Deadly off-road accident in Mojave spurs lawsuits

The off-road racing accident in the Mojave Desert last summer that claimed the lives of eight people, including four San Diego County residents, is about to generate a plethora of lawsuits against the race organizer, the driver of the truck that careened out of control and eventually the federal Bureau of Land Management. The Aug. 14 crash in Lucerne Valley killed eight and injured 10 others when a modified Ford Ranger pickup truck, driven by Brett Sloppy of San Marcos during the California 200 event, veered out of control on a jump and landed in a crowd of spectators gathered near the race course. At issue will be how much responsibility the owners of the land (the federal government) have for what happened, how much responsibility the organizers of the race (Mojave Desert Racing) will bear, and how much blame, if any, Sloppy should shoulder. The Bureau of Land Management has admitted that it failed to follow its own rules for permitting and policing off-road races however the results of the agency’s internal investigation do not necessarily equate to an admission of liability, lawyers say...more