Pickup Driver Dies After Joy Ride at Indy

A man drove a pickup truck into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Wednesday and completed several fast laps before being killed when he crashed into a vehicle parked on the track to stop him.

Stephen C. White, 31, of Indianapolis was declared dead upon arrival at Methodist Hospital.

White apparently came in through a gate left open during cleanup from last Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, police said.

The truck went around the track three or four times at high speed before crashing near the start-finish line, said Jeffrey Dine, police chief for the community of Speedway, Ind.

Luther Wray, a foreman in the Speedway’s maintenance department, tried to block the truck by parking a minivan on the track, Dine said. Wray stood between the van and the track’s outside retaining wall, waving his arms at the driver.

Wray then jumped over the retaining wall and climbed a fence before the pickup came down the front straightaway and rammed the van, flying into the air and coming to rest about 150 feet away.

Dine said White was a manic-depressive who was on medication. White’s parents told police he left home at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and never returned.