8 replies to this topic

[pancho]

Apparently Peter Arundel once flew off the Nordschleiff and sliced through a line of trees bordering the circuit, thus giving rise to the above mentioned landmark. I'm told you can still see Arundels gap to this day. I remember reading an Autosport article mentioning this, too, some years ago.

Can anybody expand on this?

[Doug Nye]

Lotus Elite from memory - and The Gap was a hole in the hedge - not in the trees - on the left to the backstretch down from Kallenhard towards Wehrseifen...now long gone.

DCN

[Uwe]

AFAIK Arundel was not the only one who broke through this hedge. I think that Richard von Frankenberg had an accident there, with no severe injuries. His friends later spoke of the hedge-open-hedge-close accident.

Could it be that Onofre Marimon had his fatal crash there?

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Lotus Elite from memory - and The Gap was a hole in the hedge - not in the trees - on the left to the backstretch down from Kallenhard towards Wehrseifen...now long gone.
DCN

When Tony Shelly returned to NZ at the end of 1962 after failing to make it as an F1 driver he regaled us with a story about Arundell going through the hedge at the 'Ring - I presumed it was at that year's German GP (I'm too lazy to check contemporary reports at the moment). And I don't know if we're talking about the same incident

[Doug Nye]

Arundell's Gap was created during practice for the 1961 ADAC 1,000Kms when Pet lost his Team Elite-entered Lotus Elite and shot through the hedge and down a steep slope. The various impacts left Pete with broken ribs but thankfully nothing worse. It was close to the point at which Marimon died, his accident occurring in the right-hander just above the left-right Wehrseifen ess-bend, his car slithering straight on through the hedge with all wheels locked-up, then pitch-poling end over end down the slope. In 'Motorfilms Quarterly Vol 2's 1954 German GP coverage there's an aerial shot of the circuit section in which the disturbed crop from the previous day's tragedy can clearly be seen at this spot.

DCN

[David McKinney]

So presumably Shelly's story was a second-hand one - not, as he suggested, related from personal observation. We all know about journalistic licence - I'm sure raconteurs' licence is equally valid

[Graham Clayton]

AFAIK Arundel was not the only one who broke through this hedge. I think that Richard von Frankenberg had an accident there, with no severe injuries. His friends later spoke of the hedge-open-hedge-close accident.

Could it be that Onofre Marimon had his fatal crash there?

von Frankenberg's accident happened on the 16th of September 1956, according to this webpage:

http://type550.com/h...le-of-the-avus/

Click through the amazing sequence of photos at the bottom!

[raceannouncer2003]

I believe Uwe may have been referring to von Frankenberg's crash at the Nurburgring in 1953. One account says "Richard von Frankenberg rolled over with the Walter Ringgenberg Porsche 356 in the second lap...and plunged down a steep slope...He was uninjured and was able to free himself from the wreckage..."

Vince H.

[Tim Murray]

Discussed in this earlier thread:

L'affaire Lotus/von Frankenberg