The father of a teenage spectator killed by an out-of-control sprint car at Marysville race track Saturday night says the driver told him that vehicle’s steering wheel came off moments before the fatal crash.  

Santa Rosa resident Rob Johnson spoke to KTVU Sunday morning about the freak accident the evening before at Marysville Raceway Park that took the lives of two people, one of whom was his 14-year-old son Marcus.

At about 6 p.m., an hour before the start of California Sprint Car Civil War Series’ opening season race, about 6-7 winged sprint cars were speeding around the track as a warm up, which Johnson called “hot lapping.”

According to Johnson his nephew, 17-year-old driver Chase Johnson, told the grieving father that during his hot laps, the detachable steering came off the column of his sprint car, just as he was heading into a corner at a high rate of speed.

The car headed straight for a wall at an estimated 90 miles an hour and instead of crashing, the vehicle was launched into the pit area.

Johnson estimated that the car flew about 150 feet from the track.

“Straight out of the pit gate at 90 miles an hour and just flew in the air,” said Johnson. “Marcus just left my side to go to the restroom, was walking back from the bathroom and the car just flew in the air and hit him.”

Chase’s sprint car was tumbling through the pit area when it struck two spectators – Johnson’s son Marcus and 68-year-old Grass Valley resident Dale Wondergem Jr. Both were there in official capacities: Wondergem owned one of the cars –- though not Johnson’s -- and Marcus was a part of Chase’s pit crew.

Wondergem was pronounced dead at the scene, and Marcus was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived at Rideout Hospital in Marysville, authorities said.

Chase nor anyone else was injured in the accident.

Chase, a senior at Petaluma High School, is a fourth-generation race car driver who had been racing for three years at the time of the accident. His goal was to one day race professionally and he had a reputation as a talented driver at Petaluma Speedway, where he's won multiple races and was last year's series champion.

Chase’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather were also champion drivers in Petaluma, where the family owns a muffler shop, said Ron Lingron, the track announcer at Petaluma Speedway

“They're the first family of the Petaluma Speedway,” Lingron told the Associated Press Sunday. “There's not a better kid you're going to find in the racing community than Chase Johnson. To have something like this put around his neck is a tragedy.”

But Johnson said Sunday that he was unsure if his nephew would ever get behind the wheel of a racecar again after the tragic accident that claimed his cousin's life.

“The two of them were just peas in a pod,” said Rob Johnson. “They'd do everything and enjoy every minute of life together.”

Marcus himself was an aspiring race car driver, starting like his cousin Chase racing Outlaw Karts – Go-Karts with wings like – at the age of 5. The Johnsons’ Santa Rosa home had several of Marcus’ racing trophies on display.

Johnson said that his son was also looking forward to playing high school basketball next year. 

“The sweetest young man -- all his coaches will tell you he's the first one to help someone of give someone a hand or help somebody else,” said Johnson.

As of Sunday, the Yuba County Sheriff's Department was still investigating the incident and had planned to conduct autopsies on the two victims on either Monday or Tuesday.  

But Johnson told KTVU that he believed his nephew about the detachable steering coming off during Chase’s hot laps. Steering wheels in sprint cars latch onto their steering columns via quick release mechanisms because the cars’ cockpits are so small; the steering wheels have to be removable or drivers would be unable to sit down. And even though the steering wheel in Chase’s car was reportedly new and he was good about double-checking the wheel’s locking mechanism, Johnson said he understood that such accidents could still happen.

“There are just things that are unexplainable, things that can happen,” said Johnson. Adding later, “Something had to have failed in the quick release mechanism. I don’t know how it could’ve come off… [Chase] always double-checked it to make sure.”