This is not a blast, but more of a question about taking responsibility when things go bad when people know they are 100% in the wrong.

The recent off road racing tragedy got me to thinking yesterday. I read and tend to believe a few things about this racing event that truly bothered me to my very core......

This race had been issued a BLM permit to operate this event and it sounds to me like it was some what of a shady situation, I do not know the promoter from Adam, but here is what I read and have no reason to not believe every word.....Someone in the know can set the record straight, that would actually be very much appreciated.....


The race had a permit for 300 spectators....Why? was the limit or max number decided by the BLM, the promoter, was the cost going to increase if for more people?  I do not have the answers, but do know that there were a hell of a lot more people than 300, maybe three or four times that number....

They were also under strict guidelines as to how fast vehicles could travel within a certain distance of pedestrians/spectators, the numbers I read were "closer than 15 feet, the speed would be less than 15 MPH"....Sounds reasonable to me, why was this not followed (at all)?

If the above statements are even close to being true, why is there no outrage put to the people promoting this event? In my humble opinion, they put off road racing events in areas of this nature in jeopardy for everyone forever. Not to mention any other event to take place on public lands...

I am not trying to put "blame" on anyone, but seriously, what did they think would happen if shit went wrong?

I would like to keep this thread as positive as possible and I apologize if this offends anyone on here, but this really pisses me off.

I have been involved in racing since I was too young to remember and one thing I do know is that most rules are in place because of something some dumbass did wrong, not because the sanctioning bodies feel like being controlling Nazi's.....

The races in Long Beach (I know, completely different venue, but still), while somewhat disorganized on the money side of things, was IMO run pretty well as far as safety, I saw very little potential for someone getting seriously injured, or worse....

It is my feelings that the people responsible for running the race they way they did are the people we should be pissed at, not the organizations that allowed the race to take place, it is their rules that were not followed and why this tragedy happened in the first place....

Flame away, but please keep it civil, I am curious to see what you guys have to say. This is a touchy subject and I feel bad for the lives that were lost, especially since it didn't have to happen.....Loss of life is almost always due to the actions (or non actions) of a few....

I hate it when folks think the rules don't apply to them, more so when innocent by standers get killed...I wanted to post this elsewhere, but figured this to be an awesome sounding board. Brad, feel free to lock it down if it gets to hairy.....

GT

clearing a nice flat beach is a lot easier than a 50 mile rough ass trial thru the desert. there are lines and markers out on the track that people should stay back from and use some common sence. It is impossible to keep your eyes on 50-1000 miles of race corse. your visibility in the desert is a mile at best. The venu was certified for 300 spectators. but there is no grand stands and it is public land so if you want to drive your dirtbike, jeep, buggy or whatever you got out to the race post up on some part of the corse crack a beer and watch you can. that is the cool part about these races. You say "when do we take responsibility for our actions" then pass the blame to the promotor how is trying to make a great race. and the people who had their family and friends standing ten feet from a off road race corse you say nothing about..

not trying to be rude. just putting in my two cents.

clearing a nice flat beach is a lot easier than a 50 mile rough ass trial thru the desert. there are lines and markers out on the track that people should stay back from and use some common sence. It is impossible to keep your eyes on 50-1000 miles of race corse. your visibility in the desert is a mile at best. The venu was certified for 300 spectators. but there is no grand stands and it is public land so if you want to drive your dirtbike, jeep, buggy or whatever you got out to the race post up on some part of the corse crack a beer and watch you can. that is the cool part about these races. You say "when do we take responsibility for our actions" then pass the blame to the promotor how is trying to make a great race. and the people who had their family and friends standing ten feet from a off road race corse you say nothing about..

not trying to be rude. just putting in my two cents.

Your not being rude, you are speaking your opinion and that is what this is all about.

I am not trying to place blame, but at the same time, no one has stepped up to the plate and said "we fuked up"....Everybody is doing damage control and wanting to save these types of races for the future and to a certain degree I could not agree more...However, the BLM had conditions for having the event and those were not met, now your telling me (not in so many words) that it would be virtually impossible to hold this event and meet the requirements of the BLM.....

If I misinterpreted what you meant I apologize, but I simply could not disagree more.

Whitewater river races have a 50' rule, that is there will be no persons closer than 50' from the waters edge during competition time, "competition time" is determined by a chase boat both before and after each section of racing, not that tough......Boat radios clear before, boat radios no stranded boats after...Simple, but very very effective. Keep in mind some of these rivers are 40 or so miles long and many go through wildlife sanctuaries. We had to deal with The Sierra Club, the U.S. Forestry Service, The Sheriffs dept. and several lodge owners who have access to the river, the river was literally shut down to private traffic when the races were under way...

The California 200 is a sponsor driven race, I am certain sponsors were hard to come by and revenues were way down which made running the race difficult at best, but people died, where does the line get drawn?

The point I am trying to make is this, we all want these types of events to continue to be allowed on public lands, but if it cannot be done safely, then maybe they need to be restricted to private race "courses". I would really hate to see that happen.

Another thing that I am having a hard time with is the lack of common sense by the spectators, it is just mind blowing to think that a person could stand 5' from a full blown dirt/rock/dust race course with a truck hurling down it at the highest possible rate of speed with little to no control and think that was a good idea, I get nervous just getting out of my vehicle on a freeway during the day....

I need to state again that this is not an attack on anyone, just trying to wrap my head around why things were allowed to happen the way they did...Then people are surprised when they threaten to take it away.....

GT

This topic somewhay angers me...i keep hearing this "who is to blame" bs....honestly there is no one to blame....this was a freak accident that claimed the lives of 8 people....it is very sad for the offroad racing community, and the teams and drivers have stepped up to try and slow the bleeding....honestly at offroad racing has been what it has vbeen you pull up, drink beer, and watch a race! its to your discretion on how close you want to be to the courser....i feel for the lives taken, but they made the decision to be that close, and i can understand why! i grew up going to these races, and have even gotten a taste of it, and view it as a freak accident, but of course families are already drawing up lawsuits, and that really pisses me off...seems that people are in it for a quick buck...what is going to happen is this is going to permanately ruin offroad racing for california and give the tree huggers another piece of ammunition....i think bj baldwin said it best on facebook when he said

 Ok this environmental crap is making me mad. If a race truck drove into a crowd every race it still wouldn't be as dangerous as a swimming pool. This was a freak accident, it is not a biological problem. This isn't even a problem. An accident of this magnitude will probably never happen again. If you want to throw stones throw them at BP.

and well said at that!!!!!

WHO'S TO BLAME?

NOBODY!!!!!!!!

but of course families are already drawing up lawsuits, and that really pisses me off...seems that people are in it for a quick buck...

There are states in which someone injured or killed in a situation like this which resulted at least partly of their own fault or negligence would have no grounds to sue, nor would their families.  Unfortunately California is not one of those.  I do believe that if the "victims'" families were to look at this objectively they would not sue.  Something tells me that we, as a society, are not capable of that kind of thinking.

8 dead, 13 injured and the race org only has a $1mil Insurance policy for the event. Wont be to much to go around!

But the families planning to sue do need to look at the fact that their family members took it upon themselves to get close enough to reach out and touch the trucks as they passed.

8 dead, 13 injured and the race org only has a $1mil Insurance policy for the event. Wont be to much to go around!

But the families planning to sue do need to look at the fact that their family members took it upon themselves to get close enough to reach out and touch the trucks as they passed.

Definitely agreed, the families need to look at the actions of their loved ones.  While I feel for their loss, and would not wish it upon anyone, they really need to look at this fairly.

I am sure that they'll file suit against the promoter, driver and probably BLM.  First rule of a lawsuit, go after the deepest pockets!  Just sad if you ask me.

One thing that bothered me was the unrealistic restrictions put down by BLM which made it easy for the crowd to ignore. 125' from the track seems ok until you have hundreds of people who don't know what 125' is. and when ever does 15 mph speed limit come up in a competition of any type. NASCAR and INDY car drivers break the pit lane speed limits all the time not because they want to but because they are racing, pumped up with adrenoline and trying not to loose track possition.  Differnt parts of a track need different requirements. there should NEVER be anyone on the outside of a turn or within sight of the exit of a turn down track. Inteligent location of barriers must be maintained and crowds must be in specific areas large enough not to cause crowding.  Each spectator should be briefed on how to conduct themselves and all should sign releases that would help stregthen the point that being a spectator does not limit you from the fact that you could become an unwilling participant if you don't observe the rules.

Another issue is the fact that beer free flows at these events and some idiots cant, dont, nor want to follow any rules when they have had too much.  Unfortunately gang rule causes some followers to follow these drunkards and get into dangerous situations with no idea that they are in danger.  Unfortunately hose peaple are many times kids.

Face it, heads will roll and with politics the way they are now days I suspect off road racing may be changed so much that sanctioned events may be eliminated.  The same thing happened for drag racing when it first started, but street racing got more dangerous than ever when the tracks went away. A compromise finally came to beeing and proffessional drag racing took off and those same tracks are available to clubs and individuals today.  I suspect the same will unfortunately happen here.

Excellent post....Exactly what I am talking about.

If the behaviors don't change to a more controlled and civil manner, I do not see any way things can continue...Drinking a beer or two at the races I have no problem with, but being a drunken A-hole and being obnoxious and loud has no place IMHO.

As for the unrealistic rules, I suspect the rules will be even more unrealistic now that this has happened. Which was my whole point.... A stupid few fuk it up for many.....

When will we take responsibility for our actions?  You can't go to these events and be an irresponsible dickhead, then call yourself a "supporter" of the venue and bitch piss and moan when they take it all away, it is simply childish as far as I'm concerned.

I am really sorry if my views rub anyone the wrong way, I just get fired up when stupid, preventable shit goes down...

I have to go chill out..............

GT

The promoter bears the most blame because of it's inability to provide a safe environment, as was done in last year's race

It is hard for me to accept the argument that the promoter is not at fault when the race had fencing last year.  Because the promoter failed to provide adequate safety to the spectators of the race they absolutely shoulder the majority of the responsibility.

Ok this is eating me up.  The truck landed less than 10 feet from the track.  There should be no lawyers involeved. No investigations being done, etc....  People need to pull their heads out of their rears on common sense stuff.  As the saying goes: If common sense is so common everyone would have it.
Does this fall under Darwin's  idea of "survival of the fittest"?  Meaning if your not smart enough to stay away from extremely dangerous objects then oh well.
If i was the lawyer defending the MDR promoter, I would call for a blood toxicity reading on all deceased because I would put a lot of money on it that they were all drinking that night.
This will forever change offroad racing.

common sense isn't so common might as well get over that one....for all the loss lives i am truely sorry, but leave it to the tree huggers in california to probably use this as an attempt to eliminate offroad racing in general, and may it stimulate the economy in nevada, because blm already handles this buisness...i was at an offroad race like 5 years ago and i was actually riding my dirtbike and ended up finding the race course for a sanctioned event...so i parked my bikme 40 yards off the race course and sat on my bike to watch the race....20 mins late blm was there to hand me a map! showing me approved spectator areas! bring the races here nit gives me a better excuse to tail gate and drink beverages....this was a freak accident that unfortunately claimed and injured people...that is something i would never wish on no one except one ex gf

I too am very sad to hear that anyone lost their life watching a sport that I love so much. Just like many people I have had a close call or two on a race course. I have seen the impact produced by such an accident, nothing seems worse.
If the sanctioning body did not obey the rules BLM set for them then they will reap the consequences.
Something to remember is that if we start closing down everything that can kill you... kiss the lake, river, bar, freeway, lawnmower, sand dunes, your harley, airlines, hospitals etc. goodbye.

Life is dangerous. Enjoy it while you're here!

THAT is extremely well said!

Ray

x2!