While family, friends and fans of “Fast & Furious ” star Paul Walker and people close to Roger Rodas, the driver of the Porsche Carrera GT, are at loss mourning the sudden deaths of the two men after a fiery car impact in Southern California on Saturday afternoon, police are trying to discover the cause(s) of the accident.
Today, TMZ shared a new video that was recorded from a surveillance camera located on the rooftop of a nearby industrial park at the precise moment of the crash, which may provide police with new details about the incident.
The footage shows what is believed to be the initial collision when the the 2005 Porsche Carrera GT slammed into a tree and concrete pole causing it to burst into flames, and which was followed moments after by a huge explosion that could be seen from miles away.
According to USA Today , Rodas, 38, a Bank of America/Merrill Lynch financial adviser, and Walker, 40, were friends and co-owners of the car customization and race prep store Always Evolving. The crash happened right after the two men left Saturday's event for Walker's charity organization, Reach Out Worldwide, in Valencia, Calif.
Jim Torp, a friend of the two men, who was at the event, told reporters on Monday that they were not street racing at the time of the crash, as speculated by some reports.
“I’m a good friend of theirs and I’m fighting for them because there’s been a lot of speculation about them drag racing, and that did not happen,” Torp told the LA Times . He recalled that a Highway Patrol officer was parked just down the street, and that after an initial pass, they went out of sight.
"You could hear the exhaust -- they got on it a little bit -- and I heard two booms," Torp said adding that the GT Carrera had already been sold, so they "were not going out to be reckless" with it.