By JOANN LIVINGSTON Daily Light Managing Editor
Monday, September 18, 2006 11:03 AM CDT

ENNIS — A fatal accident near the Texas Motorplex mid-afternoon Saturday claimed the lives of two Houston area men.

Investigating officer, Ennis police Lt. Ron Roark, said the two men - Chris Goodheart, 37, and Darr Allen Westra, 38, both of Spring - were part of a group that had come up from Houston to race at the track, pulling the vehicle, a 2006 Ford Mustang coupe, on a trailer.

“They were best friends,” Roark said. “They were racing and were having a problem with a fuel pump.”

The track only allows two time trials, so when the problem continued, the two men took the Mustang, which Westra owned, out onto the northbound lanes of U.S. Highway 287 for further testing, witnesses told police.

Roark said preliminary information indicates the fuel line came loose under the engine and shot gas all over the engine.

“The flames totally engulfed the engine and the fire wall,” he said.

A truck driver who witnessed the incident told police flames broke out and engulfed the car as it was going down the highway and that Goodheart, who was driving, climbed out on the door frame and appeared to try and steer the vehicle from the outside before jumping out of the car and hitting the pavement, Roark said.

The vehicle continued on and went off the roadway, striking a concrete culvert, rolling and ejecting Westra, who was the passenger, before coming to a stop in a nearby field, Roark said.

Witnesses told police they pulled Westra from underneath the vehicle, which was still on fire.

The truck driver and two registered nurses who were behind the accident stopped to provide aid to the men while emergency personnel responded. Both men were transported by air ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, where they were pronounced dead.

The northbound lanes of the highway were shut down for about an hour before the accident scene was cleared, Roark said, saying it took the fire department several attempts to extinguish the burning vehicle.

“It was literally covered in gasoline,” he said, saying it was initially thought the vehicle might have been modified to allow for the use of a nitrous-like special fuel, but that the people who came with the men from Houston said the vehicle had not been modified in that manner.