JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. — Instead of slowing down or steering his black Mustang away from traffic, 19-year-old Bradley Mullins kept drag racing down a busy street on Sept. 24, 2005, a prosecutor said Thursday as Mullins' trial opened.

As a result, David Crockett High School's newly crowned homecoming queen, Cortney Hensley, died in a fiery car crash, charged Washington County prosecutor Al Schmutzer during his opening remarks.

Schmutzer is asking a jury to convict Mullins and David Phillips, 39, of second-degree murder for causing Hensley's death and second-degree attempted murder for severely injuring her best friend, Courtney Beard, also 17.

At approximately 11:30 p.m., Schmutzer said, Mullins was at a red light in his Ford Mustang "squealing his tires" as Phillips sat in his red Dodge Viper "revving his engine and inching up a little."

When the light turned green, the cars took off, he said.

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"The Mustang, which was already going fast, for whatever reason, went faster and the Viper tailed off," Schmutzer said. "The Mustang went off like a rocket."

Sitting at a red light roughly a half-mile away were Beard and Hensley in Beard's Honda CRV.

The best friends had just picked up developed homecoming pictures at a pharmacy and were driving home to look at them.

After a police car spotted the cars and began pursuing with lights flashing, Phillips slowed down and Mullins accelerated toward the girls, who had "no idea what was about to happen," Schmutzer said.

When Mullins, who was at close to 125 mph, finally hit the brakes, it was too late. Schmutzer said the Mustang "fishtailed and jerked back," crashing into the girls' car with "so much force that it drove the Honda almost the length of a football field."

The crash caused the Honda's gas tank to rupture, and as the gas began to spill out, the car's broken gas shift dragged on the ground, creating sparks that caused the car to ignite.

Schmutzer said that, although Mullins and his girlfriend riding with him were able to get away with no major injuries, "Beard and Hensley weren't so fortunate."

The prosecutor said Beard was successfully pulled out of the burning car by people who saw the crash and had stopped to offer help.

"But they didn't know there was another person in there," Schmutzer said. "It was an inferno and it was too late."

The Good Samaritans at the scene and the police officers that arrived shortly after the crash were unable to save Hensley.

Mullins' attorney, Don Spurrell, asked the panel to "filter through this complicated story and sort out what happened in the minds of these men."

Spurrell said the tragic accident was not the result of a conscious choice, but of a series of events like the 1991 northeaster referred to as "the perfect storm."

"The confluence of events created what otherwise, with slight variation, would not have been so severe," Spurrell said

Phillips' attorney, Richard Pectol, claimed his client was not involved in the race, and was merely present at the scene in a fast car.

"It's not against the law to drive a Viper," Pectol said.

He said Phillips stopped at the scene, cooperated with police and even helped them look for black marks where the crash happened.

He also challenged the anticipated testimony of eyewitnesses, saying it can only be believed if one's definition of a drag race is "two cars sitting next to each other at a traffic light."

The trial is being streamed live on Court TV Extra.