'55 LeMans Crash and Carnage at 150MPH

Yup, saw that awhile ago. Drivers were slaves back then.

 

I could not agree more Brigitte.
Ego has to be left in the pits when on the track.
Safety has to be first and can not be compromised, ever!

 

It was this accident that caused the Swiss government to overreact and ban car races (except for single file competitions like hill climbs) in Switzerland. The Swiss used to have their own GP track, imagine that!

 

Get the Brock Yates book. He tells a great story about this sad year in racing.

 

"He's an old hippie.......and he don't know what to do...
Should he hold on to the past?
Should he grab on to the new?"

Bellamy Brothers

I think he's gonna 'grab on to the new'....steering wheel that is....'black' steering wheel.....Stradale style....

That was a bad crash...........Hawthorn caused it.........

 

In terms of deaths that was the worst accident in motor racing history. Mercedes later in the race black flagged their remaining cars and it was the reason that they later decided to discontinue their road racing effort for many years.

 

It seems pretty obvious that Hawthorn caused the crash, he was the one who had a choice in what he did. 80+ people dead, bodies and burning cars on the track, and they didn't stop the race! Hawthorn causes the accident, and he goes on to win! Incredible!

It's thinking about this accident that makes me cringe every time I watch an IRL race. Those cars run so fast and so close together that it isn't hard to picture someone's car ending up in the grandstands.

 

Imagine spectators on fire with invisible flames. The horror.

 

By the way, thank you Brigitte for the link to the GPL track add-on. Andreas, if you're still running Legends, this looks like a good track to download.

 

I wish I could take credit for my sig, but it is from a tune done by...The Who.

The song is called "Who are you?" It basically consists of the line...

"Who are you? Who, Who... Who Who"


After a while, the "Who are you" phrase starts becoming "You are Who."

Apparently, this was the band's way of saying that their fans were actually the band. Get it? Who are you? Becomes You are Who.

It's only Rock 'N Roll, but I like it.

Dale

ps We meet briefly in Monterey when I was somebody else.

 

But back on subject, I really got to thinking about this after reading Yate's book and then watching the historic races at Monterey. Watching those guys horse those high-center of gravity, front engine, skinny tire monsters around the track really makes you understand what racers had to contend with during the 50s. Long story short, they were out of control. In addition, the crowds were out of control. Look at some of the old GP pictures. You'll see guys standing so close that they could have reached out and touched the cars. Sadly, it seems to always take a disaster before we react. If this crash had not happened at LeMans, it would have happened some place else. It was an accident waiting to happen.

Dale

 

And I thought you got your name from a BBC TV series about a Time Lord with his time machine: Dr. Who. The fourth incarnation of Dr. Who (played by Tom Baker) use to introduce himself with:

“I’m the Doctor.......Who are you?”

But back to the topic: The accident would have to happen at Le Mans. It was the only place on the racing calendar where you had so many entrants you ended up with bad drivers mixed with good and slow cars salted between lightning bolts. Mind you, that doesn’t excuse Hawthorn who should have backed off a corner or two before the pits to show the others on the track that he was pulling into the pits.
There was a conspiracy theory back then that Mercedes were storing nitro in the chassis tubes which is why the car burnt so fiercely....

Kram

 

Magnesium ... was widely used then and into the late 60's. Once ignited cannot be put out.

Pete

 

there's footage of this incident on a video called Havoc.

there was a whole series of Havoc videos that i used to love back in the late 80's early 90's. all these really cool crashes and stuff, however all the Havoc videos only had car crashes where nobody was permanently injured.

then the next in the series was released, i took it home to watch with my usual glee... to my perverted horror this particular release was a compilation of all the crashes where maiming and death were standard fare.

along with the aforementioned incident, it included a bridge falling down at the start of a race with like 30 spectators being killed, and dozens of "normal" crashes which resulted in the non-existence of people.

it was sort of strange, where you're used to seeing crashes and stuff (if you'd watched as many Havoc episodes as me ) and then the narrator cheerfully saying "the driver hobbled away with a sprained ankle". only in this episode, the narrator with the same tone of voice would say "the driver and 17 spectators were killed. now, onto an interesting race in...".

at least that's how i remember it from 10-15 years ago... a chilling episode.

 

I remember the Havoc tapes. But only the ones where nobody got seriously hurt.

 

There is an old book on this morbid subject: "Death Race" by Mark Kahn, which I have seen on ebay several times at rather high prices.

I have also recently read on Atlas/Nostalgia Forum that there is a new book to come out soon: "LeMans 1955 - The Crash That Changed the Face of Motor Racing" by C. Hilton. If this is Chris Hilton, who has done several exhaustive books on racing, it should tell the story in very great detail.

I have seen the video of the crash numerous times. In the movie "Fangio", he narrates the action and gives his personal views, he being closer than just about anyone to what happened.

 

Havoc? Cool crashes? I guess that’s a bit subjective. I was in the first series...

Kram

 

You were? Driving what?

I guess yeah, if you sit inside the car, the crash looses a lot of its entertainment value...

My only accident in a race car was not taped. Which is just as well, I don't need additional records of an embarassing moment...