I came across this alarming photo in a February 1970 Autosport magazine. Coyright LAT/Autosport of course.

Crowd safety really has come on as we know, but what would the modern thinking FIA make of this? It was a 5 race Formula Ford 'tour' of South American circuits, put together by John Webb of MCD. Emerson Fittipaldi leads here at Curitiba from Ray Allen and Luiz Bueno.
Madness!

What an alarming photo ............. is the man [ in black knickers] looking at Emerson's car saying "car #1 has come past in wait for it - position # one - amazing!" [ sorry Murray]

Looks like black knickers but think it is someone holding a hat - optical illusion!

Could it be possible that the photo was shot as the cars made their way from the paddock to the grid?

If not, it's just plain crazy.

I have seen pre-WW2 photos of spectators standing on the side of Conrod Straight at Mount Panorama in Bathurst as the cars raced by.

The scary thing is that these scenes still exist on some rounds of the World Rally Championship!

Previously posted here...



...isn't standing in front of the safety fence in the esses even worse?

And it's those people on the side of the road as the banzai rally drivers scorch past that will ultimately put an end to racing.

According to the Autosport report, the shot was taken during one of the races as there were two heats, winner on aggregate.
The local motor sport authority somehow forgot to tell the police they were holding a motor race, 25,000 people turned up, most had not paid according to John Webb, eventually the army were called in to try and control the crowds. But this did not stop the frenzied locals forming a human barrier around the entire circuit every time a Brazilian driver was leading.

In the Formula Vee race one car did go into the crowd resulting in a few broken bones. Tom Walkinshaw went off the road in one of the FF heats, wondering what was worse, the accident or
the snakes lurking in the undergrowth!

Yes, we have seen crowds like this lining rally stages, very frightening and dangerous too, but these FF guys are racing each other, not the clock, therefore the chance of accidents, interlocking wheels etc, is far greater.

The South Am Formula Ford pic is not so very different from pictures of the Mexican Grands Prix of that era.

(And rallying, much more recently.)

Wasn't lack of crowd control one of the reasons Mexico lost it's Championship race after 1970? Looking at the size of the crowd it can't have been due to lack of support


1966

1967

Wasn't there only one Mexican GP that sank to that level?

Or images of the 1970 Grand Prix of Israel.....

"200 Miles of Nuremberg", 1968. Vic Elford, his crashed 910 and "some" legs.

This is sooo Brazilian...

Nice to see FJ used as an example of the safe driver avoiding the dangers of flying into the crowd...

Approaching the hairpin, Sebring 1958



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Tijuana Playas racing, 1967
(From Sports Car Graphic, June 1967)

Elkhart lake 1952



Phil Binks Photo


Torrey Pines 1952/3:









eBay find photos

Normal situation on Polish street races in 50's.

Warszawa 1952



Warszawa 1958

Whow, what pictures!

Can you tell more about the cars (in particular that BMW in the upper picture)?

It's only natural to want to get as close to the action as possible. I've done it myself, but always with at least a smidgin of regard for my own skin....

Some people are their own worst enemies, though. Trying to control a crowd can be a most thankless task and unless you have equal numbers of crowd marshalls and spectators (unlikely) or a supply of machine guns for the officials (also unlikely, in the UK at least) it's always going to be very difficult. I remember being charged with trying to keep a crowd behind a rope barrier at a Castle Howard hillclimb. The specatators showed no inclination to pay heed to me and constantly wandered off limits. Eventually I decided I had lost the battle and I left them to it. Then a Cobra driver lost control in a big way and spun straight into the area I had been patrolling. The crowd ran away very quickly indeed; fortunately no-one came to any harm. Strangely, they behaved themselves after that.

Specially for uechtel big fan of BMW.

On first photo



Jan Sanecznik behind the steering wheel of BMW 315. In this race - Grand Prix of Polish Army (September 7, 1952) - he won class to 1500 cc. Forth was Zbigniew Borowczyk (BMW 315). In class over 1500 cc first four places took drivers on BMW's 328 - Kazimierz Tarczynski, Franciszek Postawka, Sobieslaw Zasada (later European rally champion) and Grzegorz Timoszek.

On second photos are very popular on Polish circuits in second half of 50's cars named SAM (the car built by oneself).
Polish championship, round 3, Warszawa, September 28, 1958, class 1600 cc: #41 Sam-Flash 1300 (Konstanty Krajewski) - first, #22 SAM-Lancia 1500 (Edward Wroclawski) - retired and #47 SAM-Flash 1300 (Aleksander Mazurek) - third.

Thank you for the profound explanation! A nice piece to fill into my records.

I never realized, that that many BMW 328 had found their ways into Poland.



SAM, Eigenbau, Special, no matter how you call them, they are always very colourful.

#22 and #41 seem to have some similarities around the cockpit lines. Perhaps from the same workshop?

And what is "Flash"?

#22 and #41 were build in workshops of Automobilklub Slaski (Silesian Automobileclub).

Flash: it is the special engine of Simca Aronde 1300.

In years 1947-1957 in 26 Polish races BMW cars or cars with BMW automobile or motorcycle engines took part more than 100 times.

I'm always reminded of a differend pic of Elkhart Lake '52. It's the very first turn, and a Nash Healey is brushing the haybales on the inside of the turn. On the curb are a couple of old guys with canes, who look more annoyed with the proceedings than anything else. Even more amazingly, there's a Buick parked on the street in the background.....

-William

Behind the 'Iron Curtain'... Leningrad, Nevskoe Koltso, 1976:


(photo from the www.nr.spb.ru web site)

Riga, Bikernieki, mid-70s:

(source is unknown)

There were also two terrible accidents - in Tbilisi '67 and Viljandi '78 - in which many spectators were killed and injured. Both of that races were held on public roads, without any stands and barriers, and people stood wherever one likes - so what crowd safety can we talk about?

I can remember the guy with the rolled up newspaper at Put in Bay at one of the late fifties races.

He hung over the chicken wire restraining fence at the fast right hander just going into the down town area.

His joy in life seemed to be to try to swat the helmets of those driving RHD cars.

Alexey, I remember that six people were killed in the tragic Tbilisi accident, April 1967. I have never heard Viljandi 1978: what did happen?

Viljandi '78 (Viljandi is a town in Estonia) was much more tragic accident than Tbilisi '67 - more than 50 spectators were involved in it. This sad story was told me by Juhan 'BlackCat' - I haven't seen him here for a long time, BTW - as soon as I find his letter, I'll post the story here.

I remember seeing a film of a Monaco GP from the 1950's. It appeared that people were walking down the street during the race. There were no barriers - just open sidewalk. In one scene two people were talking at the edge of the sidewalk. The one person realized he was a little too close and took a couple of steps back. Within a second a car flew past within inches of him.

Here is a detailed description of that unfortunate race at Viljandi:

...one of the biggest disasters in our racing history. Pirita was out because they started to build a new bridge for that 1980 Olympic regata in Tallinn. So I think it was Kalevi Suursõit '78. Hot summer day and nobody bothered to keep any order. Everybody walking or sitting just where he/she wanted, watching some very fast things going around. Most of the people a bit (or more) drunk. As I mentioned, those were public roads. And there were "milk stands" - wooden platforms of about 1.5-2 m high, where farmers put their containers with fresh milk for a cistern milk-car to pick 'em up. So those milk stands were very, very close to the road. And, as such, ideal private stands. Now, there were some quite equal young guys in F.Easter, capable to do those 1.52-1.53 laps (the track length was 4570 m). Leading pack of five cars was together. Braking into a tight curve. And starting to out-accelerate from it. Finding in front of them one parked, dead car on the inside and a slow car to be lapped in the middle of the road. And the road just over 7 m... It happened to be Mart Kongo who crashed into one of those milk-stands by the road, full of people. More than ten people died, over forty injured. Of course it was hushed up. But in soviet system, somebody had to be guilty. And those organizers, they were friends of friends, trustworthy comrades - not them, of course. So the sentence was: one year of suspended prison for Mart Kongo with DQ from the sport for two (or was it three) years... As an engineer, he used that time to design a new car...

Why do I think it was in 1978? Other formula cars had 24 lap distance. If at all some class had shorter distance, it was F.Molodezhnaya, not F.Easter. So, the accident was on lap 10 and it took organizers eight more laps to understand what happened and then red-flag the race. I was there, but I was not running to see the blood. I saw Mart after the crash. He was sitting in his Lada, his helmet on the ground aside the car, doors locked, and refused to communicate with anybody. For a long time.

('BlackCat')

Yeh, but that's 'big John' driving, so they had every reason to be comfortable.

As for crowd safety, some MotorSport's shots taken at the Targa Floria make you suck on your breath. One in particular sticks in my mind, and that is of a fellow lying on the kerb taking a photograph(s!) with one leg in the road. All this on the exit of a corner and trusting drivers not to run wide

Great minds think alike!

What a sad story, Alexey.

Please, I do not understand some words: can you explain?
Was "Pirita" a circuit?
What is "Kalevi Suursõit '78"?
What does it means "F.Molodezhnaya, not F.Easter"? Perhaps an other category of single-seaters?
And what car drove Mart Kongo?

Thanks.

1. Yes, Pirita (full name Pirita-Kose-Kloostrimetsa) is a circuit in Tallinn. It was discussed on TNF earlier - http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64762 .

2. 'Kalevi Suursõit' means 'Kalev Big Race' in Estonian - a traditional auto & moto racing event, held in 1959-78 at Estonian circuits (mainly at Pirita, but also at Ojaküla-Vanamõisa, nr Tartu, and Vana-Võidu, nr Viljandi). Kalev is a name of Estonian sport society that organized these events and of which many famous racing drivers were the members. And '78 means year 1978 ;)

3. F. Molodezhnaya/F4 was the category of single-seaters meant for young drivers (its name means F.Youth in Russian). It was a monomarque series, and its car, Estonia 15, was discussed in this thread: http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80074 .

4. Undoubtedly it was a Lada-powered 1300-cc Estonia, but I don't know what type of Estonia Kongo was driving. Judging by the year, it could be either 18M or 19.