A race course where a souped up Jeep Wrangler bowled through a fence - killing a woman and seriously injuring her daughter - had been operating illegally, a planning director said.
Candace Brown, 25, of Pilot, died at the scene of Saturday night's "mud sling event" in Franklin County when the vehicle rammed through a chain-link fence and into a bank of spectators, injuring 20 others.
Franklin County Planning Director Matthew Winslow told The News & Observer of Raleigh in its Monday editions that the county has sent track owner Hugh Williams "three or four" notices of violation ordering him to stop the mud sling immediately.
Winslow also said the county is in the process of revoking Williams' permit to run go-karts, and he said the matter has been turned over to the county attorney.
The raceway's banked, dirt track had been used for go-kart racing, in which competitors traveled the quarter-mile circuit at speeds of up to 50 mph. Williams said he began offering the mud sling only this year.
Track workers fashioned a muddy pit in the infield into an obstacle course of hills and increasingly denser mud patches. Drivers were timed as they tried to complete the course, which is about a football field in length, Jones said.
After the Jeep completed the course Saturday, it climbed a rise on the far side and crashed into some of the 300 to 500 people attending the show. Jones said 17 onlookers were treated at Wake Medical Center and three others at Franklin Regional Hospital in Louisburg.
Brown's 2-year-old daughter, Rachel, was in serious condition late Sunday at Wake Medical Center in Raleigh, a hospital spokeswoman said. Jones said the slain woman took the full impact trying to cradle the child.
The Jeep driver - A.J. McCoy, 28, of Burgaw - was not hurt, Jones said.
