27 replies to this topic

[Hans Etzrodt]

Reading in the Illustierte Automobil Revue from 1926 that in these old days, supposedly a long list of racing drivers who had a fatal crash, had carried the number 13. I cannot believe that to be true but have not made a study about race numbers of cars involved in fatal crashes. My personal belief is that not more drivers found their death in number 13 cars than in cars with other numbers. Does anybody know about this subject?

Antonio Ascari in the Alfa Romeo P2 grand prix car with the number 13, found a tragic end in July 1925 at the French Grand Prix at Montlhéry, when he crashed and was killed.

Paul Torchy, who crashed to his death in September 1925 at the San Sebastian Grand Prix, carried this feared figure 13 on his Delage grand prix car; also 13 cars started in this race.

Count Giulio Masetti carried the number 13 on his 12-cylinder 2-liter supercharged Delage grand prix car at the Targa Florio in April 1926. His car rolled over, killing the 31-year old driver. The number 13 was not considered an unlucky number in Italy, instead, there the 17 was the ominous number.

Consequently, to guard the competitors against prejudice, the French Automobile Club decided to eliminate the number 13 and likewise the number 17, which the Italian drivers met with suspicion. Some race promoters did not use uneven numbers at all. It was assumed that every driver who was assigned the racing number 13 and had crashed to his death had participated in the race with a certain hampered psychological attitude when the feared starting number 13 fell on him. Why it took in Europe so long to eliminate the starting number 13 is not known, the Americans had done so years before.

[ry6]

Hans
I have noticed, in my time, that in all forms of racing - F1, F2, libre, vees, fords, saloons etc there has been an apparent reluctance by organisers to issue the number 13.

In South Africa we had a driver I knew called Clive Trundell, who raced a Cooper T45 Climax (F2-2-58), who raced as no. 13, but he asked the organisers for the number.

Fortunately no ill became him on the race tracks.

Although I am not madly superstitious I would prefer to avoid having that number on my car!

Who else was brave enough to race with number 13?

Regards
Rob

[Rob29]

Only driver to use it in F1 since fixed numbers came in in 1973 was Divina Galica.

[Paul Hartshorne]

Davina Galica used number 13 in British national races, and carried this number when she attempted to qualify for the 1976 British Grand Prix.

Yves Courage requested number 13 from the ACO for his Le Mans cars, and being a local constructor, got his wish!

Gabriele Tarquini raced in F3000 in 1985 with number 13

as shown in this picture that I snapped at Spa.

The next driver to carry 13 on his F3000 car was Philippe Favre in the second half of 1990.

As Galica failed to qualify on her every appearance at a World Championship Grand Prix, a Courage (or Cougar) has never won Le Mans, Tarquini has the record for highest number of unsuccessful Grand Prix qualification attempts, and Favre never even made F1, then number 13 could be considered unlucky!

Incidentally, number 4 is considered unlucky in Japan, and Satoru Nakajima refused to carry 4 on his 1986 F3000 Ralt, so John Nielsen carried that number instead, giving Nakajima race no.5. Nakajima left the team before the end of the season, and Nielsen, having had a fairly poor year, thought that there might be something in race no.4 being unlucky after all, so at the final race of the season, swapped to no.5!

This is the same reason, incidentally, that both Nakajima and Ukyo Katayama never carried number 4 when they raced for Tyrrell; they both used no.3

Cheers, Paul

[Criceto]

Wasn't number 4 also dropped from the entry lists of the Tour de Corse rally after Henri Toivonen's accident?

Without looking at my books, I seem to recall it was the second bad one for an entrant #4 in a very few years. Previous one Attilio Bettega, I think? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Spooky. I just noticed this is my 13th post on this forum...

[Leif Snellman]

Originally posted by Hans Etzrodt


Antonio Ascari in the Alfa Romeo P2 grand prix car with the number 13, found a tragic end in July 1925 at the French Grand Prix at Montlhéry, when he crashed and was killed.

Hans,
Will you please confirm that? I thought Ascari raced car #8 at the French GP. (Kevin Desmond - The Man with two Shadows, page 27).

[jarama]

Criceto,

Yes, either Bettega as well as Toivonen were carrying #4 when crashed fatally. Attilio's crash was in 1985 at the wheel of the 037, while only one year later Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto died when his Delta S4 crashed and was totally burnt out.

I don't remember if the #4 was initially dropped from the entry list of the Tour de Corse, but in recent years, as the works teams wears the same number all year long, they are wearing it even in Corsica -i.e., Colin McRae/Derek Ringer, Subaru Impreza 555, 39eme Tour de Corse.

[Gary Grant]

If you;re being a bit of an anorak (and I am :-) ), one slightly odd thing is that 21 of the 24 fatal crashes in F1 have occurred in cars carrying an even number. Has anyone got any idea as to why this might be (i.e. have even numbers been carried more frequently historically or is it just coincidence)?
Also wasn't there once something about the colour green being considered unlucky?

[Rob29]

Yes,even numbers only was quite popular at one time especially in Italy.This accounts for Von Trips for a start. The 1st British GP @ Aintree in'55 was all evens.

[fines]

Antonio Ascari definitely carried #8 at Montlhéry! Incidentally, I'm just in the process of writing an arctile for my website about superstition in Motor Racing. The #4 problem of the Japanese seems to have its roots in the Japanese words for 'four' and 'death' having the same pronunciation, anyone confirm this? Barry? Anyway, Japanese Superbike racer Akira Yanagawa is having none of this!

#13, also raced by Moises Solana sometime in F1, can't exactly remember when. In Bike Racing, it has been used until recently by Marco Melandri, who became the youngest ever GP winner in 1998. Unlucky?

And what about Franco Uncini, 500cc World Champion in 1982, carrying #13 in most of the races. Unlucky?

[Gary Grant]

Yes, the Japanese for both four and death is pronounced 'shi' and I think that is where the superstition stems from.

[fines]

Thanks Doc, and btw: Welcome to TNF!

[Hans Etzrodt]

Originally posted by Leif Snellman
...I thought Ascari raced car #8 at the French GP...

Leif,
Thank you, you are right. Ascari raced the number 8 Alfa Romeo. My information came from that article and I added other data but never checked Ascari's number, after the other two crashes appeared to have had the number 13. There are no shortcuts when doing research. I am still baffled that someone wrote such a blatant lie in an otherwise first class magazine and I went for it. Just have to be more sceptical in the future. I did check the numbers just now and found that Meo Costantini's Bugatti carried the 13 and he came fourth at the 1925 French GP.

[Barry Lake]

Hans "more sceptical"? I wouldn't have thought that possible.

However, as much as we all hate to see inaccuracies in print, perhaps Hans and other TNF participants now will have a greater understanding of how easy it is to perpetuate a mistake like this.

Imagine, Hans, that your initial post here was a story for a magazine and the sub-editor had called you that day saying unforseen circumstances had brought forward the printing date of the magazine. The story you thought you had until next week to write and to check, now had to be in by tomorrow morning. You had to stay up all night writing the story, overtired and under pressure.

I am not offering excuses, just an explanation of how these things sometimes happen to even the most careful writers. It is a terrible feeling, I can assure you, to see one's mistake in print after such an event.

Even worse, is a mistake under your name, not of your own making - such as when a sub-editor, cutting the story to fit the available space, inadvertently changes the entire meaning of something. No one ever believes the writer wasn't the one at fault!

As for the number four being unlucky in Japan; I have no first hand experience of this. I will write to my friend in Japan and see if he has anything to add on the subject.

[dbw]

i'm no math major but...if one assumes that most racing cars carry two digit numbers[0-99 more or less..]and figure in the number of fatalities in the total number of races ever held,i assume 13 will,theoretically, come up a lot[as will others]...if one early on discards 13 as "unlucky" then some other number should appear as one associated with disaster....does this make any sense???? i suspect that someone with nothing else to do could assemble a table of "the car number that most often.."
*was involved in a fatal crash...
*came in first...
*came in last...
*ran out of gas on the third lap...
*shed a left rear tire 30 yards from the finish...
*and so on....

[Falcadore]

Whilst thinking along dbw's lines....

Australian racing ghost Bob Holden is certainly having none of this 13 malarkey. He goes out of his way to carry 13. This could well date back to when as a part of the factory BMC Mini Cooper S squad the Mini he shared with scandinavian rallyist Rauno Aaltonen at Bathurst 1966 wore #13. They won.

By the same token, the psycho of Lakeside, Wayne Wakefield also wears 13 when he can. Seeing how he drives I would have thought he shouldn't be courting bad luck so

#1 was long held as a bad luck number here. At Bathurst it was rare for reigning race or championship champions to wear #1. Part of this was because of Peter Brock & Dick Johnson who wouldn't be seen dead without their lucky 05 & 17 car numbers. And they won most of the race in 70's & 80's. Moffat never seemed to mind it, although he didn't adopt #1 for 1984 after winning the 83 championship preferring to maintain the #43 number.

More recently guys like Mark Skaife, Glenn Seton, Craig Lowndes and John Bowe have all worn #1 and that superstition appears to have disappeared.

Peter Williamson always used to have numbers that were two of the same on his hand built Toyotas. 33, 44, 66, 77, 88, multiples of eleven.

The explanation I'd heard around #4 being a bad luck number was that the Japanese think numbers with no apparent beginning or end - like 8 or 0 are good luck. But 4 being so angular and with two end is bad luck. Not sure why that one stuck in my mind, but it's related to when Colin Bond changed his number to 8 from 4 and said similar to that reason and it came from his japanese tyre supplier Toyo.

Barry, and one of the beatiful things about this forum is you can edit youself, so when you sign your name, and then remember afterwards you have an automatic signature....[p][Edited by Falcadore on 02-05-2001]

[William Dale Jr]

I have very little knowledge of the use of the Number 13 in Australia, but I do know that the number was attatched to the car that won Bathurst, not once but twice in the 1960's. In 1966 Bob Holden/Rauno Aaltonen won in a Mini Cooper, and Bruce McPhee won in a Holden Monaro in 1969. McPhee did have a co-driver in Barry Mulholland, but he did only 1 or 2 laps as planned, but that's another story.

As for Franco Uncini, he was very nearly killed in an accident a couple of years later in a horrendous accident when he was run over by Wayne Gardner (Gardner's front wheel his Uncini's head so hard that he knocked his helmet right off his head).

Speaking of Gardner, he used the number 4 in touring cars in Australia after he put a couple more wheels on his wagon. In 1997, Gardner swapped numbers with team-mate Neil Crompton (7) on the advice of a Japanese friend (I read somewhere that it was either his hairdresser, or a real estate agent). Gardner won his first round wearing the number 7. Odd that having rode for Honda for a couple of years with the number 4, that no-one told him.

EDIT: That's the second time someone's posted as I've typed today!!

Anyway Mark, I'd thought that Brocky's use of 05 was tied to TAC's .05 alcohol limit campaign? And I didn't know about the reasons behind Bondy's switch from 4, but it didn't half help his car hold together, not that I'm superstitious or anything [p][Edited by William Dale Jr on 02-05-2001]

[Michael Smart]

Moises Solana did race number13 in the 1964 Gran Premio de Mexico, driving the Centro Sud BRM, 14th on the grid in front of J Siffert, I Ireland, P Hill, T Taylor, M Hailwood and H Sharp. He finished in 10th place and this I think was his first world championship event, not a bad performance for a rookie. I beleive number 13 is considered lucky by the people of Mexico, interesting if thet is true and will confuse any statistical analysis that endeavours to take this into account.

[Falcadore]

William,
McPhee won in 68.

Yes Brock's use of 05 was tied to the .05 campaign, but I'm sure he considered it lucky as well. Hell he even wore it during the Round Australia Rally where the drivers are seeded (but think of the publicity bonus if Brocky should just 'happen' to get 5 - hell they did it twice some 16 years apart!)

And Brock was wearing 5 before it became 05. His 1975 win came under 5 and he kept the number 5 until 1977 when he adopted 05 when driving for Bill Paterson.

Although he did have to suffer a 56 in the 1988 race.

As for Bondy - switching to an 8 must have been a good thing. It returned him to the winners circle for the first time in 12 seasons. Well outright win anyway.

Heh - and Cromley always used to have 7 for his link to Channel 7, so keeping it after the motor racing moved to 10.... - oh damn Mark Larkham had the Mitre 10 deal thing....[p][Edited by Falcadore on 02-05-2001]

[Ray Bell]

21 out of 24 seems high, but the high mortality years were the ones before the season-long regularity of numbering, and that's when the organisers' preference for even numbers came to an end.

Mark got in before me with the correction on McPhee's year...

Certainly, Brock's use of 05 was related to the anti drink-drive campaign, but for Dick Johnson 17 is just a favoured number. As for the 1975 win being with just '5' on the car, that's because it wasn't yet accepted that he'd be able to run with the zero ahead of it... he was just starting his career with the organisation that had him lecturing about drink driving that year...

[Falcadore]

Ray,
Holden couldn't have been using 13 before 68 could they? Umless it was a privateer thing. Or do you mean Bob Holden?

Hang on after I post I look at you're post and I see nothing about Holden. Was it my imagination? Sorry I'll just go away now.... Ignore the above please [p][Edited by Falcadore on 02-05-2001]

[Ray Bell]

I deleted the correction to McPhee's win year, but that paragraph must have included the reference to Holden... yes, Bob, I said he was probably using the number before that race.
Pictures of the Lynx Peugeot would prove or disprove that...

[Rob29]

Re the 24 of 27 deceased F1 drivers,this seems to be more baffling as I reaserch it. In the 1950s only the German GP & Silverstone used odd numbers.Zandvoot changed to them in'59,Monaco in 63, and as new races were introduced ,USA,SA,Mexico,etc they used odds.So by mid 60s most races used all numbers.From mid '73 all races used same numbers.
Fewer races were held in the earlier years.More deaths ocurred later.
Very spooky.

[ray b]

green as unluckly color was indy 500 or u s a only
thing before lotus and clark.any F1 unlucky colors?

[Ray Bell]

I'm sure the 'unlucky green' thing was more widespread than that... the BRMs were initially a pale green, but they were repainted a dark green, the colour now known as British Racing Green.
In the BRM book, Raymond Mays says that at the time it was suggested that the change was made because of the feeling that green was unlucky, and that this was so dark that it could be mistaken for black, hence warding off the bad luck.
He also says it was so the paint wouldn't show so many greasy marks..

But the point is that in the early fifties that feeling was about in England.

[ray b]

BRM self made bad luck in eary days.
lukas elct. other cause of bad luck.
green was made big deal at indy blamed
for driver deaths. I thought it was good
old boys fault. didn't know it came over
from england.

[Barry Lake]

I contacted my friend in Japan, an Australian who knows more about Japan and the Japnese language than most Japanese do. He confirmed Fines and DrGrant's explanation of "four" and "death" having the same pronunciation in Japanese being the reason for the superstition.

Japanese is a strange language that way. The "little pictures" for two words can be totally different to look at but have the same pronunciation - or sometimes not exactly the same, but so close that non-natives can not tell the difference.

[Gil Bouffard]

You guys missed one.... Fon de Portago, never one to shun superstition, raced his private Ferrari with the number 13.

Gil