The throw down at the Thunderdrome this weekend in Detroit was a true grass roots good time.

Grass roots, not only in the way it was set up entirely by Detroit civilians, but also in the way that there were no saftey provisions.

Exhibit A: the first bike to fly uncontrollably out of the velodrome ended up rocketing straight at us.

That's me in the gray jeans, striking what looks to be an "oh shit" style running pose.

Luckily no spectator contact was made on this attempt. We were told that a moped went off later in the day and did in fact connect with an on-looker. Not too sure how that panned out but we were told he was carried away. Hopefully everyone involved was alright. It'd be a shame to see this event get all "safe."

Photo taken by Tom Briggs - Click to see all of his Thunderdrome shots.

Here's a great short video of the event, by Grant Zoschnick

5/17 UPDATE: Turns out the runaway rider had a camera mounted to his handlebars and recently uploaded the video of our near encounter. Check out the video and screen capture below.