SELMER, Tenn. (AP) — There were no guardrails between the crowds of spectators and a public highway where a drag-racing car bolted out of control, killing six persons during a charity fundraising event.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol declined to make any statement yesterday about road conditions or safety procedures during the Saturday-evening parade of cars.
“It ain’t really safe to do anything with drag cars on a city street,” said 19-year-old spectator Garett Moore, who said he was about 15 feet away from the wreck but was uninjured. “They shouldn’t have done it.”
Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Mike Browning said the six who were killed included two 15-year-old girls and a 17-year-old girl. The accident injured 18 others, including a 5-year-old boy, who were taken to hospitals in Tennessee and Mississippi.
Authorities yesterday identified the driver as pro drag racer Troy Warren Critchley, an Australian based in Wylie, Texas. He suffered minor injuries and was taken by car to a nearby hospital for treatment.
There were no criminal charges filed against Mr. Critchley, Mr. Browning said.
Mourners placed small votive candles, flowers, a teddy bear and a ceramic angel at the crash site yesterday.
The crash happened during an “exhibition burnout” — when a drag racer spins his tires fast enough to make them smoke — at the Cars for Kids charity event in Selmer, about 80 miles east of Memphis.
On amateur video of the crash, broadcast on WMC-TV in Memphis, the car’s engine is heard revving loudly before the vehicle speeds down the highway. After a few hundred feet, the car skidded off the road in front of a drive-in restaurant.
Selmer Police Chief Neal Burks said, “Bodies were flying into the air when it happened.”
There was a guardrail along part of the highway, but not along the stretch where the crash occurred. Drivers of other dragsters in the parade had been spinning their tires and then accelerating quickly, but they put on their brakes before continuing past the guardrails, Mr. Moore said.
The Highway Patrol said Raven Griswell, 15, of Finger, and Sean Michael Driskill, 22, of Adamsville, died at the scene. Four others — Brook L. Pope, 20, of Selmer; Scarlett Replogle, 15, of Selmer; Kimberly A. Barfield, 17, of Adamsville; and Nicole Griswell, no age or hometown given — died later in area hospitals.
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