18 replies to this topic

[David J Jones]

Leafing through Robert Edwards book 'Moss' in a bookshop yesterday I was reminded of the controversy concerning the day Stirling Moss crashed, effectively ending his career, during the Easter F1 race at Goodwood.

I can vaguely remember it at the time but do contributers have any recollections or facts or details concerning this race? I am going on memory alone as I do not have publications or articles which refer to it.

I remember parts of it were televised live during the Monday afternoon sports program

[David J Jones]

Edward's book deeply implicated Hill as being the cause of Moss's accident.

Has anyone got a view on this?

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by David J Jones
Edward's book deeply implicated Hill as being the cause of Moss's accident.

Has anyone got a view on this?

The dead cannot sue for libel ...

[rmhorton]

I have never heard it seriously suggested that Graham Hill was in any way to blame for Moss's accident.

I think that this article is closer to the mark.

http://www.planet-f1...ENG?lawrence=12

Roger Horton

[Roger Clark]

Thankyou Roger H; that is a great article even if you don't agree with everything he says.

It is of some concern of Edwards' book does implicate Moss as i thought it was an authorised biography, and therefore reflects the subject's views as well as the authors.

[Eric McLoughlin]

Although I've not yet read the new book (I will - eventually), I've always felt that Stirling was reluctant to apportion blame to anyone - mainly because his recollection of the accident, and indeed the few hours leading up to it, is virtually nil. However, I'm sure he has always had a suspicion that Graham Hill had a part to play in the incident. Moss was gaining on Hill in a bid to unlap himself following a lengthy pit stop and he has a (very) vague memory of Hill signalling to him to pass him. Unfortunately, in those days there were virtually no spectators positioned at St Mary's so there are no reliable witnesses to the accident. If there was any TV footage of the incident it has obviously not survived and the only film footage is very poor and shows no important detail.

Nowadays, St Marys is easily accessible by spectators and is one of the best locations for watching the racing.

[karlcars]

For the record, this is what I said in my book about Stirling:

Moss remembers little of the day of the crash at Goodwood and nothing of the circumstances that caused the crash. Two laps down on Graham Hill, Moss was chasing the latter, who was some six lengths ahead, and closing on him when he slid off the left-hand verge of the track, across the grass and into an earth embankment outside the right-hand bend before the sharp left that is St. Mary's corner on the far side of the circuit, opposite the pits.
The crash occurred four laps before the end of the 100-mile race for Formula 1 cars; the race was not stopped and Hill ran through the winner in his BRM. It took forty minutes to cut the frame tubes that pinned Stirling into the crumpled Lotus with its V-8 Climax engine. Moss was supposed by the press to have sent reassuring messages that day from the hospital to his mother — but in fact he was profoundly injured and in a coma for four days.
Why did he leave the road? And why, apart from seeming to brake hard on the grass, did Moss seem to make little effort to rescue the car after it hurtled onto the grass verge at more than two miles a minute? Speculation — and that was all it could be — included a blackout, an ignition failure, an exhaust leak that rendered him insensate, a throttle stuck full on, a steering failure and a misunderstood signal from Hill suggesting that Moss should pass.
Could Stirling simply have made a Big Mistake? Although he started from pole he led the Glover Trophy race only briefly and was passed early by quick newcomer John Surtees in a Lola. His only chance of making a mark that day at Goodwood was to come from behind, after his pit stop to sort the gear linkage, and set a fast lap time. In fact Moss did match Surtees's fastest lap of the race at 105.37 mph. He did it on the lap before his last one.
What was the Moss method of extracting the last smidgen of speed from his car? In The Racing Driver Denis Jenkinson described the 'induced understeer' method that Stirling exploited to probe the very limits of a car's cornering capability. Jenks said that the top drivers used this method in two ways: "One is to get them out of trouble if they enter a corner too fast, and the other is to take a corner at over the reasonable limit, when trying for a lap record.
"If a racing driver can apply this technique to his car he can take certain fast corners in this manner deliberately," Jenkinson wrote, "and if he is really skilled at it he can achieve a fractionally higher overall speed through the corner. If he is really determined about starting this series of movements he can get in three changes of movement, and Moss reckons to be able to achieve this deliberately. It is a technique he applies when trying for a lap record, especially on circuits such as Goodwood or Silverstone [emphasis added]."
Added Denis Jenkinson, who had ample personal experience of the Moss style, "Naturally, when he is driving on this very fine limit around the break-away point of the front tyres, it will be appreciated that the safety margin is very small, so that a minute error of judgment in either the approach speed or the moment for reducing the steering lock would mean a helpless front-wheel slide into the décor."
No better description of the Moss crash at Goodwood could be imagined. The exit from the fast right-hand bend of Fordwater and its tricky curling conclusion before the left-hand St. Mary's would have demanded the utmost of precision in the execution of the method Moss said he used to cheat the car's natural desire to leave the road at high speed. Was Stirling after all unable quite to complete that last manoeuvre of releasing then regaining the grip of the front tyres before the tarmacadam changed to turf? We can't say that it couldn't have happened just that way.

As for the supposition that he had both a stuck throttle and a box full of neutrals -- as the cited article suggests -- the two are incompatible. If he was in neutral then a stuck throttle would have had no effect.

[Barry Lake]

Karl

That sounds more like reality than all the other explanations I have read.

It is strange that people seem determined to find reasons for unexplained crashes (usually those resulting in death) other than that the driver simply overstepped the mark.

Everbody makes mistakes, even the world's greatest racing drivers. Sadly, that mistake often used to end in death or, in Moss's case, career-ending injuries.

Today's drivers can make numerous such mistakes and their only suffering is the exertion of a sprint back to the pits to get the spare car.

[Bernd]

I agree with Jenks theory as well.

A group called the GPLEA made a spectaclar rendition of the Goodwood circuit for GPL. I have often virtually emulated Stirling at that point of the circuit (ie the right before the tight left at St Mary's) searching for that extra bit of speed and simply running out of tarmac. If this happens it is completely impossible to stop the car from hurling unabated into the earthen bank.

It is definitely not a hard mistake to make and once made cannot be corrected, therefore I have no problem putting the shunt down to driver error. I know that at the time Moss was the best driver in the world but hey Michael Schumacher is now and look at all the mistakes he makes!

[Don Capps]

It is not beyond the pale that a combination of driver and machanical mischief teamed up to with end result being Moss into the banking at St. Marys. I have often thought this was the reality, Moss trying to eek just that tiny bit more out of the car than it was capable and cut the margin razor thin, so when the mechanical hiccup happened he had nothing to work with and so into the banking.

This happens in the aviation world all too frequently with similar results. All it takes is a split nanosecond of "forgetting to fly the plane" as you fiddle with an ailment in the cockpit and BAM! I have lost several friends that way over the years.

[ry6]

MotorSport November 1994 ran an article called "The king they never crowned".

Quote "To this day he has still never had any mental inkling, no recollection whatsoever, of the reason for the chilling moments his pale green UDT-Laystall Racing Team Lotus spent on the grass before crashing into an earth bank at St Mary's. There has never been a shortage of theories such as the sticking throttle that plagued him in a previous race at Snetterton.

I have no idea. All I can do is surmise. I was coming up to pas Graham Hill and I think that if a marshall had put a flag out, which he may have done, Graham may have acknowledged him with a wave to say, 'OKAY'. And I may have seen that as a sign to say come past. Graham anyway had an unusual line there, and if I had seen him over to the right there and seen that happen, I might have thought, "He knows I'm not competing with him" - Moss was running well back after pit stops to have the Colloti gearbox adjusted - "so I'll go past".

And he thinking that nobody would go by there could have pulled over and I might have thought, "Crickey, I'd better get ove," and pulled over and gone off. That's the only construction I can make. Graham wasn't the sort of guy who'd push you off. So it's all just surmise."

[rallen]

Interesting thread, just one thing - did Hill ever give his opinion or thoughts on what happened? Also what was Hill's relationship with Moss like after the crash?

[Paul Parker]

Interesting thread, just one thing - did Hill ever give his opinion or thoughts on what happened? Also what was Hill's relationship with Moss like after the crash?

Here is what Michael Cooper wrote shortly after the crash which was published in Sixties Motor Racing.

'After covering the supporting races from the chicane, I took some snaps of Moss on the grid for the main race and felt a strong compulsion to go to the other side of the circuit, which I hadn't been to before and which was not the obvious choice for good shots.

Opening laps story.

Whilst in front, Moss made a pit stop letting Graham Hill into the lead. When Moss came out of the pits he was over a lap down and, in typical Stirling fashion, drove 'like Hell' and came up to unlap himself just on the part of the track where I had stationed myself. As I was the closest observer to what followed I think it may be interesting for my view of the accident to be told. My distinct impression was that Hill had not seen Moss come up on the outside of the approach to St Mary's corner. When Moss was almost level it appeared that he would have had to chop Graham off if he were to complete the manouevre. Rather than do this it appeared that Moss ran wide onto the grass on the outside of the corner and which, being damp, caused the car to go out of control. Moss made no apparent effort to turn the car away from the bank which he hit with a sickening thud, but may have locked his wheels; it happened too fast for me to see....'

....'As Hill came past the scene in the lead he stopped to ask if he could help, but continued when told he could do nothing to assist....'

One of the sequence of shots that Mike took shows the Lotus on the grass with the nose down and understeering on right lock (hardly surprising on damp grass) and the rear of the car riding high. I spoke to Ken Gregory about this and he told me that when he walked the scene of the crash subsequently he discovered a gully in the grass which he believed had bounced the rear wheels of the Lotus off the ground and also he thought might have bounced Stirling's feet off the pedals.

Another suggestion as to how this accident occured was that Hill had acknowledged a blue flag which was warning him of the fast closing Lotus which Stirling misinterpreted as being a signal to pass. The two drivers had different lines and Stirling was forced to run wide to avoid contact.

Michael also writes further on in his account that: 'Strange, and probably unbelievable to some, I had a dream about the whole incident a week before the race. When the car hit the bank, it all came vividly back. The only difference in the dream was the (sic) Moss floated upwards from the car and into the sky....'

During our many hours together in collaboration on the book Mike also told me that ever after Stirling's mother would not talk to Graham Hill.

In my opinion nobody was to blame, this was an accident caused by an unfortunate combination of circumstances which in that era could and usually did have disastrous consequences.

[rallen]

Wow, amazing reply Paul - thank you!

I should add that I am a Graham Hill fan and was not dishing for dirt, however I have read reports that hinted that Moss blamed Hill but was to much of a gentleman to ever say so, so I was curious as to how he was around Hill afterwards. To me it always sounded like an accident and not something that Hill would have done on purpose, nice to see he actually stopped too.

[kayemod]

This is what Sir Stirling had to say about Graham Hill in Motor Sport a couple of years ago.

"A driver who achieved more success with less ability than most. He won Monaco five times, Indianapolis, World Championships and so on. He was a very good driver, a careful driver and a steady driver. He wasn't one of the fastest by quite a long way. But he did a competent job and still enjoyed a great deal of success. I have great respect for his ability, but not so much for his speed. Graham could be quite dirty, but I don't think he would seriously push you off. I had my worst accident passing him, but I don't think he would jeopardise anyone on purpose. He would just make it as difficult as he could".

Those are The Great Man's actual words, I've resisted the temptation to underline or embolden any of it, so make up your own minds.

[Paul Parker]

This is what Sir Stirling had to say about Graham Hill in Motor Sport a couple of years ago.

"A driver who achieved more success with less ability than most. He won Monaco five times, Indianapolis, World Championships and so on. He was a very good driver, a careful driver and a steady driver. He wasn't one of the fastest by quite a long way. But he did a competent job and still enjoyed a great deal of success. I have great respect for his ability, but not so much for his speed. Graham could be quite dirty, but I don't think he would seriously push you off. I had my worst accident passing him, but I don't think he would jeopardise anyone on purpose. He would just make it as difficult as he could".

Those are The Great Man's actual words, I've resisted the temptation to underline or embolden any of it, so make up your own minds.

For the record I emboldened Mike's words which are the relevant bits to separate them from my own comments.

[RJE]

I can add a very small part to this topic.

First: I was at Goodwood on the fatefull day, although I saw nothing of the incident. However I did witness Moss driving the wheels off what appeared to be a far from perfect car.

Second: I talked to Graham Hill the next morning when he called into Derrington's shop in Kingston on Thames. He told me at that time that he has seen Stirling go off and that flames were coming from the Lotus exhaust pipes indicating to him that there had been some sort of ignition failure.

Third: Many years later I got to know Mike Cooper through looking after his son's Formula Ford. Mike told me he recalled Stirling getting level with Graham and then simply going straight on as if something had happened to the car.

I have often thought that perhaps Stirling was forced by circumstance to get onto what today would be called the marbles and simply lost grip, when already on the very limit.

[David McKinney]

Third: Many years later I got to know Mike Cooper through looking after his son's Formula Ford. Mike told me he recalled Stirling getting level with Graham and then simply going straight on as if something had happened to the car.

See Post 13

[Alan Cox]

I have just discovered this recently-issued CD "Stirling Moss in his own words" issued by the BBC and containing one hours-worth of interviews with Sir Stirling taken from BBC archive recordings. There are extracts from eight interviews spanning the period 1960-2004 and containing a number of references to his Goodwood accident. In an interview from 'Panorama' wit Richard Dimbleby in July 1962, he does refer to the possibility that he may have misread a hand-signal from Graham Hill, but he confirms that it is purely conjecture as he has no clear recollection.

Worth considering if you are a Moss fan, and particularly good value direct from the BBC at £2.25 including postage. http://www.bbcshop.c.../9781445826110/