warm up and dry out.

warm up and dry out.

"They race until the weather gets too bad. usually late November or early December," he added. "It was unfortunate to see this happen at the end of the season. It was a freak accident. I've never seen a bad accident since I've been coming here."

It is possible that the car's computerized control prevented the driver from stopping or even slowing down after bouncing off the left guard rail. Modem drag racing cars have something similar to an automatic pilot setting where the acceleration is programmed in advance, making breaking difficult until the driver goes through a preset number of gears.

"The cars have all been inspected before racing," Dean said. "The cars are safer than the track."

The safety features worked as they were designed — to protect the driver, who wasn't seriously injured.

"The car's safety cells activated and there was no fire or .explosion," said James Norris, another spectator.

"The rear end of the car is still intact," Dean said. "The roll bar did what it was designed to do. The car took every bit of abuse and held up."

"They like to run 100-200 or 250horsepower engines. This track was designed for cars that run under 100 miles per hour, but the fastest ones are going between 100 and 130 miles per hour when they're in the beginning and then they don’t have much time to slow down on the back stretch," Dean noted. The track is 660 feet, from the starling line to the finish line.

Sumerduck Dragway plans to hold races again this Sunday.

"I don't want to see a race there next weekend," Mrs. Windingland said, adding that the track's safety should be looked into first.

Dean felt the tragedy should have been handled more sensitively by the staff.

"It's a shame,” Dean said. "I'm not a religious person, but instead of playing country music after the accident, they could have stopped and had a moment of silence or said a prayer."