| The National

The sounds of high-performance car engines filled the air on Sunday as thousands of fans, friends and car enthusiasts headed to the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Clarita to pay tribute to Paul Walker at the site where the Fast & Furious actor died in a car crash.

The memorial, planned through social media, was scheduled to begin at noon, but mourners began arriving hours earlier to leave flowers, candles, stuffed animals and other tributes. Throughout the afternoon, thousands of people, including families with children, dropped by.

Many arrived in cars built for speed and the sounds of engines revving echoed close to where Walker and his friend died on November 30. The event concluded on Sunday evening with a cruise through the area 48 kilometres north-west of downtown Los Angeles.

Walker, 40, was killed when the Porsche Carrera GT he was riding in smashed into a light pole and tree and then burst into flames. The actor’s friend and financial adviser, Roger Rodas, who was driving, also died. Authorities say speed was a factor in the crash.

On Sunday, the Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies directed often-heavy traffic as mourners passed by the crash site on foot and in cars.

At one point, traffic backed up for miles, the sheriff’s department said on its Twitter feed.

The deputies set up a command post at a nearby high school, but there were no immediate reports of any problems. Authorities had encouraged attendees to obey all traffic laws, including not leaving memorial items in the roadway.

Walker was in Santa Clara for a fundraiser for his charity, Reach Out Worldwide, which took place at Rodas’s shop and the two had stepped away for what was supposed to be a short drive in Rodas’s car.

The limited-edition Porsche was previously owned by the IndyCar driver Graham Rahal, who has said it could be difficult to drive.

Walker, the star of five of the six Fast & Furious movies, was the face of the franchise. He was making the seventh film in the series when he died. Production was postponed after his death, but in an interview on Friday, the director James Wan said that filming would continue. – AP

Many arrived in cars built for speed, and the sounds of engines revving echoed close to where Walker and his friend died on November 30.