WINDSOR — Officials in Maine say five harness racing fans at the Windsor Fair were injured when a starting gate mounted on a moving pickup truck hit them as they stood alongside the track.
According to the Kennebec Journal, the bystanders were struck Monday afternoon after the start of the 13th race. Three were taken to an Augusta hospital, but there was no word on their condition. The others were treated at the track.
Harness races get off to rolling starts, with the starting gate extending to the sides of a moving vehicle. The gates are supposed to retract at the starting line as the vehicle pulls to the righthand side to let the racers proceed.
Monday’s mishap occurred when the gate apparently didn’t retract as intended.
Bill McFarland, the race director at Windsor Fair, was in the race meet treasurer’s office during the incident and did not see it take place. He said he is unsure what caused the mishap and didn’t want to speculate.
“It’s under investigation by a member of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and I would have to defer any comments like that to them as part of their investigation,” McFarland said.
“It’s an unfortunate accident and hopefully the investigation will be able to determine exactly what happened, whether it’s human error or mechanical malfunction or a combination of both,” he said. “I don’t know for sure.”
Dan Ward of Brewer is the owner of The Maine Gate Inc., which leases gate vehicles for use in the state’s harness racing industry. Ward’s vehicles are used during race meets at Scarborough Downs and at nine fairs across the state.
Ward’s fleet consists of three trucks — four Cadillacs and a van — that are used to start the races. He said that each track hires its own driver to operate vehicles owned by The Maine Gate.
Ward was at the Windsor Fair on Monday with his son, who was enjoying rides on the midway. He did not see the incident take place, but said he doubted a mechanical malfunction was the cause of the accident.
“This was the 13th race. They took the same vehicle out and did the 14th race with it,” Ward said. “So I would assume if there was an issue with the gate they would have parked it and used the backup vehicle. Obviously there wasn’t because they went out and used it again.”
Ward is also a longtime employee of the Bangor Daily News.
McFarland said track officials did use the same starting vehicle for the 14th race, but said that didn’t necessarily mean that a malfunction didn’t contribute to the Race 13 mishap.
“That can all be taken under advisement,” he said. “This is all older equipment, and like all mechanical equipment, sometimes it works perfectly and sometimes it doesn’t.”
In the nearly 20 years that his family has owned the company, Ward said The Maine Gate’s vehicles have been involved in only one serious accident; in the early 1990s a vehicle crashed into the outside fence at Bangor Raceway. That incident was due to poor visibility in a heavy rainstorm, Ward said, and destroyed a piece of the fence.
Ward stopped short of blaming the vehicle’s driver for Monday’s incident at this juncture, however.
“I can tell you what my opinion is, but I don’t want to say anything that would shed a bad light on anyone until the police are through with their investigation,” Ward said.
McFarland said the incident was a tragic accident that cast a pall over the fair.
“It’s one of those things that you hope never happens, but unfortunate things that we don’t want to happen, do,” McFarland said. “We’ll just have to see what the outcome is. It’s sad for the families and the people involved. And certainly the Windsor Fair’s sad that it had to end on that kind of a note.”