Spectator, 67, Killed After Race Car Flips Over Fence at Pennsylvania Speedway
A spectator at a Pennsylvania speedway was killed after a race car lost control and flipped into the victim’s pickup truck, authorities say.
Richard E. Speck Jr., of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, was at the Williams Grove Speedway when the crash occurred. The 67-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene, the Cumberland County Coroner’s Office said in a press release obtained by NBC News.
Speck was watching the race from the back of his pickup truck, which was parked along the speedway’s inside fence when two race cars collided into one another following a turn, police said.
One of the cars lost control and struck a wall before barreling over the fence and into Speck’s truck, causing multiple traumatic and life-threatening injuries.
The race was promptly canceled following the fatal crash.
Due to the severity of the accident, we have been forced to cancel the remainder of tonight’s racing program. Freddie Rahmer has been declared the winner of tonight’s event.
— Williams Grove (@WilliamsGrove) August 3, 2019
“Due to the severity of the accident, we have been forced to cancel the remainder of tonight’s racing program,” Williams Grove Speedway wrote in a tweet on Friday.
Fellow spectator Gregg Kohr was in the speedway’s grandstand when the crash occurred, telling PennLive “it’s heartbreaking, somebody was killed. I knew somebody wasn’t going to be in good shape.”
Speck was a fifth-grade math teacher in the Northern York County School District for 35 years and also served as the school’s girls’ basketball coach in the early 2000s.
The two race car drivers involved in the crash were Robbie Kendall and Anthony Macri, with Kendall’s car being the one that hit Speck’s pickup truck. Neither driver was seriously injured, according to PennLive.
The news outlet reports that Speck was a push car operator who helps to assist cars that crash or spin out of control.
