Drivers who've been thrown from their cars

The list is, of course, enormous, but a great name that is missing is that of Alberto Ascari, fatally thrown from a Ferrari at Monza in 1955. I couldn't believe it.

Mike Parkes was ejected from his special lengthened wheelbase Ferrari 312 at Spa but his long legs caught within the cockpit during at least one roll which inflicted the extremely serious injuries he received. Poor Ray Heffernan, I believe, was driving the ex-Moss/Walker 1958 Argentine-winning Cooper when he capsized it and was thrown out? I remember being told that the car actually landed on its wheels after a mid-air roll and then chuntered to a halt with very little damage, but tragically unoccupied...

DCN

I think that is essentially correct, Doug...

But, as this was the first time I'd ever seen a dead body, I think you could say I had other thoughts on my mind. The comments from Glynn Scott later in the day, as he described what he saw of Marchiori's accident... or what had been conveyed to him about it, more likely... were even more gruesome, and the cement dust etc that was put down to cover the blood trail on the track was, IIRC, plainly visible for some meeting afterwards.

Gawd - you're beginning to sound like Buford...

DCN

I remember seeing a rare pic of the Mike Parkes career-ending crash. Parkes waas lying beside his car uncounsciouss and his leg twisted horrible to the other side.

What angered me was that you can see a fire extinguisher at the side of both PArkes and his car. What the hell did those marshall's do? did they just put out the fire and went to get some rest and a cup of coffe and leave that poor man fight for his life there on the ground?

Originally posted by GunStar
I was at Goodwood a couple years ago, and somebody got thrown from a Ferrari. Don't remember much as I didn't see the event, only hear about it around the stands.

FYI, just ran across this photo of Nigel Corner's "flight" at Goodwood. Godawful looking.

http://www.crashin.n...pen/open003.jpg

I read that he recovered:up:, hence my glibness.

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Gawd - you're beginning to sound like Buford...

Or is Buford beginning to sound like me?

No, it was actually the goriest day I'd ever spent at a circuit. Then, it could be worse... I could have been there when Glynn Scott died. Or arrived in time the day John Ward was semi-ejected through the windscreen of his rolling Lotus Cortina.

This business about John Marchiori is all news to me.

I was very good friends with John and raced against him at that time. I had first met Ray Heffernan only weeks earlier, on the dummy grid for a race at Warwick Farm Short Circuit.

That fateful day at Oran Park I was not racing. I was driving a taxi that day - one of the three jobs I had at the time, trying to earn enough money to get to the next meeting.

But I was told by mutual friends (of John and myself) that he'd had a fairly simple looking roll over and when the car landed on its wheels, he looked like he was sitting in it, relatively unharmed but, in fact, dead. They believed he'd whipped his neck sideways during the rapid roll and had broken his neck.

From that day to this I believed this to be the truth and that he was outwardly unmarked.

How can eye witness reports be so different?

Barry, I didn't see the accident at all. My comment, as noted at the time, was Glynn Scott's description of it. I would have thought, however, that he would have been running in that race. Indeed, on checking, he was leading it, and the accident happened on the second lap.

I have always considered the blame for that accident should lie at the feet of the officials for leaving Trenholm's Vee on the edge of the circuit on the exit to the corner, with a "we'll get it out of the way for the next race" syndrome prevalent.

Racing Car News reported (by Wherrett) :

"On lap two Marchiori drifted wide on Energol, crashed into the parked Vee and the Lotus rolled, ejecting Marchiori partly from the seat and causing his head to strike the track, inflicting fatal injuries.
The car finished in such a position as to make racing dangerous and officials immediately abandoned the race."

My discussion with Scotty about it was within a short time of the race's abandonment, but as I said, he was not in a position to see the accident. Those who would have seen it would have been Kevin Pinkstone and Terry Quartly, who were next in line after Marchiori on the first lap.

That aside, there was a helluva mess on the track, and the stains remained for a very long time. Heffernan, by the way, looked unmarked. But perhaps that accident points to why someone might not think much of how Marchiori's accident looked.

In Heffernan's crash, another car rolled, the Ralt of Hamilton, who had his car finish up inverted just yards from Heffernan's body lying up against the wall. All eyes were on the sight of Hamilton waving his hands about under his upturned car and hence the body of Heffernan was almost being ignored. I know this was true of myself and of a number around me.

So someone seeing Marchiori's rollover from a different angle, say from the pits side, might have not seen him 'partly ejected' and only seen the car landing on its feet with the driver bouncing back into place.

All my surmise, I didn't see it happen. Damon Beck might be on the pace with this, he was well placed among the Vees that day.

Originally posted by Slyder
I remember seeing a rare pic of the Mike Parkes career-ending crash. Parkes waas lying beside his car uncounsciouss and his leg twisted horrible to the other side.

What angered me was that you can see a fire extinguisher at the side of both PArkes and his car. What the hell did those marshall's do? did they just put out the fire and went to get some rest and a cup of coffe and leave that poor man fight for his life there on the ground?

Mikes accident happened at a time when the Mobile Grand Prix Medical unit was just becoming established. For the first time, a properly equipped facility attended each race as a matter of routine. I understand that, in fact, he was in the ambulance and recieving treatment even before the cars reached Blanchimont on the second lap! When you consider that his condition had to be stabilised and his fractures dealt with in this time, I think it's a remarkable achievement even by todays standards.

Sunday, November 20th 1966 was my first Open Race meeting (I commenced a month earlier at a Warwick Farm Club Meeting). I qualified well, to make the front line on the grid. Early in the day I placed second in Event 5, a 12 lap Vees only race. The second event for me was Event 12, over 10 laps, and, as well as the Vees, included the fast racing cars with Glyn Scott on pole. I started well, holding third place in the Vees (about tenth outright), with Jeff Trenholme close behind me. As we went through Energol Corner onto the main straight, in my mirrors, I saw Jeff spin and go off about mid-way through the corner. I was concentrating on chasing Robert Muir during the second lap and, at the Dufor Dog-leg, I looked across to see what had happened to Jeff's Nota. As I did so, John Marchiori's Lotus clipped the rear wheel of Jeff's car and proceeded to roll and cartwheel up the track. John was apparently unaware (as he was well ahead) of Jeff's incident on lap one. When he came around on lap two he was, I understand, trying to pass another car on the outside and had not seen where the crashed Vee finished up. The race was abandoned immediately.

Jeff Trenholme was distraught and never raced again. His car was repaired and was sold to Enno Buessellmann who slid off at the same spot in July 1967 trying to qualify for his first race, badly damaging it. Enno fixed it and went on (in his second car, the self-built Trips Vee) to become a star in Vees.

That I have been relatively unscathed through many seasons of competition is due in no small part to the impact on me of that day.

I think we've discussed that before, Damon...

Did you see to what extent Marchiori was ejected? I refer here to Barry's mention of the incident.

I was busy having my own race and was about three or four seconds behind the incident - hence being able to catch sight of some of its horror when at the Dufor Dog-leg.

There is a photograph somewhere - maybe in a newspaper of the time - graphically showing John's partial ejection from the car.

To revisit the incident in further detail I feel takes away from the dignity which John's memory should have.

John Marchiori was a very safe driver, and a hell of a nice person; quiet and unassuming. I had no fears about racing wheel to wheel with him. I don't remember him ever having had a crash other than this one. He raced purely for the love of the sport.

From "evidence" given here, it sounds as though John was a victim of circumstances beyond his control. What were the flag marshalls doing between the time the stationary car went off and when John arrived? If yellow flags were being waved, why would he have been trying to pass another car on the outside?

I suppose one positive side-effect of the insurance disaster we have on our hands at the moment is that such things are far less likely to happen today.

Another factor that comes to mind here is this business of saying nothing about fatal crashes - out of "respect" for the dead. As I was racing at the time, on this same track and in this same class, should I not have been more aware of what had happened, so I could have taken steps towards avoiding such a fate for myself?

Although I knew the people concerned and was active at the time, I knew nothing of the details of the crash until now. No one said anything to me other than that he rolled over, landed on his wheels and was sitting in the car looking as though he should step out and walk away. It was described to me as a "freak" incident that was unlikely ever to happen again.

It sounds to me as though the same thing could have happened to me at the next meeting, simply because noone wanted to say anything about it - and therefore did nothing about it. I am sure John would have preferred that his racing friends could have learned something from his demise that could have made their racing safer.

Perhaps we might have thought a bit harder about racing with no seat belts, wearing only jeans and T-shirts (or cotton "Dunlop" driving overalls as was becoming the vogue at that time, and were worn by those who could afford them), and wearing goggles that had not a snowflake's hope in hell of stopping a flying stone.

A couple of members here asked about Paul Warwicks accident; he was thrown out and landed on the bank the car had completely disintergrated on impact from memory he may have still had part of the monocoque/floor strapped to him. Richard Dean stopped and ran to the main part of the car which was on fire only to discover Paul was up on the bank rather than in the wreckage.

Jack Brabham was thrown out of his Cooper at Monsanto Park in 1959, which saved his life (as he himself explains in the splendid interview featuring in one of the Motorfilms Quarterly volumes), although he was then almost run over by Masten Gregory. When after the race Brabham asked Masten why he had nearly done so, Gregory said that he had taken his hands of the wheel having seen all the electricty poles and wires - that Brabham had knocked down - flying around. I also believe that John Surtees was thrown out of his Lola during that 1965 Group 6 sports car race at Mosport. I believe the Lola then somehow landed on top of him which moved what I think was his pelvis around quite significantly, causing a lot of internal damage. Finally, I will never forget the sight of Patrick Tambay exiting his Ligier at Las Vegas in 1981. He wasn't actually thrown out, but the car was so badly damaged that he could simply get up and walk straight out through were once was his dash. And, lest we forget, Jean-Pierre Sarti was of course thrown out of his Ferrari at Monza in 1966...

During a Formula Dodge race at Laguna Seca in the summer of 1996, Tim Goetz rode over the back of Jon Fogarty in turn 2 after the start and started barrel rolling. He started coming out of the car towards the end of the run-off area (soft gravel) and flew out of the car. I was looking at his head/ upper body when he was rolling and luckily he didn't hit the pavement while rolling. Also luckily he started coming out of the car when he got to the soft gravel closer to the wall and not just hard gravel that is right off the pavement. We were standing in turn 2 on a photographer's stand basically right after the gravel trap (I was racing in another Skip Barber race group and got there with one of the instructors). When everything stoped we ran down to him, he was in shock but conscious. I ran to the car and shut the car off. I didn't think to look in the car to see if he undid the seat belt or just slipped out of them. He stuffered from a chipped vertabre and a few broken ribs and went on to race another day. Lucky boy. 15 minutes later, I strapped in and drove my race....crazy.

De Adamich was thrown out of a 3 litre F1 Ferarri in practice at Brands Hatch in, I think, 1966. I was the Observer at the post #2 at the entrance to Paddock Hill bend when he lost control under braking, went backwards into post # 3 then the car somersalted high into the air in a cloud of dust coming to earth close to the tunnel entrance on my side of the track. I dispatched two marshalls with a fire extinguisher, which they needed as the car burst into flames on their arrival. The fire was out in seconds and then one marshall came back to say that they couldn't find the driver! We soon found out that turn 3 had him. He didn't want to go into the ambulance but Innes Ireland was there and spoke to him in French and calmed him down. De Adamich injured his back and didn't race F1 again.

Re surprise expressed at driver thrown out of sedan car in pre belt days: Doug Weilly from Orange in NSW rolled his Sunbeam Talbot saloon at a mid 50s Mount Druitt meeting, leaving the airborne car via the open sunshine roof. Newspapers of the day had graphic photos of the driver, half out

Got tossed out of a "K8" type car at a shingle hill climb, I had a roll bar [ which got only slighty bend ] and I was wearing a lap only belt. As someone said not very effective. The only damage to the car was four bent wheels [ "five wide" wheels took a bit of bending ], a little dent on the grill and the back of the tail. I cracked my helmet and had a bruise on my back in the form of a tyre tread. All I can remember is lining up at the start, then next sitting in an ambulance and some one saying if you can stand up a walk you should be ok. This happened in the very early seventies, since then I have always sported a roll cage and full harness [ the first one being ex US miltary aircraft ] I have had since many a tumble in sprint cars and to stay with the car is a far better way with out a doubt. Better to be a alive sissy than a dead hero !!

Originally posted by Formula Once
[B] Finally, I will never forget the sight of Patrick Tambay exiting his Ligier at Las Vegas in 1981. He wasn't actually thrown out, but the car was so badly damaged that he could simply get up and walk straight out through were once was his dash.

Yes, he just picked away a few bits of twisted bodywork and casually hobbled to the side of the track. It makes you wonder again about the level of frontal protection offered by those early 80s F1 cars.

Just got hooked in to this interesting thread – although I’m not clear why the original question was asked! Bear with me, and I’ll review some of the history of all this, including the emergence of race harnesses as safety devices.

As Doug and Ray have commented, I got interested in examining the effect of ejection on motor-sport injury in the mid-sixties. From the dawn of motor sport, to the extent that anyone thought about it at all, it was the received wisdom that it was better to be “thrown clear” from a crashing car. Of course, hundreds of people were in fact thrown from crashing cars, because in the absence of restraint in wide-open cockpits, it was hard not to be (Doug makes the same point). And, fortunately, most of the ejected drivers and co-drivers survived. The question, “but – in general – would the outcome be better if they stayed inside?” was never examined, or even considered as far as I know.

The first patent for a comprehensive restraint harness was taken out in France in 1903. Rudimentary leather lap belts were used in aviation back to 1910, mainly to stop pilots falling out during manoeuvres, but crash investigators were finding serious head and face injuries from panel impact. The first volunteer experiments with upper torso restraint in aircraft were undertaken in 1937.

In 1917 a young Canadian pilot, Hugh de Haven crashed heavily but survived. He was one of the very first to ask, “why was that so?”, but was told by his superiors that crash survival was simply a matter of luck (a view that Jenks held to his death, I believe). In 1935 de Haven then crashed a car, realised that nobody knew much about why people were hurt in car crashes either, and against huge opposition went on in 1942 to found the world’s first crash injury research team at Cornell University, covering both aviation and road safety. He strongly encouraged the use of four-point harnesses for WW2 pilots, and in 1950 presented the concept of a three-point lap-sash harness for road cars.

Cornell research showed in 1954 showed that when an occupant was ejected from a (closed) car, the risk of injury doubled, and by 1958 US mass data had shown that thousands of lives could be saved by preventing ejection. By the early sixties I was in the RAF working in aviation medicine, with a special interest in replacing US harnesses with the British ones made by GQ, and came to the opinion that it was about time what we knew about advances in occupant protection were applied to motor sport. But there were no hard data.

So, through 1967 I followed up on well over 200 race crashes in the UK, at all levels of the sport. Obviously, I couldn’t evaluate the effect of harnesses in open cars, because nobody was using them. What I did was to compare the outcome in all crashes – including rollovers – for drivers who were ejected versus those who were not. Statistically, the results were very convincing: ejection presented a clearly higher risk of injury, even when the car rolled (these were the days when rollover protection was rudimentary, when it existed at all).

Doug remembers that while I was doing this work I was writing on several aspects of race safety quite extensively in the motor sport literature, predominantly in his esteemed journal “Motor Racing”. This was in preparation for my book, “Motor Racing in Safety”, which was published by Pat Stephens in February 1968. In 1967 Louis Stanley had begun the International Grand Prix Medical Service, and I asked him to write a Foreword for the book. He did so, and I remember his words thus: “I’ll have a harness put into Stewart’s car”.

Jackie Stewart was already becoming unpopular in some circles for his work on circuit safety, and readily accepted the case for harnesses in open cars. He became the first such user in Formula One. Incredibly, by the end of 1968 every F1 driver was using a harness, with a very rapid diffusion into other levels of racing. (The development of my six-point concept was an associated issue and another story, but this post is too long already.)

In 1972 the (sadly, long-defunct) Jim Clark Foundation published a detailed report on crashes in Grand Prix racing from 1966 to 1972, a period that covered the rapid change in harness use. This convincingly confirmed the benefits of a race harness, including the prevention of ejection and impact against cockpit interiors. Since then, and as previous posters have shown, the only things allowing ejection from an open car have been disruption of the cockpit and belt mounts, and gross misuse. By the late seventies worldwide deaths in motor sport had ceased their inexorable rise and started to fall quite rapidly, as science was at last being applied and some of the mythology was fading away.

Great post Michael, very interesting to learn more of the history behind harnesses and their development and rapid rise. As someone who has just taken up motorsport I've made sure I have the best seat and harness possible, but I think that is a reflection of modern technology and society.

As an aside, my late Dad was never thrown of of a racecar (there was an incident as a 15 year old when rolling his Dad's Dellow at a Speed Trial and being chucked clear!!) and was always very safety conscious until he had a big accident at the British GP in '79 when his harness and seat broke (the doctor's said it was a good thing, as he probably would have broken his back if not) and his helmet came off, still buckled. He was thrown around inside the car (saloon) and whilst suffering three skull fractures, broken teeth, damaged kidneys and various severe lacerations, etc at least he survived and raced on. After '79 he had no fear of the consequence of an accident so to speak and whilst he would always wear all safety equipment and belts for a race, testing and practice/qualifying was a bit more pipe and slippers or rather slacks and slip-ons!!

I mean no disrespect to Mr Fairservice, but I am confused that an accident at Brands in '66 ended the career of Andrea de Adamich, as I seem to recall reading that his was the only injury sustained in the Jody Scheckter multiple pile-up at Silverstone in '73

It was interesting to read Michael Henderson's post -- a good, informative post can never be too long in my opinion, and this one fit the bill to a "T" -- and think back to the period being discussed. The work at Cornell was mentioned, another source as an agent in change in motoring safety as well as racing safety. This is another one of those themes in the history of motor racing that seems to often be overlooked. Michael's post jarred my memory on the issue of the use of upper torso harnesses for pilots in the US AAC/AAF and USN/USMC. Plus, the efforts of USAC in the area of driver cockpit restraints.

A name that I could not find mentioned, but whose death is certainly germane to this discussion, is that of Joe Weatherly. Although Weatherly wore a lap/seat belt, he did not wear a shoulder/upper torso harness, although this was fairly commonplace in NASCAR by the 1962/63/64 period. Having just recently come across -- once again -- the pictures of his fatal accident at Riverside in January 1964, it is possible to think that had Weatherly been better restrained in the cockpit area of his car and not allowed to be partially ejected/displaced that he may have escaped death or even serious injury. The damage to the car itself was relatively minor. Plus, it is interesting to realize that it would be another half-dozen years before the advent of window nets as a standard safety feature in NASCAR. While a window net may not have saved Weatherly, the combination of an upper-torso restaint and window-netting could have reduced the extent of any injuries.

Like Michael Henderson I had not seen this post before and purely to set the record straight one of the correspondents commented on Jimmy Stewart being thrown out of a Jaguar at Le Mans in 1954. This is not correct he was thrown out of an Aston Martin DB3S Coupe and recalled sliding down the road and watching the Aston Martin destroy itself. The problem was aerodynamics and the sister coupe of Prince Bira crashed almost next door. For those interested this is how the Stewart Aston ended up.

My memory is at fault. I have tried to find out more about Andrea De Adamich's career, and it seems that CPbell is correct in that he did return to F1. I also found out that it was in 1968 when he drove F1 for Ferrari.

Originally posted by Robin Fairservice
My memory is at fault. I have tried to find out more about Andrea De Adamich's career, and it seems that CPbell is correct in that he did return to F1. I also found out that it was in 1968 when he drove F1 for Ferrari.

Thanks Mr Fairservice for your fairness - I was concerned that you might be offended by a newbie questioning the upshot an upsetting event that you personally witnessed. I really didn't mean to sound like a smart Alec; I wondered if the references I'd heard to de Adamich at Silverstone were wrong. Given that he had to be eased out of a mangled car in that race that could easily have caught fire as his Ferrari did in '66, I'm not surprised that he retired fairly shortly afterwards (not sure how soon, though).

Originally posted by dmj
I remember a fascinating picture of Cliff Allison thrown from his car in Monaco in (I believe) 1960.

That foto is here: http://www.foroalons...ccidentes-2507/

Sorry, I am not crafty enough to show the photo. See Post 12.

By the way: I fell out of a kart once. Very slowly. I parked it, almost upside down against a banking. And after it came completely to a halt, I sort of slowly... drooped out backwards!

And I have a technical question, to the more expert posters here. I always believed (falsely or not), that in crashes not only the hitting with objects within or outside the car is dangerous, but also the sudden de-accleration. Now suppose a driver would be well restrained in a Fifties Car (A Ford), and the car stops very suddenly. Modern cars crumble, lose parts, in which a lot of the crash energy is divided over a large area (and away of the driver). Old cars stay intact, so that the energy of the crash and the de-accleration 'arrives' at the driver very quickly indeed... Would that not still mean that, in some cases, seatbelts and rollcages are not that safe?

Honest question.

Originally posted by Michael Henderson
In 1972 the (sadly, long-defunct) Jim Clark Foundation published a detailed report on crashes in Grand Prix racing from 1966 to 1972, a period that covered the rapid change in harness use.

There were copies of this report for sale on eBay recently - I was unsure as to whether they were illustrated or not. (Not something I was particularly keen to see pictures of to be honest).

Originally posted by dmj
And Greatest of them all lost his life when thrown out on January 27, 1938.

January 28, 1938...

I was having my summer holiday in Czech Republic this year. In a local pub I heard a discussion about the Brno race-track and I asked if I could join in the discussion. The group of these elderly men also discussed about Josef Bradzil, a former mechanic/driver who took part in a Grand Prix there sometime in the mid-1930s'. They said it was possible that Bradzil drove off the track on purpose and killed himself. Does someone know more of this mystery?

What did you find by typing "Bradzil" in Search BB?

Originally posted by Greatest
I was having my summer holiday in Czech Republic this year. In a local pub I heard a discussion about the Brno race-track and I asked if I could join in the discussion. The group of these elderly men also discussed about Josef Bradzil, a former mechanic/driver who took part in a Grand Prix there sometime in the mid-1930s'. They said it was possible that Bradzil drove off the track on purpose and killed himself. Does someone know more of this mystery?

Thought this rang a bell...

http://forums.autosp...dzil#post265942

APL

Originally posted by Alan Lewis


Thought this rang a bell...

http://forums.autosp...dzil#post265942

APL

Damn...! I'm sorry for having under-estimated the meaning of Brazil in motor racing and the searching in the internet! I feel embarrassed for being guilty of laziness and stupidity... Next time, I will do some research before asking something! Sorry again, guys!

Don't feel too bad - we've all done it

The following excerpt from Hubert Hahne´s book "Schnell um den Nürburgring" (from ´68, I think) not only gives a first-hand account of what being thrown out could be like if you were lucky, but also serves as a reminder (as if any were needed) of how times have changed...



"Unmittelbar nach dem Kallenhard folgt die `Hahne-Gedächtniskurve´, wie Freunde nach meinem Sturz mit einem Abarth-Werkswagen den sehr schnellen Wehrseifen-Abschnitt nennen. Hier hatte ich anläßlich des Trainings zu einem 500-km-Rennen des Guten etwas zuviel getan und mich überschlagen. Beim zweiten Überschlag war ich aus dem Wagen katapultiert worden und rutschte mit dem Abarth um die Wette. Die größten Schwierigkeiten bereiteten mir nicht die Nierenprellungen und Knochensplitterung an der linken Hand, sondern vielmehr die Hautabschürfungen am ganzen Körper. Um die Schmerzen zu betäuben, habe ich erstmalig in meinem Leben konzentrierten Alkohol in Form von mehreren Gläsern Gin, unter Zuhalten der Nase zu mir genommen. Alkohol in diesen Mengen widert mich vom Geruch her schon an. Geholfen hat es offen gestanden auch nicht, da ich bereits 2 Stunden später aufwachte und mich dann erst recht hundeelend fühlte."


"Immediately after Kallenhard follows `Hahne-Memorial-Bend´, as friends of mine call the very fast Wehrseifen section since my crashing there in an Abarth works car. Here, on the occasion of a practice session for a 500-km-race I overdid it a bit and rolled the car. During the second somersault I was catapulted out of the car and engaged in a slithering contest with the Abarth. The biggest trouble didn´t prove to be the kidney contusions, or the fragmented bones in my left hand, but rather the abrasion of skin on my whole body. To kill the pain, I - for the first time in my life, and holding my nose - ingested concentrated alcohol coming in the shape of several glasses of gin. The smell of alcohol in such quantities alone is disgusting to me. And, quite frankly, it didn´t help either, as no more than two hours later I woke up, feeling even worse, of course."

Originally posted by MCS


There were copies of this report for sale on eBay recently - I was unsure as to whether they were illustrated or not. (Not something I was particularly keen to see pictures of to be honest).

I had one in stock some years ago and don't recall many, if any photos. Much of the report runs in this fashion ...

"Driver ... spun at Copse Corner on lap 3, hit the bank with his right rear wheel and came to a halt unhurt. Reason, Driver Error."

As such it's very factual but not exactly riveting to read. It does indicate how many small, injury-free incidents happened compared to the more serious ones. Even back then it does appear serious injury was comparatively rare, despite what we perceive today.

That Cliff Allison picture has baffled me for 47 years! I can never quite work out how he came to be flying through the air in that relative position to where his car is.

It don't look possible to me.....

What a shame he is no longer here to explain it.

Barry,

Remember, what happened with Cliff is they changed the gearbox on the car and it had a different gate. Rushing down from the Tunnel at Monaco he engaged second gear by mistake and the car swerved and hit the very edge of the straw bales on the outside of the corner which spun it round through 180 degrees. The car then ended up on the sea side of the road with Cliff on the ground. The photograph attached is owned by the Automobile Club of Monaco and was loaned to me for my book on Cliff Allison. It is a copyright photograph. It shows how the car ended up with the marshals running to Cliff.

Hans Herrman at Avus

http://www.forix.com/8w/brm/hh-d59.jpg

There is another picture of this on the wall at the Donington Collection.

Didn't Denny Hulme throw himself out of a burning car at Indy one year?

Originally posted by Barry Boor
That Cliff Allison picture has baffled me for 47 years! I can never quite work out how he came to be flying through the air in that relative position to where his car is.

It don't look possible to me.....

What a shame he is no longer here to explain it.

I think he would have trouble to explain it. But, the position of the body is not that strange if you watch some crashes in MotoGp. Sometimes a bike will have a sideways spin, one way, and the driver is thrown in the air with a 360, the other way! I am no expert (in aerodynamics), but from my job as a tenniscoach I know that accleration of an object is caused by de-accleration of other objects it is linked to. For example: if you take a towel and try to hit with it pretty hard, it won't work well. But if you swing the towel, and suddenly stop the movement of your arm and let your wrist snap back, you will hear the tip of the towel go through the soundbarrier. Pats!

Of the human body, the head and the legs are the heaviest parts. What probably happened is the massive de-accleration of the car threw Cliff out, and because the legs were the heaviest part of his body those were thrown upward, (when the gravity of weight is 'beaten' by a force, it will acclerate harder than a lighter object) levelling him to the ground. At a certain moment in the flight, the legs are drawn back to earth again, perhaps (I have not seen the entire crash) prevent Cliffs body to cartwheel.

EDIT: I forgot to mention: the legs of Cliff move 'more' than the body itself, because they are heavier, meaning: a object put in a motion by a force, will need the same force to conquer the speed of the object. With lighter objects, the force of gravity will easily get a hold on a flying object and pull it down. With heavier objects flying, the earth will have to pull longer against the flight to stop it. Gawd, thank god I don't teach this subject.

Thank you for that, Graham.

I am puzzled by that large black sausage that appears to be sticking out of the cockpit.

I would like to see a schematic of the trajectory of both driver and car.

I'm intrigued by the road surface - is it concrete setts (sp?).

Originally posted by Barry Boor
Thank you for that, Graham.

I am puzzled by that large black sausage that appears to be sticking out of the cockpit.

I would like to see a schematic of the trajectory of both driver and car.

Does not the angle of the rh rear wheel indicate how the impact started? It looks like it took a hefty blow, the initial one perhaps?

Has this not been posted before? Naughty on the copyright front I'm sure :



I had the great privilege of being able to ask Cliff about this photo. He said he had talked to the photographer, who worked for an agency, and thus regretted it wasn’t his own to sell…

Yes, that is the photo I find hard to understand.

I just can't imagine the direction of movement of both car and driver that could bring them into those relative positions; even with Jerome's description.

Originally posted by cpbell
I'm intrigued by the road surface - is it concrete setts (sp?).

At the time the track from the Chicane exit, around Tabac and to the Gazometer hairpin was not the main road, but a "promenade". There were even benches so people could sit down. Taken away for the race presumably! The surface was some sort of paving stone I think.

Marcus