Calif. Race Truck Hits Crowd, Kills 8

An off-road truck plowed into a crowd and scattered "bodies everywhere" moments after sailing off a jump at a California race yesterday, killing eight people and leaving 12 injured, authorities and witnesses said. " There were just bodies everywhere," he said. "One woman with a major head wound (was) lying in a pool of blood. Someone else was crushed beneath the car," a photographer covering the event for off-road magazines, told the AP.

The 200-mile race is part of a series held in Soggy Dry Lake Bed near the city of Lucerne Valley in the Mojave Desert. The crowd was standing within 10 feet of the track with no guard rails separating them from the speeding vehicles. A California Highway Patrol rep said that the driver, who wasn't named, was forced to run from the scene when the crowd grew unruly and some began throwing rocks at him. It was not clear why he lost control of the truck. (More off road vehicles stories.)