Families mourn eight spectators killed in desert truck race

Families were today mourning eight people killed when a truck rolled into a crowd of spectators at an off-road race in the Mojave desert, California.

The driver, Brett M Sloppy, 28, took a jump at high speed, hit his brakes on landing and rolled sideways, sending bodies flying.

Twelve others were injured. Police said he had not been drinking. Nicky Carmikle, girlfriend of victim Zachary Freeman, 24, sobbed as she placed his baseball cap in a circle surrounding wooden crosses. "His shoes are still over there. I can't even look," she said. "It just isn't fair, it isn't right."

Tens of thousands of people were spread out along the 50-mile track, but the site of the crash, a stretch where jagged rocks stick up, is one of the most popular areas because the trucks become airborne.

The driver "hit the rock and just lost control and tumbled," said Matt March, 24, of Wildomar, who was standing next to the jump. "Bodies went everywhere."

The race is part of a series held in the desert's Soggy Dry Lake Bed, near the city of Lucerne Valley.