SELMER, Tennessee —

A drag-racing vehicle lost control during a parade and spun into a crowd of bystanders on Saturday night, killing four adults and injuring up to 15 people, authorities said.

Investigators were trying to determine what caused the vehicle to careen into the crowd at the Cars for Kids charity event in Selmer, located about 80 miles east of Memphis.

Scott Henley, of Selmer, witnessed the accident and said the vehicle started burning off its tires, then began to fishtail and slammed into a light pole before spinning around into the audience.

Selmer Police Chief Neal Burks said, "bodies were flying into the air when it happened."

Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Mike Browning said authorities did not know how many people had been brought to area hospitals to be treated for their injuries.

The identities of the victims and the driver, or the driver's condition, were not immediately known after the accident.

Browning said the vehicle has been described as a drag racing car, but he did not have more details yet about the vehicle.

McNairy County sheriff's officials and Selmer police began to close down the festival shortly after the accident. About 40,000 to 60,000 people were expected to attend the weekend event.

Cars for Kids holds several events throughout the nation and raises close to $200,000 per year for charities that help children in need, according to the charity's Web site.

Cars for Kids was formed in 1990, two years after founder Larry Price's son, Chad, was in a bicycle accident and suffered a severe head injury.

Price promised that if his son was saved from lifelong injuries, he would spend the rest of his life raising funds for disabled children, according to the Web site.

 

I remember this Pro-Mod from E-Town

 

Wow

 

Yeah it was even on the national news before too I heard.

 

smoking the tires off during a parade with a dragster with nothing to protect on lookers = not such a good idea. Knowing when to let out of it cause your loosing it---priceless

 

That sucks.

 

That's terrible... what was the guy thinking? I smell lawsuits coming on this one for sure.

 

Who knows, there may have been some kind of mechanical malfunction that happened. Just sucks that people got hurt and killed.

 

I saw this on Yahoo. I don't know all the details, but that sounds pretty unsafe: trying to do a burnout in the middle of a parade? I've seen people almost lose it doing burnouts at the track. And yeah, lawsuits are a virtual certainty. Here's an updated news article from Yahoo:

http://www.yahoo.com/s/606514

 

I saw the Video a little while ago on CNN... the guy was really moving when he lost it. IMO it was a dumbass move, a quick burnout is one thing, but he held it and was really rolling when the car got loose.

 

there is a video floating around that some guy captured

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7QY3gOkllM

He was truckin'.

 

Thanks for the link.

That was too much with all those people around.

 

Holy ****...

Small burnout to excite the crowd is one thing, as mentioned already but damn he was flying!

 

Damn I didn't know it was a city street, I thought it was a drag racing event where the car careened off into the stands or something, wow.
Those poor young kids who perished and/or were injured.

 

After seeing the video of what happens that is horrible and unaccetable. It's one thing if he just lit up the tires and smoked em for 50-60 feet and coasted, but he was trying to do a quarter mile burnout.

I don't get why he didn't just do a smoke show up front, and then lift. I'm guessing he got into some tire shake, the tires caught traction and spun him into the crowd. Damn idiot. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered.

 

wow, that was reeeeeeeel dumb; dumb idea, dumb to do and dumb for the event to allow to happen, hindsight is 2020

 

WTF---Looked like he was going for a full 1/4 mile burnout. Fukin dumb ***