One day after a drag-racing car careened into a crowd and killed six people, witnesses questioned why the driver was allowed to speed down a multilane highway with no guard rails, lined on both sides by hundreds of spectators.
"It ain't really safe to do anything with drag cars on a city street," said 19-year-old Garett Moore, who said he was about 4.5m away from the wreck on Saturday night, but was uninjured. "They shouldn't have done it."
Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Mike Browning said on Sunday the six killed were in their teens or early 20s. The accident injured at least 18 others, including a five-year-old boy, who were taken to hospitals in Tennessee and Mississippi.
The crash happened on Saturday during an "exhibition burnout" -- when a drag racer spins his tires to make them heat up and smoke -- at the Cars for Kids charity event in Selmer, located about 130km east of Memphis.
Amateur video of the crash, broadcast on WMC-TV in Memphis, showed the car's engine revving loudly before the vehicle sped down a highway. After approximately 100m, the smoking car skidded off the road in front of a drive-in restaurant.
Authorities identified the driver as pro drag racer Troy Warren Critchley, an Australian who is now based in Wylie, Texas. He suffered minor injuries and was taken by car to a nearby hospital for treatment, authorities said.
There were no criminal charges against Critchley, Browning said.
There was a guard rail along at least part of the highway, but not along the stretch where the crash occurred.
Nick Staples, who was at the car show and charity event with his wife and three children, said he was standing 6m from where the car plowed into the audience.
"There should have been guard rails," Staples said. "But even if there had been, it wouldn't have mattered."
Mourners placed small votive candles, flowers, a teddy bear and a ceramic angel at the crash site on Sunday.
The AMS Pro Modified Series, which sponsors professional drag races, issued a news release saying the driver, a veteran of more than 20 years in drag racing, was performing a burnout when road conditions caused the car to go out of control.
The Highway Patrol said it had no information about road conditions.
Matthew Brammer, the administrator of AMS Pro Modified Series, which sanctions drag races, said Critchley had driven the car involved in the wreck in competition.
Critchley's Web site said he began his career in an engine building shop in Brisbane, Australia, in 1986, and then raced on the Australian circuit in the 1990s.
He moved to the US in 1998.
By late Sunday afternoon, the Web site carried a message saying it was not available.
Authorities closed the festival after the crash. About 40,000 to 60,000 people were expected to attend the weekend event.
Cars for Kids holds several events throughout the country and raises close to US$200,000 annually for charities that help children in need, its Web site showed.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
New Zealand is open to expanding its frigate fleet beyond its current two vessels, with New Zealand Minister of Defence Chris Penk saying “no options are off the table” as the government weighs buying new warships from Japan or the UK. The government yesterday said it is looking to replace its two aging Anzac-class frigates, which were both commissioned almost 30 years ago. The UK’s Type 31 and Japan’s Mogami-class warships are the options under consideration. Speaking in an interview, Penk said there is potential to increase the number of frigates the nation purchases. “We need a certain amount of capability as a
The Philippine Coast Guard yesterday said it deployed aircraft to issue radio warnings to a Chinese research ship in a disputed area of the South China Sea “swarming” with vessels from Beijing’s so-called maritime militia. The research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 33 (向陽紅33), which is capable of supporting submersible craft, was operating near a reef in the contested Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The Chinese ship was deploying a service boat toward the Spratly’s Iroquois Reef on Wednesday when it was spotted by a coast guard plane, “confirming ongoing unauthorized [marine scientific research]
RSS