Tennessee drag car crash kills 7, 15 injured

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3 more people have died after being hit by a drag car that spun out of control at a charity festival in Tennessee yesterday, bringing the death toll to 7. 15 others were injured. The accident happened during a 'demonstration event' on a multi-lane highway, with spectators lining the road apparently without safety barriers in many places.

BBC - LA Times
 
I just saw a video taken by one of the bystanders. Not a pleasant sight, and one thinks why they did it when seeing the conditions they did it in.

I'm surprised it was a veteran driver, because it looked more like it was some inexperienced driver driving the car, as in: "show-off" age.
 
burnouts are neccesary to warm up the tyres for the drag run, if the tyres were not warmed and the drag went ahaead it could have been a worse accident.
 
What exactly were they doing pulling stunts like that on a road without the proper safety measures, anyway?
 
Who the hell puts a funny car on a road and lets it do a burn out around a bunch of people. The charity organizers are idiots for being so unsafe and now there are 7 dead because of it.
 
Yeah, I got the news this morning. It was at the Cars for Kids parade, which is a charity parade to help out disabled kids. This was a sad event, I don't know why they would do the traditional parade without using barriers. I had a feeling this was going to happen.
 
People are really that stupid to let them do drag races with any sort of barriers? That is ridiculous.
 
TwinTurbos94
Thery weren't doing drag races. It was a parade down the street.SOme of the cars stop and do burnouts for the crowd.
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Well, the BBC article said race.

"Two more people have died after an accident at a drag car race in the US, bringing the death toll to six."
 
The guy was doing a burnout and lost control of the car. A very simple concept.
It wasn't a race of any sort, although I've heard one of the news channels call it "Burnout racing, where you race two cars to see who's fastest 0-60"

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? What dumbass came up with that one?


Anyway they're all rednecks and this sort of thing is a daily occurrence. Just they don't usually crash the car. Or if they do it's more Dukes of Hazzard style, and not WRC style into the crowd.
 
CCX
burnouts are neccesary to warm up the tyres for the drag run, if the tyres were not warmed and the drag went ahaead it could have been a worse accident.
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From what I've heard this was a show-off burnout at a parade, the purpose wasn't to warm up the tires.

I know in todays world where everything is always somebody else's fault- the blame instantly will go on the event organizers, but people really need to have common sense and realize their standing in a stupid spot.

Reminds me of the people lining the highways in the Arab "drifting" videos:rolleyes:
 
One of my friends was at the parade, i don't live all that far from the town either. It was NOT a race. The car was doing a simple burnout and he did a "mini" launch after it and well, you viewed the video. I see the accident as poor safety from the event holder and mostly poor judgment calls from everyone that was standing so close to the road! I goto to tarmac rally events a good bit and never once will i stand dead in an apex of a turn to get a good shot (photog) Thats just asking to die. My friend wasn't close to the road because he used something that most people dont have...common sense! I mean it sucks for the families of the people that died and all that but geeze if they are that dull to stand that close then they would have died in some other sort of self negligent way eventually.
 
backspace
From what I've heard this was a show-off burnout at a parade, the purpose wasn't to warm up the tires.

I know in todays world where everything is always somebody else's fault- the blame instantly will go on the event organizers, but people really need to have common sense and realize their standing in a stupid spot.

Reminds me of the people lining the highways in the Arab "drifting" videos:rolleyes:
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Or the people lining the streets when F1 cars paraded through London doing brunouts, donuts and launches.

I think you guys are being way too harsh on the guy. Yes, he screwed up, but he was doing something he's probably done with no problem a million times prior, except this time it went wrong and knock-on effects have meant the deaths of spectators. It was an accident.
 
ExigeExcel
I think you guys are being way too harsh on the guy. Yes, he screwed up, but he was doing something he's probably done with no problem a million times prior, except this time it went wrong and knock-on effects have meant the deaths of spectators. It was an accident.
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He killed 7 people...I think we can be harsh on him.
 
Hey, why don't you go in the Isle Of Man TT thread and be harsh on the guy that came off his bike and killed 2 spectators.

Accidents happen in motorsports, accidents happen on public roads everyday.
 
I don't know anything about the Isle of Man TT other then it's a motorcycle race around an island, so I won't talk about it.

I understand accidents happen in motorsports but this wasn't a race, this was some guy thinking he would impress the crowd by doing some bone headed and down right unsafe move. If he would have been parading down the street and not messing around it would have been fine, a few hurting ear drums but nothing more. I've been to a few parades and when I go I never assume that any thing is going to happen to me, when I go to a motorsports event I realize there is a chance I might end up dead and I'm always on the look out for flying debris.
 
Joey D
I understand accidents happen in motorsports but this wasn't a race, this was some guy thinking he would impress the crowd by doing some bone headed and down right unsafe move.
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I repeat, he's probably done this a countless timers before. I admit the conditions could have been wrong for what he did, but I don't belive he felt he was doing anything special purely for the entertainment of the crowd. I don't deny he was trying to impress the crowd, but there's the inexperienced kid who tries drifting a corner and then there's the pro that's done it countless times before.

If he would have been parading down the street and not messing around it would have been fine, a few hurting ear drums but nothing more. I've been to a few parades and when I go I never assume that any thing is going to happen to me, when I go to a motorsports event I realize there is a chance I might end up dead and I'm always on the look out for flying debris.
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If you went to a parade and all you saw were cars creeping along at walking pace or even just the legal limit for that road wouldn't you feel a bit disappointed? Sure you'd rather come home alive but again, this wasn't a particularly risky act he did, it just went wrong.
 
Oh no doubt he's done it many times before and probably knew what he was doing, but even if you've done stuff time and time you still need to use your head.

And I wouldn't mind seeing cars creep along, here in Michigan we have something called the Woodward Dream Cruise which basically a 20 some mile parade of cars for a week straight at speed lower then 5 mph.
 
jeez thas bad : / even if it was an accident they could have taken precautions for the lack of safety there, he didnt have to do a rolling burnout..
even at goodwood when they had the cars doing all sorts and only bales of hay and wooden posts there was a good distance between car and people
 
The whole reason he was there was to do this "bone headed" show off, that was his job. It is the spectators jobs to use the brain that obviously they don't have and don't stand 3 feet off a road where there is going to be a 1,000 plus hp car doing a burnout exhibition. I know exactly what was going on there, its very close to me and my friend was there....like i stated before. The people knew what they were going to see, just like people do when they goto rally events. When someone gets killed or hit at a rally event nobody says oh my that driver is just a jerk and he screwed up. No, they say those people are idiots for standing in the way...
 
Once again there is a difference between a parade and a motorsports event.
 
Yes there is. Im not saying that they are the same, i was just stating that an idiot getting injured is the same thing no matter where they are, use common sense. This was a parade with a exhibition event. I didn't know that anyone else knew anyone there...? If you were at a parade and there was going to be bulls running down the road would you stand right on the road like an idiot or maybe use your head and back up? My friend didn't stand right on the street like most of the people and guess what, he wasn't injured...wow.
 
Do we really have to argue over this? He did what he was probably supposed to do (considering there weren't any other cars close by, at least not in front) and something went wrong. They were probably assured that the road had suitable traction and was clean enough to do a burnout. In my opinion, from what what little info there is, the entire thing can really be put on the event organizers or at least whoever told the driver to do the burnout.

@Parade v. Motorsport: If I knew a bunch of drag cars (modern pro cars, not old school stuff) was going to be parading through town, I would probably care less if all they were going to do is idle their way down the street. Seeing the same car with a slightly different front design and a different paint job crawl by a hundred times isn't entertaining. Seeing a 1000+hp pro stock car doing a burnout down your local highway is, and that was the entire point of the stunt. Entertainment.
 
If anyone here has seen the video, you probably saw the photographer standing in the street, he ws about 6 inches away from the car, maybe the car swerved an lost control
 

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