Desert race crash kills eight
2010-08-16 06:49
Brett Sloppy’s Ford Ranger racing bakkie being righted after the tragic accident which claimed eight lives on Saturday night in the Mojave desert.
Perhaps the most tragic racing accident since the Portuguese rally of 1986 saw eight spectators killed in the Mojave Desert on Saturday night.
During the California 200 Mojave night race a Ford Ranger off-road racing bakkie landed awkwardly after a jump before veering off the track, into a crowd of spectators.
The impact left a scene of utter carnage, with eight dead and two seriously injured.
Brett Sloppy - owner of Misery motorsports - was piloting the Ford Ranger as it navigated the 320km course through the Southern California desert.
The accident occurred as Sloppy was negotiating (at speed, obviously) a 'rock pile' section of the course, which made for a popular spectator point due to a spectacular jump. Numerous spectators crowded around the jump section.
When Sloppy’s Ranger lost control after negotiating the jump it crashed into the crowd.
Emergency medical response personnel had nearly a dozen helicopters on the scene with miraculous swiftness to casevac the seriously injured to hospital.
Beyond the tragic loss of life the accident is sure to prompt an investigation as to how off-road racing is run in the United States.
Photographers covering the event (who are most likely to be in the path of racing vehicles careering out of control) said there was an appropriate matrix of snow-fencing to encourage spectators not to stray into dangerous run-off areas.
