Nevada off-road race goes ahead despite criticism
Despite being met with criticism after a fatal off-road vehicle crash caused eight deaths in California race last weekend, the plans for another off-road vehicle race, this time across the federal wilderness in Nevada, moved ahead Tuesday. The tragedy last weekend was a result of safety negligence.
The California 200 off-road vehicle race was abruptly stopped after a truck hurtled into a crowd of people following the landing of a jump called “the rocketpile.” Eight people were killed, 12 seriously injured and hundreds more scarred from the graphic event.
There were no barriers set up to separate race-goers from the speeding cars that raced around a 50 mile track with jumps and hazards drivers must manoeuvre around at speeds of 60 mph.
“There's a big difference between what's on paper and what happens in reality out on the desert, too often," Daniel Patterson said, the Southwest director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "That's becoming very evident in the deaths at the race in Southern California on Saturday night."
Organizers are still planning for this Friday’s TSCO Vegas to Reno race to go ahead as scheduled, and countered safety criticism that the Mojave Desert incident won’t be an issue in Nevada.
Casey Folks, Owner of Best in the Desert Racing Association, as well as the Bureau of Land Management official Leo Drumm, who oversees off-highway racing in Nevada both said the safety precautions are more than adequate. “We set the standards for safety in off-road racing,” said Folks, who had seen a video of the Mojave Desert race and said it showed “the ingredients for a tragedy.”
“You'll see a lot of young people. You'll see a lot of people with beers in their hands. You'll see people on both sides of the race course, which is extremely dangerous," he said. "I'm not going to throw the promoter under the bus or the BLM under the bus -- I wasn't there -- but it looks to me like it was an unsafe atmosphere."
After the news of the accident broke, Drumm said “We took a look at what our stipulations were and our permit and how we manage crowds and spectators and we're comfortable with what we have in place."
The spectator’s safety falls on the shoulders of the promoters. The Mojave Desert Racing, or MDR, has rules that require that spectators remain 100 feet away from the course.The video shows people crowded within feet of the speeding vehicles. With no barriers set in place people continued to work their way closer to the tracks as the race excitement grew.
Family members of the dead and injured question the safety and emergency procedures at the event. It took rescue workers, seven ambulances and 10 aircrafts over half an hour to reach the remote desert location. Melinda Sanchez’s son, Anthony (23), died on route to the hospital though he was conscious and talking when ambulances arrived. “Why did he have to wait so long?” the distraught mother wondered.
Sanchez, as well as several other family members of the victims are angry that no paramedics were on site to begin with, which “would have made a difference, maybe not for my son but for others.”
"I know they had rules at the race that are probably difficult to enforce," Sanchez said. "It would have been good if they attempted to enforce those rules."
There were over 420 volunteers brought in to help staff the event, and crowds are controlled by captains who forbid alcohol, but there was a larger than expected crowed that showed up Saturday, and they became impossible to control.
According to officials the TSCO Vegas to Reno race is completely different because it is a point-to-point race that takes place over hundreds of miles, as opposed to the circular track in California where people gather to repeatedly watch cars go by. They assert that the best places to watch the race are the start and finish spots, as the Nevada desert stretches for miles, and the starting and finishing lines will be regulated to safety standards.
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