Derek Achong

Or­gan­is­ers of Caribbean Mo­tor Rac­ing Cham­pi­onship have de­scribed Sun­day's in­ci­dent at the Frankie Boodram In­ter­na­tion­al Race­way in Waller­field as a "freak ac­ci­dent."

In a brief press re­lease yes­ter­day, event pro­mot­er, Rishi Kan­ick, said the in­ci­dent, in which four peo­ple were in­jured, was still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion and his com­pa­ny was mon­i­tor­ing the con­di­tion of the vic­tims, who re­mained ward­ed in hos­pi­tal last night.

"A race car be­came air­borne and col­lid­ed with the stands and spec­ta­tors at the hair­pin turn. Four per­sons were in­jured and hos­pi­talised. An in­ci­dent of this kind is high­ly un­usu­al and has not been seen at Waller­field be­fore and is still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion," Kan­ick said, with­out nam­ing the vic­tims.

When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the fa­cil­i­ty yes­ter­day, sev­er­al mem­bers of the T&T Au­to­mo­bile Sports As­so­ci­a­tion (TTASA), who were dis­man­tling equip­ment, re­fused to com­ment of­fi­cial­ly on the crash.

How­ev­er, un­der the con­di­tion that their iden­ti­ties would be with­held, they claimed all the rel­e­vant health and safe­ty mea­sures re­quired for in­ter­na­tion­al cir­cuit rac­ing were ad­hered to when the course was de­signed for the event.

Point­ing to the bleach­ers, which the car crashed in­to, they not­ed it had on­ly left a dent in alu­min­im poles which held up the roof, as the tyres used as a crash bar­ri­er re­duced the ve­loc­i­ty of the run­away car.

They al­so claimed while con­crete bar­ri­ers were used at oth­er points along the track, they were un­suit­able for the cor­ner where the ac­ci­dent oc­curred.

"The dri­vers would die on im­pact if those bar­ri­ers were used on this cor­ner," they said.

The TTASA mem­bers al­so claimed while the ac­ci­dent was un­prece­dent­ed, the or­gan­i­sa­tion would con­sid­er whether the tem­po­rary stand should be re­moved for fu­ture events. They al­so pro­duced an in­sur­ance cer­tifi­cate for the event and said the as­so­ci­a­tion would be work­ing to ob­tain com­pen­sa­tion for the vic­tims.

The T&T Guardian was able to in­ter­view a close friend of all four vic­tims, who him­self nar­row­ly evad­ed in­jury as he was film­ing videos near the track when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred.

Speak­ing at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, un­der the con­di­tion that he would re­main anony­mous and would not iden­ti­fy the vic­tims, the self-de­scribed car en­thu­si­ast from cen­tral Trinidad said he act­ed in­stinc­tive­ly on wit­ness­ing the in­ci­dent in which his girl­friend, her fe­male cousin, his best friend and his girl­friend were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured.

One of the vic­tims re­port­ed­ly suf­fered a bro­ken leg, an­oth­er a bro­ken arm and two oth­ers sus­tained in­ter­nal in­juries, with one of these two hav­ing to un­der­go surgery Sun­day night.

"All I re­mem­ber is see­ing the first car run off and the oth­er fly­ing in­to the stand. Every­body I was with was in that stand so I ran straight over. They were all bleed­ing and some of their limbs were bent un­nat­u­ral­ly," he said.

De­scrib­ing his friends' sur­vival as a mir­a­cle, he claimed their in­juries would have been more se­vere if they had not been alert and tried to run out the stand af­ter the first car hit the bar­ri­er.

While he ad­mit­ted the in­ci­dent was the first he had seen or heard about since he be­gan to fol­low lo­cal mo­tor­sport events, he said ad­di­tion­al mea­sures need­ed to be im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure the safe­ty of spec­ta­tors.

"There need to be bet­ter bar­ri­ers be­cause you can't stop a guy from los­ing con­trol. Al­though what the dri­ver did, did not look like he loss con­trol but more like he drove in­to the crowd," he said.

Up to the time he was speak­ing to the T&T Guardian, he said the or­gan­is­ers had not con­tact­ed the vic­tims.

"I just want some an­swers and for some kind of help so that my girl­friend would walk again," he said as he broke down in tears.

Min­is­ter of Sport Dar­ryl Smith vis­it­ed the vic­tims yes­ter­day.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the ac­ci­dent are con­tin­u­ing.