Published April 11, 2003 in issue #0010 of The Hook

By HAWES SPENCER

Four miles into the Charlottesville 10-Miler, Jason Wall was in fourth place and thought he was headed for a personal best. Instead, a car was headed for him.

"I was looking ahead focused," says the runner. "Next thing I knew I was on the ground."

Coming East down Grady Avenue, just before the four-mile mark, a 1990 Honda driven by 78-year-old James W. Stone of Albemarle County knocked Wall to the pavement.

"I didn't even see him coming," says Wall. "The bumper hit me from behind-- straight from behind."

The accident marred an otherwise picture-perfect spring race day that saw 1,748 runners-- including winner Tom Jeffrey-- cross the finish line. Wall, who declined medical treatment, ultimately finished the race-- but says he was disappointed that no race authorities checked on his condition or called him in the days that followed.

"No one ever approached me to apologize, other than the man who hit me," says the 24-year-old veterinary student from Christiansburg. No stranger to Charlottesville competition, Wall has taken second place in the Martha Jefferson 8K run, as well as a sixth place in the 2000 running of the 10-Miler. Seeded fifth in the Saturday, April 6, race, Wall had taken time off his work at an animal clinic.

By Tuesday, April 9, event director C.J. Woodburn said she still hadn't received the police report and was preparing to dig through entry forms to reach Wall. She says this is the first such accident in the race's 27-year history.

So how did it happen? According to Woodburn, nearly 60 law enforcement officials and 186 volunteers are supposed to keep cars from entering the course at intersections.

Driveways, however, are another story.

Longtime race official Mark Lorenzoni says that police believe that the driver, who has been charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian, may have emerged from a driveway.

Another factor in the accident, Woodburn says, was that because fourth-place Wall was running apart from packs in front and behind him, he was difficult to spot.

"The question I need to answer," says Woodburn, "is whether the [driver] pulled out of a driveway or an intersection. If it was an intersection, then we have to have a chat with the volunteer who was supposed to be watching the intersection."

Nowhere were the hazards of holding a race on public streets more tragically illustrated than in Blacksburg on June 18, 2000.

On that day, 30-year-old Gary Wayne Taylor, a sports promoter for an affiliate of the Lynchburg chamber of commerce, was competing in the bicycling portion of a triathlon.

Heading down a steep street, Taylor rode past a stop sign and slammed into a car at an intersection. He died shortly after arrival at a local hospital. News accounts said that participants had been warned that they were sharing the road, but questions linger about the wisdom of mixing athletes and steel-- or expecting racers to pause for stop signs.

"That particular intersection was not secure," says Craig Cassell, a friend of Taylor's, as well as a successor in sports marketing for the Lynchburg chamber. "That was the organizer's failure to secure the course."

Cassell says he agrees that monitoring every driveway along a course is a difficult task. His advice: "Make sure the communities understand what is going on in front of their houses."

The annual Greater Blacksburg Triathlon, a town project then its third year, was never run again, and Cassell says Taylor's family is pursuing litigation against event organizers.

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