ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- Authorities are searching for a pack of highway stunt motorcyclists blamed for a wreck that seriously hurt five people in a sport utility vehicle.

A handful of motorcyclists were on Highway 364 Saturday when they changed lanes and cut off a Ford Explorer, forcing that vehicle to swerve to the right and hit a Chevrolet Suburban.

The Suburban tumbled down an embankment, ejecting most of its eight occupants. Five people in that vehicle were seriously injured; the other three sustained lesser harm. Only one was wearing a seat belt.

"There's a common misconception that if motorcyclists are in an accident, they're going to only hurt themselves. This proved that wrong," Missouri State Highway Patrol Trooper Brian Geier said Tuesday. "Now the public is more aware that these types of stunts cause these accidents."

By some accounts, a chase vehicle was filming the motorcyclists.

Witnesses said the motorcyclists were "riding wheelies, showing off, doing stunts," with another vehicle following them, Patrol Cpl. Jeff Myers said. He called the antics "total disregard for the safety of others."

In many cases, "extreme motorcyclists" -- thrill-seekers who pop wheelies while pushing their machines to the max, at times over 100 mph -- film their exploits for display, at times for online sale.

Nationwide fatalities increase
Safety advocates are quick to point out that motorcycling is no game, with fatalities nationwide having risen every year since 1997. The number jumped from 2,116 in 1997 to 3,661 in 2003. It's not clear how many of those deaths were related to extreme motorcycling, said Judy Stone of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a Washington-based lobbying group funded by the insurance industry.

During a three-hour drive home last weekend from Pennsylvania, she said she saw motorcyclists "going so fast, weaving in and out of traffic. It was so outrageous. They had to be going 80, 90, 100 miles per hour."

"It's totally irresponsible and very dangerous," she said. "Clearly, you've seen the results of that."

In June 2003 near Omaha, Nebraska, 34-year-old John Reid Jr. was standing on a road videotaping motorcyclists performing stunts and racing when he was run over and killed by motorcyclist Michael Wilkes. Investigators said Wilkes was driving as fast as 150 mph; he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor motor-vehicle homicide, a charge reduced from a felony.

In Arizona, things got so bad that law enforcers in 2002 created a task force targeting sport bike riders that police and motorcyclists agreed were pushing the limits on that state's roads.

Sometimes, authorities said, packs of 10 or 15 sport motorcyclists have raced on Phoenix-area highways, terrifying other motorists. Often, one officer lamented, "their kick is to find cops, race by them, give them the middle finger salute or wave at the officer. They are out of sight in the blink of an eye."

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Hmmm, then why dont these fuckin people give us more places to ride and stunt? Problem solved. Anyhow... FTP

 

Why should they fund it? They're not the ones stunting. Even if they did, I bet most would still stunt on the street.

 

I dont want this to be my first real contribution to this forum...but oh well:

Give you more places to stunt? like you have a god given right to stunt? why dont you get a group together and go rent a facility to stunt at. It isnt the governments responsibility to pacify you. it's like saying bike theft is on the rise...then some thief gets busted and tells the government that they should be providing him a place to go steal bikes from. Riders who stunt on the street have given the rest of the sport bike world a really bad image.

 

preach on. Charles and I both could have lost our lives because of a jack ass kid trying to "stunt" on his bike on BBD.......punk bailed off the bike, and sent the bike sliding right at us. 2 more carlengths farther ahead, and we'd have gotten hit. this one incident did not change my opinion of sport bike riders in general.....but more so of the ones who insist on showing off and putting others at risk.

 

Well put.

 

It is my god given right to be a shithead!

Anyhow, im not even a stunter, and dont claim to be one. Its just that motorcyclists get injured all the time by cages... people get hurt all the time by other people street racing and what not. People get killed all the time by drunk drivers. People get killed all the time by the little old lady who didn't see something. Its just a shame the kind of publicity the stunters get when something bad goes wrong. I truly dont even know what I am trying to say... but I don't like the way they made that article sound. 1000's of accidents happen daily, but this one just so happened to make cnn.com. Go figure...

 

There is a time and a place. People stunting in congested traffic areas are endangering lives of others. There is nothing cool about that.

 

how in the fuck does that justify anything? are you saying i shouldnt crusade against drunks, since one almost took my life? NONE of the situations you mentioned are excusable, ALL should be, and all have been spoken out against.

 

i learned my lesson. i was doing wheelies on 275 when i looped one. i caused another vehicle to flip over. when i got to my feet and saw a mangled truck in the median, i thought i killed someone. luckily nobody got hurt but myself. i found out there was a firefighter and his baby daughter in the truck. i cant even begin to think of the regret i would have felt the rest of my life if that innocent baby would have died. there is a time and place for everything, and putting innocent people in danger is somethig i will never do again.

 

As it turns out, it was not the motorcyclists fault... from what I read. Then again, dont believe everything you breath, you get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve.


100% fault of a 16yr old kid trying to follow some squids

-------------------------------------------------------------
By Jeremy Kohler
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/28/2004

Cory Evans loves the wheelie-popping lifestyle of stunt cyclists. He reads the glossy biker magazines and has been searching ads for a racing cycle of his own.

Cory, 16, of Florissant, and the motorcycles he loves were at the center of a terrible crash that injured eight people on the Page Avenue Extension on Aug. 21. The incident had the St. Louis area buzzing last week about daredevils on bikes. Are they artists? Are they a menace? Do they have a right to expression, or should they be reined in?

Cory was at the wheel of his mother's Ford Explorer that Saturday night with four friends. They were headed toward the home of another friend in St. Charles County, and stopped about 7 p.m. at QuikTrip on Route 94 and Kisker Road.

Four gorgeous bikes were there. A Suzuki GSX-R750 in red and another in blue. Light, powerful, agile machines. With them were a lime-green Kawasaki Ninja and a black Honda.

"Hey, nice bikes," he told the riders, according to his mother, Tina Evans.

Cory's group was expected at their friend's nearby. Instead, they headed back east some 10 miles, eventually taking Highway 364, the Page Avenue Extension, back toward St. Louis.

Tina Evans, who provided this account - but would not let a reporter speak with her son - says she believes they were headed to pick up another friend.

Either by luck or by design, then, Cory stayed with the stunt bikes. Each rider pulled up on one wheel as they zipped toward the Missouri River, the sun sinking in the western sky.

It's a stunt seen ever more often on highways from coast to coast. So-called extreme biking has expanded in popularity; Hollywood has made stars out of stunt drivers. Even the historically staid Motor Cyclist magazine this month started a new publication, Super Streetbike, to reach the wheelie-popping crowd without causing its base of older readers to fret.

For adrenaline junkies, it's an affordable way to get their speed. The fastest bikes cost barely more than an economy car.

Cory "is into it," Tina Evans said. "He is wanting to get one."

The bikes were in the left lane, Cory's Ford Explorer in the center. At right was a Chevrolet Suburban with eight friends heading to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert at UMB Bank Pavilion in Maryland Heights.

Exactly how the crash happened is still under investigation by the Missouri Highway Patrol. What is known is that the bikes cut to the right across two lanes, then exited the expressway at Upper Bottom Road. Witnesses told police that, while the bikers had been performing stunts, they were far enough ahead so that they didn't cut anyone off.

But, for some reason, when the bikes cut into the center lane, Cory cut over to the right lane and T-boned the Suburban.

"Oh . . . ," shouted the driver, Terry Woodson, 44, of O'Fallon, Mo. That's what one of his passengers, Todd Wenick, 41, of St. Charles, remembers.

Begging for life

The Suburban veered off the highway and rolled at least six times. Wenick remained inside the Suburban. So did Nicholas Woodson, 14, Terry's son.

Everyone else was thrown, including Wenick's wife, Jill Wenick, 40, and their son, Ryan, 25. Terry Woodson and his wife, Debra Woodson, 38, were thrown. So were Kimberly Gronek, 38, and her husband Mark Gronek, 44, of St. Charles.

Todd Wenick said he suffered a separated shoulder and injuries to his back, neck and knees. But he felt no pain.

"I asked Nick, 'You OK?' and he said, 'Yeah,'" Todd Wenick said. They crawled out a window.

The bodies were cast over a wide area. Nick found his mother, who said she couldn't feel or move. Jill Wenick was maybe 15 feet from her, covered in blood.

Todd Wenick found Ryan, who seemed unscathed. He escorted him uphill to the side of the road, where a couple stopped and said they would stay with him.

"I told him Mom's fine, but I needed to get back and get her," Wenick said. "I just prayed and begged for her life. I got her to talk. She opened her eyes. I just couldn't lose her. We've been together since the seventh grade."

No charges have been issued in the crash. Police say they don't know the identities of the bikers, but they want to find them. They could face charges for careless and imprudent driving - or worse.

"I'd like to wait and see what the police write up and what the witnesses say and if they ever catch these clowns," said St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Jack Banas.

Although some initial reports indicated that the motorcycles may have been accompanied by someone filming their stunts from a car, police now say they don't believe that was the case.

Stunt riders in St. Louis

When St. Louis area media outlets reported the accident, the story line was obvious: Those stunt cyclists you've seen around town? Some of them might have caused a serious crash.

Probably the area's best-known stunt drivers call themselves the Streetfighterz. They run a kiosk at South County Center, where they sell DVD recordings of stunts they've performed for the past five years. Most of the videos were shot on Interstate 55 between downtown St. Louis and south St. Louis County, using the Gateway Arch as a backdrop. One of their stunts includes a 14-mile-long wheelie.

The Streetfighterz say they have sold 70,000 videos, bringing in $1 million. They have myriad connections and sponsors. They're tight with a rock band, Sted-Fast, which includes the musician who created the beats and sounds behind most of Nelly's hits.

Sted-Fast performs the Streetfighterz theme song, "Ride On," and shows video featuring their stunts during live shows. A few TV news channels, too, played footage from a Streetfighterz video while reporting on the accident.

The exposure on the evening news compelled someone to write on the Streetfighterz's Internet site: "If you see a big, black Cadillac tooling down the highway, don't go @#%$ around flying past me and endangering everyone around you, because I guarantee as soon as I see you coming I'll swerve into your lane and knock your stupid ass off that Japanese piece of @#%$. That would be a great video!"

The threat came as a shock to the four members of Streetfighterz, who are used to adulation and the occasional peeved police officer. They say they weren't the four bikers on Highway 364. They resent the implication that they caused a crash and fled.

However, they freely admit to performing - and filming - their high-speed stunts on highways. They know it's illegal. They say police have issued them some 80 tickets since 1999, though only a few for actually performing stunts.

From basketball to bikes

Moreover, the Streetfighterz members reject the notion that they are either a danger or an undue distraction for motorists. There are plenty of potential distractions on the road, they say. Rude bumper stickers, for example. Gaudy sports cars. Scantily-clad women.

"If a naked lady is going down the road and you crash, you can't blame the naked lady," said one of the Streetfighterz, James Vaughn, 30, of south St. Louis County. "You gotta blame yourself."

Another member of the Streetfighterz, Dennis Cardwell, 26, of Arnold, said he can control his bike with one wheel in the air as well as most drivers can control their cars.

The Streetfighterz say they don't advocate stunt riding. In fact, they would rather no one else did it. But they acknowledge that the trend is taking off, thanks in part to their videos.

The foursome met playing basketball at the YMCA in South County and later started talking about their mutual love of motorcycles. The friendship turned into a competition. As each began to hone his skills, they started filming themselves on highways for training purposes.

Later on came the idea of selling the videos. Why do the stunts? Cardwell and Vaughn were asked. Because they can, they said. Today's bikes are lighter and quicker than those of yesteryear. The stunts are exciting. People like them. If their fans can't do the stunts, they said, they want to see experts like them doing them.

"They like what they do," said the group's lawyer, Les Steinberg. "But there is no way to do it without breaking the law."

The survivors in the Suburban are too badly hurt to compare notes about the crash. Todd Wenick said his wife suffered two broken hips and serious facial injuries. Ryan Wenick has vertebrae injuries, bruises to his lungs and heart, a broken arm and a concussion.

Todd Wenick said he and Terry Woodson have met frequently at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in Creve Coeur, where both of their wives are hospitalized.

The extent of injuries to the others were unavailable because of medical privacy laws, but at least Mark Gronek, too, remained hospitalized as of Friday.

Todd Wenick said he feels the wheelie-popping cyclists caused a diversion, and said he hates to see more youths doing stunts on motorcycles.

So, too, does Tina Evans, Cory's mother.

"I'm trying to keep an open mind," she said. "I'm afraid for my son to get (a motorcycle) now.

"All I know is they were doing tricks," she said. "I don't think they should be doing tricks on the highway. It's distracting and should be illegal. There is a place for that out in the country where there are not a lot of people."

Tim Bryant of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

Reporter Jeremy Kohler
E-mail: jkohler@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-241-9435