Crash Hurts Driver Filming Dangers of Drag Racing

A driver participating in a Los Angeles Valley College student film project on the dangers of street racing was critically injured Sunday when he lost control of his car during a drag race and crashed into a parked pickup truck on the Van Nuys campus.

The victim, Anthony J. Galati, 25, of Arleta, was flown by Los Angeles Fire Department air ambulance to St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, where he was being treated for severe head injuries, authorities said.

The driver of the other car in the race was not injured, Los Angeles police said.

Director Tony DeSanto, 29, of Reseda said he was working on the last shot in a school project--a public service film entitled “Street Racing is a Drag”--when the accident occurred. Galati’s car sped out of control and crashed into DeSanto’s truck, Police Lt. Alan Kerstein said.

DeSanto said he was filming from an overpass on Ethel Avenue as two cars raced below. He said he did not film the accident.

DeSanto and Doug Lundin, 25, a friend of Galati, said the car used a special racing fuel that combined aviation gasoline and nitrous oxide.

“Maybe the button that controls the nitrous oxide stuck,” Lundin said.

Police said the cause of the accident was under investigation.

Galati’s orange 1968 Camaro pushed DeSanto’s truck 25 feet. The front of the Camaro, built of fiberglass, disintegrated.

Galati, who owns a machine shop and races at the Los Angeles County Raceway in Palmdale, is married and the father of a 9-month-old son. He was not wearing his seat belt or a crash helmet, witnesses said.

DeSanto said the film was being made to complete a course in the college’s Cinema Department.

“It was a school project to make a public service announcement for a nonprofit organization,” DeSanto said.

“It’s just tragic that someone gets hurt like this when the intent was to enlighten folks,” Police Sgt. Jeffery Martin said. “If nothing else, it underscores the danger (of drag racing).”