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Father speaks out about family's close call at off-road Baja race

Posted at 11:33 PM, Apr 17, 2018
and last updated 2018-04-18 08:39:27-04

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- A San Diego county father is speaking out about his family's close call caught on video during an off-road race down in Baja, but the driver behind the wheel says it's not what it looks like. 

Earlier in April, Matt Scarpuzzi of Alpine and hundreds of other drivers were participating in the "San Felipe 250" when he says another driver deliberately drove through a group of spectators, including his wife and two young children. 

In this type of racing drivers can deviate from the set course as long as they make it to the checkpoints, so technically it wasn't against the rules.

"I couldn't believe that was the best decision, in my opinion, it jeopardizes the fan safety and it jeopardizes a sport that I love," said Scarpuzzi.

The man behind the wheel, B-J Baldwin, spoke to 10News and said it looks worse than it actually was. 

 "I had 100 percent visibility, I knew where everybody was at, knew everybody was safe. Again I was only going about 2 miles an hour when I drove through these tents," Baldwin said. 

He posted the video on his Facebook page and offered to replace anything he damaged. 

"I assured everybody that no one was in danger and I was very very careful when trying to re-enter the course and access the course," said Baldwin.