San Felipe 250 accident brings tragedy and questions for off-road racing

May 14--It happened in an instant. Omar Coronado and Abelardo Padilla were chatting and snapping photos of the SCORE San Felipe 250 off-road race, friends said, unaware of the powerful Trophy Truck hurtling toward them.

By the time they realized the danger, it was too late: the childhood friends were killed instantly on a warm Saturday afternoon last month at this rugged and unpopulated spot southeast of Ensenada.

But their companions say that what happened next has compounded the tragedy: The U.S. driver and his navigator left the scene about 15 minutes after the accident, driven away by members of their team, well before authorities arrived to investigate what happened, they said.

"People were saying, 'Don't take them, where are you taking them?' " said Guillermo Delgado, who was among their group of seven friends who had pulled over to watch the race off a federal road that leads toward Ensenada.

There was little doubt as to the racing team's identity. Photographs from the scene showed the "Terrible Herbst" Trophy Truck with the number 91. In a video interview before the race, Ed Herbst, part of a Las Vegas family prominent in off-road racing circles, said he would be driving the vehicle.

Off-road racing is a decades-old tradition in Baja California, one that brings economic benefits to communities such as San Felipe, draws enthusiastic local crowds, and gives the region worldwide exposure. The annual Baja 1000 is the best known of some 30 off-road racing events that take place in the state.

"It's more than races, it's a culture for Baja California," said Oscar Escobedo, Baja California's Tourism Secretary.

But last month's incident has underscored the sport's inherent dangers -- both to drivers and spectators -- and the need both for clearer rules and rapid response from law enforcement authorities when incidents occur.

A proposed regulation that would delineate responsibilties for the public's safety in off-road races has languished in draft form for two years without approval by the state legislature, said Antonio Rosquillas, the state's civil protection chief.

Within urban areas, the draft rules assigns responsibility for ensuring safety to the racers, race promoters and the municipal authorities.

But "out in the desert, in the mountains, it is up to the public to respond," said Rosquillas. "When you know there's a race with vehicles going at 100 miles per hour, you have to look for a safe place where you wouldn't be hurt if a vehicle leaves the road."

Those familiar with off-road racing in Baja California tell of fans who put themselves in harm's way -- dangerously close to the powerful off-road vehicles as they barrel through the rough, uneven landscape.

"Locals try to touch the race cars as they go by, or they'll get way under a hole and have the trucks jump over them," said Chasen Gaunt, a 21-year-old racer from Torrance. "It's part of Mexico racing, that's the way racers look at it. It's just another obstacle we've got to overcome."

Guillermo Delgado and his brother Raúl Delgado, both schoolteachers, have been watching races for years.

"We've always criticized this, people who go to the races, walk onto the race course, take photos, leading to accidents," said Guillermo Delgado, who teaches elementary school in eastern Tijuana. "On that day, we lost our sense of caution."

The Delgado brothers had been among a group of seven spectators -- six men and an 11-year-old boy -- that included the two victims.

Coronado, 39, was a schoolteacher, who played soccer, loved traditional Mexican folk dancing and lived with his parents in San Vicente. Padilla, 38, also from San Vicente had a spouse and young child, and worked at Valentina's, his mother's restaurant on the Transpeninsular Highway.

On the morning of April 7, the friends left San Vicente, squeezing into Padilla's four-door Toyota Tundra, to see the races. By early afternoon, they decided to prepare a carne asada by the 154-kilometer marker of Highway 3, southeast of Ensenada. The San Felipe 250 participants were racing right by that spot, down a rough unpaved road that runs parallel to the paved road.

The group set up camp about 30 feet from the course, and prepared lunch. Though several members of the group had been drinking beer, consumption had been moderate, Delgado said; Coronado, who was the designated driver, had not been drinking at all.

While the rest remained behind at the picnic area, Coronado and Padilla stepped close to the course, standing roughly a yard away, Delgado said. "When a vehicle passed, they took pictures," he said. Fearing for their safety, "I told them, come back, don't stay there," Delgado said.

As the Terrible Herbst Trophy truck approached, it hit a large rock and lost control, causing a nearby group to scatter. Veering off the course, the truck initially headed straight for the spot where Delgado, his son, and three other members of the group had been standing.

But it then made a sudden turn, Delgado said, skidding in the direction of Coronado and Padilla, spraying them with dirt before slamming into them, and killing them on the spot, he said. The driver and his co-pilot were unaware of what had just happened when their vehicle came to a stop by some bushes just off the track, Delgado said.

He said said some ten minutes had gone by -- the brother said no more than 20 minutes -- when they watched as members of Herbst team arrived in pickups, and quickly drove off with the two racers. As they were being taken away the driver "was crying," Guillermo Delgado said, while the navigator "could not be calmed down, he was devastated."

Still in shock from the accident, the Delgados then watched as a man got into the Trophy Truck, and drove it away, despite members of the crowd telling him not to move it.

The area did not have cellphone coverage, and it was impossible to call for help. When police did not arrive, Guillermo Delgado, his son, and a friend drove to get a signal, and find the nearest municipal police station in the Valle de la Trinidad, about 20 minutes away.

State investigators arrived on the scene about an hour after the incident, "but they just took statements and left," Delgado said; it wasn't until after 9 p.m. that the state medical examiner's office arrived to take away the bodies.

More than a month later, Delgado said he does not blame the driver for the accident, but for leaving the scene. He also blames "our police system that did not arrest them" for doing so, and allowed them to get away.

"They killed people, they didn't kill animals, why did they flee," asked Rosa Edelia Arroyo Ceseña, Omar Coronado's mother. "If they had done this in the United States, they would have faced consequences. How can they do this in Mexico and just wash their hands of it?"

As in the United States, it is illegal to leave scene of an accident, particularly when injury or death occurs, said Fernando López Alarcón, a Mexicali attorney with long experience investigating accidents in Mexico. "I think in any part of the world, when a driver runs into someone and takes off, that's obviously a crime."

But Rosquillas, the civil protection chief, said that there can be extenuating circumstances in remote areas, where it can take a long time for authorities to respond, and racers involved in an accidents can become targets of angry spectators. In those cases, "I would go to the nearest police station and report the incident," Rosquillas said. "The driver should show that he has no intention of evading the law," he said.

The Baja California Attorney General's Office confirmed that it is conducting an investigation for homicidio culposo, or manslaughter, in relation to the incident, but gave no details. Roger Norman, who heads SCORE, the Nevada-based sanctioning body that stages the San Felipe 250, the Baja 500 and the Baja 1000 flagship race, responded to a query that "this is in Mexico, it has no effect on the United States, the Mexican government is in charge of the races in Mexico, not the U.S. media."

Austin Farner, a former racer who runs the FishGistics page and website, said SCORE "has made a big deal about when you get into an accident in Baja, you stay at the scene and you wait or you get help. They have insurance that covers you, you're not in trouble as long as you're in the race."

Drivers are instructed to make contact with SCORE officials, but in remote areas where there is neither phone nor radio reception -- as was the case in last month's accident -- "you need to go to the first area where you have contact," Farner said.

In a statement sent late Friday, SCORE International said it has implemented a number of safety measures, including the establishment of speed zones in several parts of the route that are monitored by satellite; a Stella tracking system that transmits the location of every racer, and notifies them if a racer has stopped for mechanical or medical reasons; the extension of barriers and fences and law enforcement and military presence along the course.

The statement said that SCORE International "has provided all the information requested from the Baja California State Attorney General's Office for their investigation and will continue to cooperate with authorities."

According to SCORE, the family members of the two victims have been contacted by legal representatives of the race team, and were expected to meet with them again this week.

SCORE has not confirmed that Ed Herbst was the driver of the vehicle. But in a video interview posted on the Facebook page FishGistics, which follows off-road events, Ed Herbst said he would be driving Trophy Truck number 91 on behalf of his brother Troy Herbst so as to secure his brother a spot in next month's Baja 500 race.

Repeated to efforts to reach the Herbst team, or its representatives, were unsuccessful. Messages left at the family's Terrible Herbst convenience store business in Nevada and at the Terrible Herbst Motorsports office in Huntington Beach were not returned. The team's legal representative in Baja California answered an initial cellphone call on Friday, saying he was in a meeting and could not talk, and subsequently did not pick up.

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