It is a grueling and at times dangerous species of racing: Trucks or other vehicles with oversized tires and pliable suspensions race through the desert at night at speeds of up to 80 miles an hour, vaulting over rock piles and sailing off natural dirt ramps while sometimes getting blinded by clouds of dust kicked up by the vehicles in front of them.
Yet it is so captivating an entertainment that thousands of families and other fans come out for these off-road vehicle races and turn them into weekend campouts.
On Saturday night, the sport suffered perhaps its worst crash in decades when eight spectators, most of them young off-road racing fans in their 20s, were killed and 12 were injured at a race in the Mojave Desert called the California 200. Shortly after the twilight start of the 200-mile race, one of the competing trucks sailed off a rising ridge, sharply hit the hill’s downward slope, veered off the course and rolled into a crowd, fatally striking several bystanders and crushing some of them.
Full story: Eight Spectators Dead at California Off-Road Race – NYTimes.com