
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Dragster's fatal tricks questioned - Yahoo! News
 
#8
#8
Sorry... I mean, I feel bad for the people who died, but you've really got some fight or flight deficiency if you decide to watch a drag race and stand past the first 50 feet or so of the track.
 
#9
#9
they weren't even supposed to be drag racing, just doing burnouts. in the article I linked to (and the OP), it said that the other drag cars in the parade stopped their burnouts after the guardrail ended. so the car in question either had a real loose cannon behind the wheel, or there was some malfunction.
 
#12
#12
A few questions - Was the car actually supposed to be running a quarter mile? If so, while the driver bears responsibility for actually driving with people farther down the highway, IMO it mainly falls on either the event promoter for not telling the people there a drag car would be coming down the road. Or the people there, if they were informed and decided to stand towards the end section of a makeshift drag strip.
 
#13
#13
actually there is about 1 mile more on the parade route...where the car took off from was the begining and people were lined up along side the road as far as you could see and the smaller cars do burnouts in 2 or 3 more places so everyone along the route can see
 
#14
#14
milohimself said:
A few questions - Was the car actually supposed to be running a quarter mile? If so, while the driver bears responsibility for actually driving with people farther down the highway, IMO it mainly falls on either the event promoter for not telling the people there a drag car would be coming down the road. Or the people there, if they were informed and decided to stand towards the end section of a makeshift drag strip.
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The answer is no. The dragsters were to only do burnouts. That said, I'm surprised an incident like this hasn't happened before. The driver was an Aussie that lives in TX now.
 
#15
#15
There's gotta be more explanation than this. I have a hard time believing this guy has made it this far in life with a mentality that would let him drag with people down the road like that. I'm more prone to believe the conditions or a slip-up caused his car to launch. You don't drag a funny car on anything but smooth tarmac.
 
#16
#16
milohimself said:
There's gotta be more explanation than this. I have a hard time believing this guy has made it this far in life with a mentality that would let him drag with people down the road like that. I'm more prone to believe the conditions or a slip-up caused his car to launch. You don't drag a funny car on anything but smooth tarmac.
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I agree. I'm almost positive there was a malfunction that caused him to launch, not to mention whatever caused the car to wind up in the crowd.
 
#17
#17
Well, the fact that he was dragging a car like that on a public road caused him to go into the crowd. Those can't do anything but roll at about 20mph on the road. I don't think it was a malfunction, more likely that the pavement on a freeway is more grabby or that he slipped up on the burnout and launched. When you slip up on a burnout in a regular car, you go 200 feet. With an engine like that, hang on.
 
#18
#18
i've looked at the skid marks on the road and you can tell where he started and where he started loosing it and then nothing...it's like what ya'll are saying he just launched and was not on the pavement anymore....i have heard than at leat one of the other drag car drivers backed out because of all the people that lined the road...he had enough sence to reconize the danger...
 
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