ya know, if there was 50 dragstrips in 50 square miles, you'll STILL get street racing...... some people just don't give a **** and **** it up for everybody else...
I grew up in NoVa just across the river from where this happened. They were racing on this same stretch of road back in the late 70's / early 80's. It's nothing new to anyone that's into fast cars. For the cops to still "let" this go on just shows how screwed up PG county was and still is. The PG police were inept back in the early 80's and it seems they still are. Nothing good ever happened to me at 3:40 am. A 61yo should have known that by now. What a waste of life. I feel for the driver of the white car, but unless you're coming or going to work, WTF are you doing out at 3:40am? I remember Maryland having the liquor stores that stayed open really late too. Got to wonder how that plays into this. One of the reasons we moved away from the DC metro area was the drivers. Stupid people who get licenses and are allowed to endanger others on the road just doesn't cut it with me. I guarentee that right before this horrible accident, everyone in the crowd was whooping it up, wishing that they were in one of the cars racing, or they were talking trash while lining up their own race. Such a shame.
We used to have a saying when I was with the FAA, and that is; The Rules That We Have Were Written In Blood. In Suprise Arizona, on the week-end evenings they host a run what you brung, for this very reason. To give the Ricers, Hot Rodders or any other who wishes to "Race" against another, a place to do so. The H.A.M.B also hosts each year a venue to run what you brung. Yes I notice more and more sanctioned drag strips being closed across the nation. However, out of this chaos, this brings to light what the H.A.M.B and other car clubs can do to further prevent these types of incidents. Get involved!!! Encourage your local authorities to come up with a place for those who wish to race. For me here in Podunk, the county and the local town is in deep poo poo as far as finances go. Simple things, to bring in extra money to the local coffers. Do you have a local airstrip that is paved and is pretty much in-active?. What is known as a "NOTAM" Notice to Airmen can be published and the airport closed to all incoming or departing traffic It would be the good ole fashion straight up racing, since there are no timing lights, or Christmas trees. Would the racers race for $10 or $20 a shot? Probably, it would be worth that much to them just to have the bragging rights. The racers have fun, the locals bring in the needed extra money. Of course there has to be ironed out the liability of things, provisions for fire and rescue, but that's easy enough to do. Many of thse smaller places have an all volunteer fire and rescue teams. What better, than they get to be on the scene, just in case, and they get to watch for free.... We can all of course do our Monday morning quarterbacking about this incident, how stupid they were, or what ever adjective we choose to ***ign to them. But the fact remains, it will happen again. Probably somewhere else this very evening.They might get lucky, and we'll not hear anything about them. I know there many other of you H.A.M.B'ers here that I would not want to meet in a dark alley some night, cause you'd blow my doors off, but I do respect you for challenging me to take you on at the strip, rather than on some darken blacktop road. So, the bottom line on all of this, yes it was very, very tragic that eight people lost their lives last night because because there was no other place for them to go and watch two, or more racers. Hopefully something positive will come from this. HellRaiser
my reading of the article says it was a result of a commuter driving along a well lit straight flat road at 3AM when he ran into a cloud of smoke which concealed several spectators of a road race .He struck several of the spectators because he couldn't see them ,including one who died in his car as a result of p***ing through his windsheild. Driving a 30mph into a situation like that you are NOT going to be able to avoid anything. Remember the last time you drove though Fog? headlights reflect off smoke or fog making it impossible to see clearly. What about the last time a dog or other animal ran in front of your car? imagine 8 people suddenly appearing in front of you. I've hit and killed plenty of kangaroos,you hear them hit the bull bar but quite often never even see them,I would say this driver never saw or heard a thing until the actual moment of the tragedy. This happens here all too frequently too,as an example; http://news.theage.com.au/adelaide-drag-race-suspects-face-charges/20080210-1rcd.html
... and yet, has anyone ever been hanging out and hear a race getting ready to go down and tried to stop it from happening? Blame is a blanket, sometimes. It covers everyone.
My understanding from the news is the driver of the white car was merely driving down the highway. I guess that makes him an idiot. You don't have to be driving to fast to come up on a bunch of smoke (think fog?) and then boom there's a bunch of idiots standing in the road. This has been the talk of the car guys today on just about every board, and locally as well. I wouldn't be so quick to judge the driver of the white car, lot's of people are heading to work or leaving work at 3am...
this is a terrible tragedy indeed. also ****ed up is that the press tries to make it sound like it was a racing accident, when in reality the racers were long gone and it was the spectaters that were out in the street and got hit by a p***er by. I grew up in Fremont California... home of Fremont Drag Strip/Baylands Raceway. there was a very active cruisin strip in town and the street racing was going on every friday and saturday night even though the dragstrip had wednesday grudge nights. there was a marked quarter mile about 200 yards from the gate to the drag strip in an industrial area. there was some pretty fast street cars out there. one time there was even a Dragster, though he never got off the trailer. I think he was going to race a motorcycle. I spent a lot of time out there in my GTO. this was in the late 70's.. all my buddys had musclecars of some sort or another. being an old fart now I see the stupidity of our actions. back then it was just a good time on a Saturday night.
I apologize for referring to the driver as an "idiot". I could be wrong, but with that much carnage I question whether or not he was doing 30 mph at the time of impact as reported elsewhere. I guess if everyone was clustered together in the road like ten pins in a bowling lane, it could have happened. On the other hand maybe the driver was actually doing 50 or 60. saw the smoke and hit the brakes and then the crowd. Guess we won't really know until all of the interviews with bystanders are totaled up by the cops. Still a tragedy that could have been avoided if greater caution was exercised by all.
That's what I got from reading the article. the few times I have been to that part of the country, patchy fog isn't that rare. The part that gets me is the 61 year old man that got hit...I wanna hear what he had to do with it...spectator? racer? engine builder? One of my close buddies is a MAJOR gearhead about that age, and you couldn't get him to a street race at 3:00 a.m. at gunpoint-even if he built the car.
Not the same cir***stances, but this idiot got what he needed. I wonder if he races to pick up the soap in the shower? http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5543374.html
Ok, first off I don't condone street racing! That out of the way, I can't imagine hitting and killing a crowd of people, stupid or not! But, "street racing" has went on, well lets see..... Since streets were there! With horses and now cars. Seems pretty "tradational" to me! People are going to do it. PERIOD! Take away the cars and that will deter the majority, but it will still happen. Heck, around here people race away from the dragstrip! There is a flake (or more) in every bowl! Not having accessable dragstrips and "open test & tune" nights just add to the problem. But the media/govt doesn't accept that as an answer. I'm sorry, but I am sure that we all have done it sometime in the past. Heck, we are all "car guys/gals". We're not (usually) the country club whine & cheez group here. If someone on here has not done it at some point in thier life, then I am sorry for accusing them of it. We have hot rods, we want to modify them to get noticed (weather we admit it or not!). It will continue to happen unless WE continue to educate the younger generation AND give them a place to go AND have a little comp***ion on them too. Not just sit on a high chair and call them idiots, because we all have been at some point or another. Taking guns away from people ain't going to stop people from being shot! Again, I don't condone it. : ) >stepping off my box.....LOL!
I think he probably swerved to miss 1 or 2 people and ended up driving into a crowd. Anti lock brakes or not, alot of bad **** can happen at highway speeds. I never thought I would hit a deer...until I hit 3 at once.
I feel for the guy driving the white car, OMG living with that, even though its not his fault at all would be terrible. For those of us that have seen dead people you know what I mean. I cant imagine seeing what he saw after it went down. Bummer
once they see that A) drag racing is a lot more fun when its at the track and B) that the car they are driving runs like a 18.0 sec ET and the guy down the street runs an 11.0 sec ET he probally wont race him on the street. ... hopefully
I know this stretch of road. Street racing is nothing new there. Maryland International Raceway (MIR)........5 miles down the road from where this happened
MIR is right down the street but the attraction has always been......... I can drive to the local spot, pick a race, spend 20 minutes, win/lose, and I'm back on the raod doing whatever I was doing. To go to MIR you have to plan the whole night around it. Not justifing it. I'm just saying.
When I was younger, I street raced. I loved every minute of it. We had a good long stretch of straight 2 lane blacktop, out in the country, miles from town, and all the guys with fast cars went there to race (I'm talking 1965-1970). What happened is a terrible tragedy, and "fault" will fall on the "racers"---not the poor ******* who ran into the people, and not the people who were standing around on the highway. There's only one thing I want to know. I'm 61 years old, and I want to know how the Hell somebody this age managed to STAY UP untill 3:00 o'clock in the friggin morning!!!
thats what i want to know, i was in street racing too but in the early to mid nineties, it was still fun then, i dont care what people say but the strip is better alltough more expensive. but yeah, what the hell really happened and who was the 61 yo, is there a way to find out without just going of what the media says?
Regardless of an illegal street race being performed why was the guy in the white car going full tilt on a road at 3 a.m. with no lights on? News reports say the cars lights were not on when it hit the people....
Some of the witnesses said they were not on. Now, I'm not saying all the people there lied, but it's not out of the question for a group of excited, horrified people to see or NOT see something in all the excitement and confusion.
i too use to do that and made a good living at it while i was on strike for 3 months. but i look back and think what the heck was i thinking about?!?! it fed my family and paid the house note but it scares me to think what might would have happened if something went wrong. but it was a long time ago and there were a lot less traffic and people around when we did it.
what a sad and tragic accident. the article said that a witness told police the car that hit the spectators was driving without their lights on ....at 3am?? hhmmm...maybe if they had their lights on they would have seen the smoke and slowed down...Now I'm not condoneing street racing....and anyone who is into hot rods, muscle cars, rat rods, or any other rods has street raced or at least went light to light with another car at least once or they've laid a patch (burnout) just to show off. I think it's only goin to get to be a bigger thing as the drag strip keep closing up....
The local town council just turned down using the old air strip for drag racing. Wouldn't have any part of it. Sad all around.
Hate to say it,but I don't feel bad at all! Those people who go to the street races,support the race by being there! They deserve what ever they get! A racecar goes into the stands at a LEGAL race....That's a tragedy. Those kids that were just killed at that College by a nutjob student...that's a tragedy! Can't get upset over illegal **** like this. That wasn't a crowd of people waiting for a bus.
Have lived here for 25 years and drive the road quite often. Speed limit ranges from 35 to 55 on 210. Street racing has been big around here since I can remember. Accokeek and Dog Patch were the main places. Full on race cars were not the norm but, plenty of them were known to show up from time to time. Big money to be made around here street racing. Did I do it ....yep, had a 70 Mustang with a 428 CJ. MIR (the local track) started having Friday night fight at the lights and never raced on the street again. Sad about the victims and feel bad for the driver of the white sedan. Not uncommon around here to have traffic at that hour of the morning as most of the people that live here commute to DC or Northern Va. for work. Our club is trying to work with MIR to get a nostalgia drags or a another run what ya brung kinda night started. We will see. Be carefull out there guys and gals. BTW yes, PG county Officers are still known to be a bit dense. Fitysix
Here do your part to help keep racing on thr tracks.... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2587121&posted=1#post2587121
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