It's usually treated as an accident as long as acceptable safety precautions are put in place. If in aus there will be a coroners enquiry and if things are found lacking then people will get charged, the todd wilkes mess was a good example of that. Using an F1 example Frank Williams and iirc patrick head were charged over ayrton sennas death.
d_foo - legally you can't sign away your rights, those things have basically no standing in court. All they do is provide an acknowledgement from you that things could be dangerous however if the organiser is negligent they are still on the hook. Combine this with the fact that organisors can and do get held criminally and finacially liable for accidents goes some way to explaining why sometimes they are perceived to be a pita. The ones that aren't generally haven't figured out that if there's an accident they could go to jail.
My feelings on this whole thing is mixed. Yes, the people standing there but did they know what was really going to happen (ie static burnout vs a launch) and were they in any position to understand how dangerous it was (ok, they should've had a reasonable clue but most people have no concept what these cars are capable of). The organisors and whoever signed off the safety are clearly negligent and deserve to be raked across the coals.
However Troy critchley was also an idiot for agreeing to take part in it. He better than anyone understood the risks and should have said no, not safe, I'm not doing it. The petition pisses me off a bit as so many people go on about lack of personal responsibility these days but when someone does soemthing stupid they are looking to be bailed out using the "oh, the nasty americans are out to get the poor aussie" excuse. I think it's right he's being charged however what is a disgrace is that they organisors have not been. The people paid with their lives, troy is facing charges, the organisors must also be held accountable for what was an insanely stupid stunt which inevitably was going to go wrong.
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