ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 11, 1996 TAG: 9611110073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: WARRENTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
MEMO: NOTE: Different version ran in Metro edition.
A woman sitting in the grandstand was struck and killed Sunday by an out-of-control drag racer and her son was critically injured, police said.
The accident occurred about 2 p.m. at the Sumerduck racetrack in Fauquier County, an eighth-mile asphalt drag strip, during a National Hot Rod Association event, said Fauquier Sheriff Joe Higgs.
The names of the 37-year-old victim and her son were being withheld.
Higgs identified the driver as Daniel Ray George, 40, of Fredericksburg. George was not injured.
According to Higgs, George was driving in the event's second heat in the right lane when his car's transaxle broke.
The car veered across the left lane and then back to the right, went airborne, struck and then flipped over a guardrail and crashed through a 12-foot chain-link fence into the grandstands.
Six other people in the grandstands were injured fleeing the car, but they weren't struck by it, Higgs said.
Higgs said the fence wasn't designed to stop a car.
According to the sheriff, the woman who was killed tried to protect her 5-year-old son, who was catapulted out of the grandstands by the collision.
The car stopped on top of the women; spectators lifted it off her, Higgs said.
The boy was taken to Fairfax Hospital by helicopter, where Higgs said he was in critical condition.
George was competing in the street car division, where speeds reach about 100 mph.
Track officials, contacted by telephone, hung up when asked for comment. Higgs said the fatality was the second at the track. A racer died in 1991 in a wreck during competition, Higgs said.
``The racetrack has a pretty good safety record,'' he said, ``but it's a sporting event, and spectators attend at their own risk at these things.''
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING FATALITYby CNB