Yellow River Drag Strip Disaster 1969

On the 2nd of March, 19 69, Yellow river was the scene of the deadliest motorsport accident in the history of the United States of America.
Sources
Motorsport Memorial www.motorsportmemorial.org/que...
Henry Ball - The Southern Voice thesouthernvoice.com/drag-rac...
Jim Hall - MOTORTREND www.motortrend.com/news/husto...
Andrew Wolf - DRAGZINE www.dragzine.com/news/flashba...
Tommy Lee - Lost Drag Strips www.musclecardiy.com/drag-rac...
Music
Long Note One - Kevin MacLeod - (incompetech.com) - Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 - creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

Пікірлер: 34

  • @DayOfDisaster
    @DayOfDisaster Жыл бұрын

    Correction: At the end of the video I stated that Houston died aged 51 when he was actually 81. This was an error on my part and I do apologise.

  • @gotham61

    @gotham61

    9 ай бұрын

    Born November 16th 1932, died November 30th 2011. Making him 79 when he died.

  • @AUDIOKRAFTEN

    @AUDIOKRAFTEN

    6 ай бұрын

    Another correction, for anyone curious. Kenneth Jerry Stowe (my great-uncle) was 19, not 26, when he passed.

  • @jamesbrasill1794
    @jamesbrasill179410 ай бұрын

    I survived Yellow River thanks to my dads fast reaction time as the Dixietwister came across the back end of my dads truck. He threw me to the ground between our truck and the car next to us and he was knocked out and laying over the stepside fender. The car hit the man standing next to us in the bed of the truck and killed him. I woke up in the bed of pickup with my grandfather holding me and my dad knocked out and bloody along with a few others on the way to the hospital. I was 6 yrs old. Years later my grandfather told me he found me covered with a coat. Someone covered me thinking i was dead because i was covered in blood from my dad bleeding from his head just above me. Not a single day has gone by since that day that I haven't thought about Yellow River Dragstrip and those 12 who lost their lives. That day is burned into my soul and I'm sure it's the same for many others.

  • @abl892

    @abl892

    7 ай бұрын

    Oh my god that sounds awful.

  • @ChaceDrives
    @ChaceDrives11 ай бұрын

    i live down the road about 2 miles away and one of my friends used to live in that neighborhood, im just now finding this out. wild story

  • @f4tweet
    @f4tweet4 ай бұрын

    The old Lakeland strip in Memphis was like this.

  • @philip-op6de
    @philip-op6de Жыл бұрын

    You can still view this drag strip from satellite however, they’ve since turned the drag strip into a mobile home park. Such a terrible tragedy I can’t imagine going out like that 😢

  • @caseyfaitel
    @caseyfaitel2 ай бұрын

    I am not sure what brought me here, but great video!

  • @tonybuck5252
    @tonybuck52525 ай бұрын

    Thanks for sharing

  • @lonnyyoung4285
    @lonnyyoung4285 Жыл бұрын

    Safety regulations always seem to be written in blood.

  • @richardlyons1754

    @richardlyons1754

    Жыл бұрын

    Always...

  • @TheCompanionCube1

    @TheCompanionCube1

    Жыл бұрын

    Yep. Same thing for workplace safety regulations; they’re all written in the blood of workers.

  • @Dd13200
    @Dd132004 ай бұрын

    Sad day for drag racing

  • @iamdale2309
    @iamdale23093 күн бұрын

    So, Houston was 9 years old when he was racing?

  • @hockyman5757
    @hockyman5757 Жыл бұрын

    That's got to be one haunted ass trailer park

  • @DoctorShocktor

    @DoctorShocktor

    4 ай бұрын

    Thousands of people have died at hospitals, circumstance, accidents, murder, etc. Yet hospitals aren’t roaming with “ghosts”. Which of course don’t exist. Try not to perpetuate nonsense.

  • @christopherdelaney1410

    @christopherdelaney1410

    3 ай бұрын

    Naw it’s pretty chill

  • @johnblood3731
    @johnblood373111 ай бұрын

    Modified comaro--- nothing on that car that was a real comaro. You must be British.

  • @codymoe4986

    @codymoe4986

    2 ай бұрын

    And you must be illiterate...Camaro P.S. In 1969, there's a pretty good chance that there were many "stock" parts on that Camaro, and not "one off" custom pieces...

  • @billscott9045
    @billscott90453 ай бұрын

    I lived in Atlanta at the time and was invited to the race by a friend and his dad. My mom would not let me go. If my memory serves me correctly, a little girl was sitting on her dad's shoulders while he was standing in the bed of his pickup truck, and she was decapitated. I barely remember. Was my mom bullshitting me, or did this really happen. God rest their souls.

  • @ronaldlogan7983

    @ronaldlogan7983

    Күн бұрын

    Five of us were there, crossing the track several times between races. We were on pit side and was standing in what we thought was a good spot, till some drunks started acting up. We moved and it was fortunate, because that was where he started veering right to overcorrreect for the other driver crossing over his lane, on this narrow track. It was 2 hours before we could leave, asthey were using trucks and vans taking the injured to the hospital. I think about 11 dead and 45 injured

  • @downbelowtheducks
    @downbelowtheducks Жыл бұрын

    It said Houston continued racing and died in 2011 at the age of 51. That would have made him around 9 years old the day of the accident

  • @meaninglesscog

    @meaninglesscog

    Жыл бұрын

    Makes you wonder if being that young might have played into the incident. Does give some credence to the idea that people back then always looked older.

  • @DayOfDisaster

    @DayOfDisaster

    Жыл бұрын

    Yes, I should have said 81 not 51. I'm not sure how that mistake got passed me. Sincerely, thanks for spotting it.

  • @CoasterMan13Official
    @CoasterMan13Official Жыл бұрын

    My grandfather told my mom about this incident.

  • @kevinm8604
    @kevinm8604Ай бұрын

    Check out the dork-o-motive podcast by Brian Lohnes. He does a great job covering this incident.

  • @jmead6121
    @jmead61217 ай бұрын

    I was Not There That day @ 12 Yr Old dad said Not Today but I could Here All This in My back n Yard That Last day ...As We Lived Only Les than A 1/3 Mile Away As The Crow Fly's ...As We Could here All Loud Clear Every Race day ....Terrible Day for All There ..".RIP " OMG & Bless All l For the Horrors Of All The Family & Survivors After ..

  • @abl892
    @abl8927 ай бұрын

    Since the fatal motorsports channel was taken down, there is no known footage of the accident. I dont remember, does the real footage actually cut off when the people were hit or did it go further. I dont want to seem like a gore seeker but this may count as lost media.

  • @DayOfDisaster

    @DayOfDisaster

    7 ай бұрын

    The channel that I got, which as far as I can tell is also gone, has a news commentator talking over it. This footage pauses at the moment of impact with the crowds. whether or not the original footage kept going, I don’t know.

  • @abl892

    @abl892

    7 ай бұрын

    @@DayOfDisaster I think that is all there is on the internet. The footage afterward is lost media (thankfully or not, I am not in a position to decide) and also there is a second elusive view. I saw it on a compilation before I knew about the crash (I was also 12 so I didn't look at fatal crashes so I left quickly) but I cannot find it again, mabye the video was removed.

  • @erpfanatic6586

    @erpfanatic6586

    3 ай бұрын

    Yea I don't get why they (you tube) try to hide reality. It's stupid, really.

  • @abl892

    @abl892

    3 ай бұрын

    @@erpfanatic6586 It's interesting that every video containing the accident has been wiped for reasons "not involving" the crash in the last year or two. Though this one remains. The videos/channels were taken down for good reasons but it's just that this crash is always a victim of these bans. Luckily this channel is pretty good at making sure to stay within KZread's "child friendly" policies (they have KZread kids just use it) so I don't think it will be truly lost. Also from my research this is the only place you can find footage of this, Day Of Disaster got this from another video which was deleted (I saw the same version not long before FMC's termination) with the news commentator. But prior to that I saw another view without commentation with only silence/static noise and it faced the area of the crowd more directly and more zoomed in (oddly well positioned) which was on a drag racing crashes compilation which I saw in mid 2022 (or potentially early 2021). It's really odd :/

  • @ronaldlogan7983
    @ronaldlogan7983Күн бұрын

    I was there that day, and it was already a mobile home park. It was sso.etbing I will never forget