2 replies to this topic

[Nanni Dietrich]

The Motorsport Memorial website reports only three motorcycle fatalities at Castle Combe, since the track was inaugurated in 1950.

Any of them has very poor records, few or no information, no details. 

Eric Shepherd (1955), Gordon Pill (1963), and Jason Cash, which date of death is unknown, likely it occurred in the early 1990s.

 

Any help?

[Vitesse2]

I think 'Jason Cash' may actually be Jason Peter Kasch, whose death was registered in Bristol in August 1993. He was either 22 or 23 years old. (Source: Ancestry)

 

If he had received serious injuries at Castle Combe he might very well have been taken to one of two or three hospitals in Bristol, which had/have major trauma units.

 

This PDF mentions a 'Jason Kasch Award' for achievement: http://ngroadracing....ason_review.pdf

 

If nobody else has any further details I can have a look in the Bath Chronicle next time I'm in the library: they were usually pretty good at reporting Castle Combe events.

[Vitesse2]

I see Pete Stowe beat me to it with most of the details! I can't add anything further on Shepherd, whose demise was barely noticed by the Bath Chronicle in a short report of the meeting on page 9 of their issue dated July 12th 1955. Nor on Kasch - since the June 1993 microfilm is either missing or badly misfiled.

 

However, Gordon Pill's death made the front page of the issue dated July 22nd 1963 and I can add the following: his full name was Gordon William Pill and he was 25 at the time of his death, which occured at the Royal United Hospital in the early hours of July 21st - the cause being stated as head injuries. The Chronicle adds the detail that his crash occured on a wet track.

 

His home was indeed in Oxford: his parents ran the White Horse pub in Broad Street and Gordon was employed as a clerk at Morris Motors. He had been a keen motorcyclist since childhood, had started racing in 1962, and was a close friend of journalist/bike racer Colin Fenton, who died in 2013: http://www.oxfordmai...ed_on_TT_track/