Wednesday, August 9, 1995
RACING CAR CRASH WINDS UP IN LAPS OF FEDERAL JURY
DRIVER CRASHED IN A 1992 PRACTICE. RESCUE TRAINING IS CHALLENGED.
With a winged sprint car sitting on a carpet before them, federal court jurors in Kansas City, Kan., began hearing evidence Tuesday in the personal injury case of a professional race car driver whose career ended in a fiery crash three years ago.
The crash occurred April 3, 1992, as Douglas Allan Wolfgang was running his last practice lap at Lakeside Speedway in Wyandotte County.
The car ended up a mass of mangled metal, with Wolfgang trapped inside unconscious while the track fire and rescue crew worked desperately to extinguish a methanol fuel fire and extricate him.
Wolfgang, 42, suffered severe head and neck injuries and burns that penetrated into the bones of his feet and legs, said Victor A. Bergman, Wolfgang's Kansas City attorney.
The white and silver racer before the jury is similar to the sprint car Wolfgang crashed. Its pieces were hauled up on a freight elevator last Friday and assembled in the sixth-floor courtroom where it sits for demonstration purposes.
The trial is expected to last three weeks.
The defendants are Mid-America Motorsports Inc. and RED Racing Inc., the owners and operators of Lakeside Speedway, and World of Outlaws Inc., a sanctioning body for sprint car racing.
Wolfgang contends that the defendants were negligent because they failed to provide an adequately trained and equipped fire and rescue team at the track.
In his opening statement, Bergman said Wolfgang will ask for damages of between $1.1 million and $3.2 million, including lost earnings and disability. Bergman said Wolfgang seeks damages only for injuries resulting from the fire, not the crash.
Running at a high speed on the last lap of the practice session, Bergman said, the left front tire of Wolfgang's car clipped an infield barrier. The car careened up the banked track and crashed into a concrete wall; the impact knocked off three wheels and mangling the vehicle's body, Bergman said. Wolfgang's helmeted head hit the wall; the impact cracked the helmet, injured his head and broke his neck. The car then slid for about 250 feet.
The fire and rescue team consisted of two volunteer firefighters and two drivers.
Bergman contends the team had no training and had not drilled for handling a car-crash fire. He said the team erred by trying first to extricate Wolfgang, who wore fire retardant clothing, rather than concentrating on extinguishing the fire.
Witnesses estimated it took as long as 10 minutes to extinguish the fire - far longer than it should have, Bergman said.
Kansas City defense attorney Michael Grier told the jury that the members of the fire and rescue team have years of experience in fighting car-crash and fuel fires at Lakeside and other area tracks.
Grier said a driving error by Wolfgang caused the crash. The attorney attributed the delay in extracting his client from the car to a malfunction of the steering-wheel release. Grier said the fire was particularly stubborn because a fuel filter, a fuel pump and a fuel shutoff valve failed.
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Section: MID-AMERICA
Page: C2
By JOHN T. DAUNER, Staff Writer
All content © 1995 THE KANSAS CITY STAR and may not be republished without permission.
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