[rabidralph]

The crowd was standing within 10 feet of the track with no guard rails separating them from the speeding vehicles.

"There were no barriers at all," Jeff Talbott, inland division chief for the California Highway Patrol, told the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

[Moose4]

That sounds like the idiocy that used to happen in European rallying in the ‘80s. You see video from back then and these one-lane dirt roads are packed six deep with spectators—some even crossing the roads or running out right in front of the cars—while the cars are screaming through powersliding at 100+ mph on the ragged edge. It took a couple of crashes like this one until the organizers (now the WRC) got their heads straight and did a better job of controlling the crowds.

This looks like footage from the 2009 California 200 (warning, a little raunchy right at the end):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f8PLtiPWtE&feature=related

Some surprisingly big crowds there at points.

}:-)4