55 year-old Duane Todd Bills died at Hillman's Street Drag -- could mean changes for annual race
HILLMAN, MI -- A Mio man is dead after losing control of his car at the annual “Hillman Street Drag” racing competition.
The car rolled and crashed into a utility pole Sunday.
Spectators at this weekend's drag races in Hillman say the race got off to a great start, but a few seconds later, they knew something had gone terribly wrong.
"Then all of a sudden, the announcer was saying for the ambulance people and everybody come down and go to the other end to shut everybody down," said Debbie Sidelinker, who was at the races.
There was substantial damage done to Duane Todd Bills' 1981 Chevrolet. His car wrapped around and sheared a utility pole. The car left a debris trail, and bills was killed.
“We've never had any problems, this is just sad," said Sidelinker.
Debbie Sidelinker has been on the sidelines for the majority of the Fourth of July drag races in downtown Hillman. For 18 years, muscle cars and fast trucks have burned rubber down the eighth of a mile progress street strip. It’s an industrial road on the outer limits of town.
"These guys with one single car against the clock is probably the safest you're going to get," said Joe Heppner, who has raced his Chevelle SS in the event for 12 years.
Heppner calls this drag racing event safe and says there could have been many things that caused the deadly accident.
“In anything like that, you're going to have risk, you know," he said.
But still, Sidelinker says she knows some of the people in Wheels of Northeastern Michigan, the car club that sponsors the event, and right now, they don't know what they're going to do next year.
“I've just heard people say they don't even want to think about, they just don't even want to think of doing it again, that would be awful, I mean we have 18 years no problems, no safety issues at all, it would be a shame to shut it down," said Sidelinker.
A Wheels of Northeastern Michigan spokesperson told me they're going to look into changes, but would not say any more. As far as for Hillman, the village manager says he's sure it will be discussed at tonight's council meeting.
