Parked car saved lives as Camaro crashes in front of crowd at Wayne Downtown Days

WAYNE, Mich. (WJBK) - As a terrified crowd watched, the driver of a classic Camaro lost control during Wayne Downtown Days and nearly hit multiple spectators.

Witnesses say around 10 pm Saturday, just before Wayne Downtown Days was to wrap up, they saw a classic Camaro attempt to do a burnout when it lost control on Michigan Avenue.

According to organizer for CruisinUS12 John Goci, the stunt is extremely dangerous with so many people around.

"You have a lot of spectators out here and when the muscle cars come through, they encourage them to do a burnout - spin the tires and cause some smoke - the car people, they feed off the audience and that's a very risky and dangerous thing," he said.

According to police, the Camaro hit a Ford Flex that was parked on Michigan Avenue but missed hitting any people.

"Luckily on this stretch, on Michigan Avenue, there's cars parked on each side so that particular incident, the gentleman lost control of a super strong car with a powerful engine and he lost control of it and hit a parked vehicle. Thank God that vehicle was there or he could have hit some spectators and that could have been something that nobody wanted," Goci said.

After the crash, a number of spectators ran to to check on the driver of the Camaro. Police say no one was injured and alcohol was not a factor but the driver of the Camaro was arrested for reckless driving.

Organizers say this incident should serve as a warning for other car events in metro Detroit.

"We got the Woodward cruise coming up so please no burnouts be safe and there are consequences to your actions," Goci said.

John Rhesa is one of the sponsors of Wayne Downtown Days says they'll look to see how incidents like this can be avoided in the future.

"There's going to be a meeting. I know the cruise will have their meeting and downtown will have their meeting and we'll have everybody pow wow and look at what we can do better for next year," Rhesa said.