What the heck was he thinking?

The death toll is up to 7 at the charity parade.

How did it ever seem like a good idea to do a Funny Car burnout in the midst of a crowd?

http://www.beta.cnn.com/2007/US/06/17/car.show.deaths.ap/index.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,283433,00.html
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+1

What could he have possibly been thinking? Absolutely stupid.

 

destruction derby?

 

Driver or organisation should be responsible.

 

If you watch the videos on WMC-TV (get there from the second link above) you will see that this is a yearly even where they drag race down the street with spectators on each side...what a stupid event. Although this driver was showing off prior or after the drag races (not clear before or after).

You just don't do that stuff on city streets...that is what the track is for.

 

Many people street racers live by this moto, "Practice on the track and take it to the street" thats why you see the guys at the track with the times that dont show up. Obviously this isnt your average street racer and he is extremely experienced. But he has ton of track experience and a burnout isnt that hard to do. Obviously the street was prepped differently or lack of prep led him to loose control of the car. The driver has made tons of passes down the 1/4 and he thought this one would be just another on a different track. But as it turned out it wasnt.

 

Rather a shame. At least the "killer Bs" were worth watching.

 

No, what are THEY thinking? Bunch of irresponsible idiots......has to be some personal responsibility shown.

 

Both parties are really to blame here. Standing at the side of a road while a guy plans to fly past you at high speeds really isn't a smart idea. Flying past people at high speeds, again, isn't a smart idea. There is going to be a huge lawsuit coming out of this...

 

+1


The suit is going to be ugly!

 

sad for everyone

 

It's the same small town where Mary Winkler shot her preacher husband.

 

According to the info that I read, there was no drag race on the street. Each driver was to do a burnout and then let off. They were NOT racing the cars. That's not to say that doing burnouts around crowds of people is smart either, but wanted to clarify that this was not a drag race.


Larry Price, the founder of Cars for Kids, said he has been staging this event for 18 years in Selmer, and drivers always do burnouts at the end of the parade. There had been no accidents in the past, he said.

"We're not racing," Price said. "We're just doing little old burnouts, revving the motors up, stuff like that."

 

The event coordinators must have never been to a drag racing track. Many times over something goes wrong and a car fishtales....but there are guardrails to catch them. This time the guardrails were people.

While it'd be cool to see something like a funny car doing a burnout, I'd be damned if I'd stand next to one w/o a barrier between us.
Then again I've watched enough of those 'arab drift' videos on youtube to know it's not smart to stand as something is driving past in a 'controlled' burnout!

I feel for all the parties involved.

 

Stupid move by everyone there

 

In the news video, it appears that the driver stayed on the gas for several seconds after he started to roll forward. Correct me if I'm wrong but when I watch NHRA meets, the driver locks the front brakes, gasses it to do the burn-out with the car more or less stationary, and then lets off of the brakes when he's finished with the burn-out. This guy in Tennessee stayed on the gas for several hundred feet. What an idiot!

But then again, I'm amazed people aren't killed each year in World Rally Championship events! No guardrails either.

KevFla

 

In the interview, it sounded like they do the burnouts on a section of the street where guardrails are present, but this guy went beyond that point with his burnout.

Unfortunate events...

 

Horrible accident that was indeed preventable. My sympathy goes out to those who were affected. On the other hand, I love airshows too (spectators have been killed there too). I lost my brother to a motorcycle accident (not his fault). This is often a reality for thrill seekers. I hope that this incident will remind people of the inherent dangers of being around high-powered machines (it's like being on a firing range) and prevent similar incidents in the future.