No railing where racer killed six
SELMER, Tenn. – 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 highway with no guardrails 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 15 feet away from Saturday’s wreck but was uninjured. “They shouldn’t have done it.”
Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Mike Browning said the six killed were in their teens or early 20s. The accident injured at least 18 others, including a 5-year-old boy, who were taken to hospitals in Tennessee and Mississippi.
The crash happened 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 this town about 80 miles 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 a few hundred feet, the smoking car skidded off the road and into the crowd.
Authorities identified the driver as pro drag racer Troy Warren Critchley, an Australian who is now based in Wylie, Texas. He suffered minor injuries, authorities said.
No criminal charges have been filed against Critchley, Browning said.
There was a guardrail along at least part of the highway but not along the stretch where the crash occurred.
Larry Price, the founder of Cars for Kids, said he has been staging this event for 18 years in Selmer, and they 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.”
Mourners placed small votive candles, flowers, teddy bears and a ceramic angel at the crash site, which is located along state Highway 64 near the intersection with state Highway 45.
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.”
Authorities closed the festival after the crash. About 40,000 to 60,000 people were expected to attend the event.
Cars for Kids holds several events throughout the nation and raises close to $200,000 annually for charities that help children in need, according to its Web site.