Road Where 6 Were Killed By Dragster Lacked Rails

SELMER, Tenn., June 17 -- There were no guardrails between spectators and a highway where a drag-racing car bolted out of control, killing six people during a charity event.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol declined to make a statement Sunday about road conditions or safety procedures during the parade of cars Saturday evening.

"It ain't really safe to do anything with drag cars on a city street," said spectator Garett Moore, 19, 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 dead included two 15-year-old girls and a 17-year-old girl. The accident injured 18 others, who were taken to hospitals in Tennessee and Mississippi.

Authorities identified the driver as professional drag racer Troy Critchley, an Australian based in Wylie, Tex. He suffered minor injuries and was taken by car to a hospital for treatment.

No criminal charges have been filed against Critchley, Browning said.

Mourners placed small candles, flowers, a teddy bear and a ceramic angel at the crash site.

The accident happened during an "exhibition burnout" -- in which a dragster's tires are spun fast enough to make them smoke -- at the Cars for Kids charity event in Selmer, about 90 miles east of Memphis.

On amateur video broadcast on WMC-TV in Memphis, the car's engine is heard revving before the vehicle speeds down the highway. After a few hundred feet, the car skids off the road in front of a drive-in restaurant.

Selmer Police Chief Neal Burks said "bodies were flying into the air."

Part of the highway has a guardrail, but not that stretch.

Drivers of other dragsters in the parade had been spinning their tires and then accelerating quickly, but they put on the brakes before going past the guardrails, Moore said.