67 replies to this topic

[Steve L]

Have we ever had a thread discussing famous racing cars that have somehow found their way into the "drink"?!

Off the top of my head, I can think of two - Howey's 1920s Ballot that was dumped into the sea after fatally crashing at a speed trial in France, and Ascari's trip into the Monaco harbour in the Lancia D50.

Anymore anyone?

[Vitesse2]

Paul Hawkins also took an unscheduled trip into the Monaco harbour in a Brabham in 1965.

One or two must have ended up in the lake at Oulton Park too.

[2F-001]

Keith Holland, I think it was, parked a F5000 Lola in the lake at Mallory Park.

[ian senior]

Not a famous car, but Terry Sanger's self-built Harrier F5000 also ended up in the drink at Mallory on its first outing in 1971.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by 2F-001
Keith Holland, I think it was, parked a F5000 Lola in the lake at Mallory Park.

Pretty sure a Lightweight E Type went in the lake at Oulton....

[wildman]

Of course, there was Craig Breedlove's Spirt of America LSR challenger that ended up in a salt pond at Bonneville in 1964 - after mowing down a row of telephone poles at 400mph!

[bill moffat]

OK. bending the rules a bit...

Pete Aron's Jordan-BRM plunged into the Monaco harbour in 1966, admittedly it was the Grand Prix film rather than the Grand Prix itself.

Parry-Thomas' Bab's resting place for half a century or so was in the sand dunes of Pendine . I suppose with a high tide...

I'm sure Chopper had an F1 car transporter which was converted from a passenger coach which, along with many others, had been recovered from a sunken cargo ship in the Thames Estuary.

[LittleChris]

Originally posted by Vitesse2

One or two must have ended up in the lake at Oulton Park too.

Roy Salvadori for one and didn't James Hunt also go for a ducking ?

[bill moffat]

Originally posted by petefenelon


Pretty sure a Lightweight E Type went in the lake at Oulton....

Did it float ?

[Gert]

I'm sorry but I don't understand the thread's title.

Can anybody explain what it means, I've seen the expression before but can't make anything of it...

I suppose it has nothing to do with the driver 'Davy Jones' who is discussed in another thread at this moment?

Thanks,
Gert.

[bill moffat]

Originally posted by Gert
I'm sorry but I don't understand the thread's title.

Can anybody explain what it means, I've seen the expression before but can't make anything of it...

I suppose it has nothing to do with the driver 'Davy Jones' who is discussed in another thread at this moment?

Thanks,
Gert.

For Davy Jones' locker read "at the bottom of the sea"

Many theories as to how this term was derived. Perhaps from the biblical Jonas (unwittingly stuck in the GI tract of a whale) or from St David the patron Saint of Welsh sailors.

Or, allegedly, from Davy Jones the London Inn keeper who rendered customers senseless with drink before detaining them in the "locker" of a ship and sending them overseas. Take your pick...

[ian senior]

And, of course, the Protos F2 which ended up in the wet stuff at Enna. That one did float, being made from wood......

[WGD706]

Originally posted by Gert
I'm sorry but I don't understand the thread's title.

Can anybody explain what it means, I've seen the expression before but can't make anything of it...

I suppose it has nothing to do with the driver 'Davy Jones' who is discussed in another thread at this moment?

Thanks,
Gert.

The phrase goes back at least two centuries, since the first clear reference comes from Tobias Smollett, who wrote in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle in 1751 that: “This same Davy Jones, according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes, ship-wrecks, and other disasters to which sea-faring life is exposed, warning the devoted wretch of death and woe”. So his locker is the bottom of the sea, the ocean’s depths.
There are various stories about the origin of the term, usually attempting to identify a real David Jones. One of this name was said to run a pub in London, with a neat sideline—a sort of privatised press gang—of drugging unwary patrons and storing them in his ale lockers at the back of the pub until they could be taken on board some ship. Another story tries to identify him with Jonah of the Old Testament, who—you will recall—spent three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish; but Jonah survived. Yet a third theory says that Davy Jones was a fearsome pirate, who loved to make his captives walk the plank, so they ended up at the bottom of the sea; but nobody has identified this alarming outlaw.

[Paul Newby]

Looks like Ray Bell hasn't got to this thread yet.

I'm a bit hazy on this but I think that a Formula Vee was running around the Warwick Farm Club Circuit in private practice in the late 60's and drove into the dam. Unfortunately the driver drowned.

Or was that the dam at Amaroo Park? I'm not sure ....

[27neil]

Is there a photograph out there of Ascaris dunking?? Could someone possibly post it on here if possible

[theunions]

Dave Stacy in the ARCA Daytona 200, circa 1994, wound up in the infield and got as far as the shallow end of Lake Lloyd.

[Lotus23]

I had the impression that one or more drivers ended up wet at West Palm Beach Raceway in Florida. It's now Moroso Motorsports Park. There were several huge drainage ponds at various points around the circuit, and some of these were over 10 feet deep. Rumors of alligators therein were rampant.

I ran an SCCA National there in early '66. The drivers' pre-race briefing at the start of the weekend was generally the same sort of stuff we'd heard time and time again: watch out for each other, obey the yellow flags, etc, etc: it was all pretty boring.

But on this occasion, we were all startled into full-attention mode by the appearance at the briefing of a diver in full SCUBA gear (flippers, wet suit, oxygen tanks, the whole nine yards). We were informed, in all solemnity, that should we end up underwater, one of these guys would eventually dive in and shove a hose into our mouths so that we wouldn't drown.

As luck would have it, during the Saturday race one of my competitors cut sharply in front of me in a fast turn and I had to brake and twitch hard to avoid punting him. Naturally, the Lotus responded to this manhandling by snapping quickly into a 180 and heading tail-first toward one of those d----d ponds. Time, of course, seemed to stand still, and as I looked backwards I became convinced I was gonna get a dunking. I remember holding my breath in preparation for the Big Splash and wondering if the guy in the wetsuit was anywhere nearby. The Lotus, more from luck than skill, skidded to a halt less than a foot from the edge of the dropoff.

Somewhere I have pictures -- one of these days, I'll ask my kids how to post them.

[mickj]

Lex Davison put Sir Gawaine Baillie's Ford Galaxie into the lake at Sandown in 1964 or '65. It had it's nose into lake and the rear in the air.
I remember seeing a photo of it in 1 of the daily papers.

[Catalina Park]

The Formula Vee driver that drowned was at Warwick Farm.
There was a Vee that went into the lake at Amaroo, the car spun, the driver could not restart it, the driver got out, the flaggie pushed it off the track, the car was in gear with the ignition on, the motor starts and the car chuggs away into the lake

Lance Ruting showed me a series of pics he took of a driver emerging out of the lake at Warwick Farm and then the poor recovery bloke going into the lake with a rope the find the car! It was a sports car of some sort.

[David McKinney]

Still in Australia, I C Blackmore put his Mercury Special into the dam at Rob Roy in 1954, and was rescued by a spectator who dived in after him. Blackmore went on to win at Mount Tarrangower a few weeks later, but was killed in another accident there in 1957

[john medley]

In the 1970s Bob Winley forward rolled his Citroen Special ( in a Historic race at Sandown) into the creek that runs under the circuit just before the old Dunlop Bridge. When we went to get it out at the end of the meeting on a freezing cold day the tow tuck driver stripped to his underpants( which had printed on the front 'Watch my caterpillar') to attach the tow rope underwater, towed the car out, and Bob drove away the car belching water from every orifice.

[Magee]

AT Westwood (near Vancouver) there was an "unofficial" record maintained by the drivers. Just 50 feet from the Carousel turn was a mini-lake of water not yet drained from the circuit in the 1959 to 1964 seasons. Instead of the interest in the track record some drivers were more interested in measuring the distance a car had slid off the track in the Carousel and its stopping point without actually entering the lake. There was a rumour that only one car got wet in the ever-shrinking body of water.

[dmj]

Originally posted by 27neil
Is there a photograph out there of Ascaris dunking?? Could someone possibly post it on here if possible

I hope Dennis won't mind...

[David McKinney]

Just remembered a New Zealand one. On 10 September 1951 a club meeting was held on the salt flats at Lake Bryndwr, Christchurch. Duncan Rutherford’s Willys Special, an ex-speedway midget, left the road in one race and landed in the lake, throwing the driver out. He was unhurt, and the car survived to race again.

[Alan Baker]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Vitesse2
[B]Paul Hawkins also took an unscheduled trip into the Monaco harbour in a Brabham in 1965 .

Actually, Hawkeye was driving Dickie Stoop's ex works Lotus 33 R8, not a Brabham.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Alan Baker
Actually, Hawkeye was driving Dickie Stoop's ex works Lotus 33 R8, not a Brabham.

Correct. However .... Hawkeye was entered by DW Racing Enterprises, which was Bob Anderson's team. Quite why I remembered it as Brabham, I don't know, but what's the connection between Dickie Stoop and Anderson? And Hawkeye, come to that?

[Marcor]

Pietro Bordino's fatal crash:
http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=40224

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Paul Newby
Looks like Ray Bell hasn't got to this thread yet.

I'm a bit hazy on this but I think that a Formula Vee was running around the Warwick Farm Club Circuit in private practice in the late 60's and drove into the dam. Unfortunately the driver drowned.

Or was that the dam at Amaroo Park? I'm not sure ....

Warwick Farm indeed, and as you say, on the club circuit in private practice... he was there all alone, nobody was aware he'd left the circuit until it was too late...

Originally from the keyboard of Catalina Park
.....There was a Vee that went into the lake at Amaroo, the car spun, the driver could not restart it, the driver got out, the flaggie pushed it off the track, the car was in gear with the ignition on, the motor starts and the car chuggs away into the lake.....

I've described this before... I was doing the commentary this day and it was the result of a multi-car pile up on the last corner of the first lap. The yellow-suited officials jumped the fence, piled out of their utilities and rushed to clear the circuit before the cars came around again... Alan Goldsmith got out of his stalled car, a burly marshal started to push it off the circuit, got up a bit of speed and the engine fired.

I was giving the commentary on the battle for the lead interspersed with details of what was happening clearing the circuit, realised what was happening and described the car chugging off to run into the lake. As the leaders got down to the hairpin the second time...

And another incident mentioned by CP
.....Lance Ruting showed me a series of pics he took of a driver emerging out of the lake at Warwick Farm and then the poor recovery bloke going into the lake with a rope the find the car! It was a sports car of some sort.

Chevron B8 BMW, to be precise, Tony Oxley. This incident made him very safety conscious, he then had Tony Simmons fit a very neat roll cage to the Hustler I later bought... it had to be cut off to conform to new CAMS rules...

From the depths of David McKinney's memory
Still in Australia, I C Blackmore put his Mercury Special into the dam at Rob Roy in 1954, and was rescued by a spectator who dived in after him. Blackmore went on to win at Mount Tarrangower a few weeks later, but was killed in another accident there in 1957

Is this in the 'ultimate price' thread?

There's also the story of a car on fire being driven into to sea at a beach race... probably Eldred Norman in the Double 8 at Sellicks.

Also, at Enna, Frank Gardner talks about diving to retrieve a car in the lake, fighting off the water snakes as he went...

[fines]

Joe Cooper ran his home-built Sebring into a lake inside of the new Tri-State Fair Speedway at Burlington, IA in 1915. At the very next race (Des Moines) he crashed fatally

[O Volante]

In the first lap of the III° Grande Prêmio da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, at Gávea on 2 June 1935, Irineu Corrêa lost control over his Ford V8 1935 #32, which started to slide, then crashed against a tree and was finally thrown from the track down into a canal besides. Irineu was rescued from car and canal, carried to hospital by motobike-ambulance (a stretcher instead of a side-car!), but found dead on arrival. It is not known wether he was drowned, or killed by the impact(s) of the crash against the tree or of the landing in the canal.

[BRG]

Of course rally cars end up in the drink rather more often than racers as there is far more scope for such excursions on rallies!

A fairly recent incident was Louise Aitken-Walker/Tina Thorner who rolled their Astra down a hillside in Portugal into a lake about ten years ago. There was considerable concern for their lives as the car was completely submerged but both ladies bobbed up and swam to safety, and went on to win the Ladies category of the World Rally Championship that year.

Another famous (at least in UK rally circles) incident was on the RAC Rally in 1972(?) when Peter Clarke managed to pop his Ford Escort into a small (but conveniently Escort-sized!) pond on the Woburn Park stage.

[Ray Bell]

If we're going to sink to rallies...

I think it was the 1957 round Australia trial, maybe earlier, 1954?

Running second into the closing stages was an MG TD. They'd been counselled to take it easy, the leader was too far ahead, but somehow they rolled into a very shallow creek, I have been told only two inches of water.

They drowned...

[Rob29]

Not a race accident, but 2 ex Indy Millers were put on a ship for south america in the 1920s,which went to the bottom of the south atlantic.

[Steve L]

Re the Millers - is there any record to say that they were recovered?! (....straps on diving suit)

This thread seems to have generated a fair bit of interest!

I seem to remember seeing a picture somewhere of George Abecassis nearly visiting the lake at (I think) Crystal Palace in his single-seater Alta in the 1930s. But was this a real incident or was it staged?

[Rob29]

Originally posted by Steve L
Re the Millers - is there any record to say that they were recovered?! (....straps on diving suit)

I think the story was on one of these forums,either this or americanhistory. Someone was thinking about salvage maybe the same people who did the Titanic.

[Macca]

Regarding Ray Bell's post about Frank Gardner dodging water-snakes whilst retrieving a car from the lake at Enna-Pergusa, does part of a car count?

In 1963 Trevor Taylor was following Lorenzo Bandini who clipped an apex and threw a rock which hit TT on the forehead and knocked him out; his Lotus 25 hit the bank, somersaulted throwing him out onto the track (almost unharmed, amazingly, because he was relaxed due to being unconscious) and then hit the pit wall and disintegrated in a shower of shrapnel which made everyone duck - and the gearbox flew into the lake.

The ZF gearboxes were in very short supply, so when the mechanics telephoned Chapman to tell him, he said "Well, get it out then" - and when they explained about the venomous water-snakes ACBC was distinctly unsympathetic. This may reflect the perceived relative values of a ZF gearbox and an F1 mechanic in 1963!

Eventually they contrived a trawl device out of fence wire and thus salvaged the gearbox by a low personal risk method.



When Roy Salvadori put his Jaguar Mk 2 into the Oulton Park lake, he finished upside down underwater, in some risk of drowning. He was apparently unimpressed that his fellow-drivers were highly amused at his mud-monster appearance when he returned to the paddock, his nickname at the time being "Smoothadori".

Paul Mackness

[Ray Bell]

Frank told me he was well paid to attach a rope... but I'm also somewhat convinced he was talking about the TT incident.

Was it just this gearbox he had to help salvage? Was he there that meeting?

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
Frank told me he was well paid to attach a rope... but I'm also somewhat convinced he was talking about the TT incident.

Was it just this gearbox he had to help salvage? Was he there that meeting?

Nope. It would have been 1964 and the car was Mike Hailwood's Parnell Lotus 25. Presumably Frank was moonlighting as he was driving for John Willment!

I don't want to p*ss on Macca's parade, but John Thompson quotes extensively from Autosport in the F1 Record Book on this accident - it mentions a wheel and gearbox parts flying through the air and landing among the pit personnel. Perhaps only the casing went into the lake?

[Ray Bell]

There you go... it was a Lotus...

Can't see Colin getting all that excited about bits of a busted gearbox housing, however.

[Johnny Lugnuts]

Memo Moreno at the 2001 'German Grand Prix'!



Johnny

[Macca]

Vitesse 2 said

"I don't want to p*ss on Macca's parade, but John Thompson quotes extensively from Autosport in the F1 Record Book on this accident - it mentions a wheel and gearbox parts flying through the air and landing among the pit personnel. Perhaps only the casing went into the lake?"

------------------------------------------------

Vitesse2,
I got that straight from the horse's mouth - the late Andrew Ferguson who was Lotus team manager and was there at Enna - from 'Team Lotus-The Indianapolis Years' (page 58 to be precise).

[Doug Nye]

Trev's wrecked Lotus stayed on dry land as far as I know, it was Mike Spence's car which went into the wiggy there a year or two later...as did Hailwood's.

DCN

[brucemoxon]

What about the ex-Kevin Bartlett Brabham F5000 being tossed into the Thames rather than pay duty?

Rumour (or perhaps urban myth - or in this case rural or forestry myth) is that the Nissan team tossed its 710s overboard after a Southern Cross Rally in the 1970s or very early 80s. Not worth the deck space, allegedly.

Ray, for some reason I always thought the Amaroo Park Vee was Paul Liston. I have no idea why I thought that - anyway I'll use your version 'cause you were there.

In 1993 my friend David Inall rolled his brother's rally Holden Gemini into a small body of water - they landed upside-down and could have been in some strife in other circumstances. I donated a pile of bits to get the car back on road for the next week.

My own effort was to fly off the road near Bulahdelah (North of Sydney) into what I thought was a paddock that turned out to be a swamp. If I'd known I'd have tried harder to stay on the road! Wasn't quite water - just very very thin mud! Too thin to plough, to thick to drink.



Bruce Moxon

[ghinzani]

All of Joey Dunlops race bikes and several other persons machines went to the bottom in a trawler on their way to IoM in the early 80s, however they were subsequently rescued. It still seems bizzare to me that Dunlop travelled by trawler, uin fact his entire "bikes in the back of a van" approach seems so parochial these days, given the size of transporters these days.

[Doug Nye]

The Mike Spence Team Lotus immersion at Enna '65 was a very close run thing...



1 - Mike's car has capsized and he appears to be totally submerged here - I think the pale blob below the screen is his shoulder in his pale-blue Dunlop overalls, his head is in the reed-bed, also apparently under water, as the marshals and helpers are heaving the car onto its side to release him.



2 - More muscle has arrived - including the rozzers - and Mike can be seen soggily scrambling out beside the legs of the bloke in the pale shirt and hat.



3 - Yahoo! He's on his feet and plainly OK, despite his ducking.



4 - Signal in reassurance goes out to team leader Jim Clark...who still ended up being beaten by Jo Siffert's Brabham-BRM, by 0.3 second, hurrah!

DCN

[FLB]

Not a car, but racing-related.

After he got completely out of the sport, Johnny Servoz-Gavin tossed every trophy he ever won into the Seine.

[Sharman]

Not even a car
A friend of mine was showing off doing touch and goes in a Piper Cub on a narrow strip of beach. Until he missed the beach. Oh how we laughed!

[COUGAR508]

Originally posted by FLB
Not a car, but racing-related.

After he got completely out of the sport, Johnny Servoz-Gavin tossed every trophy he ever won into the Seine.

Did Johnny give any reason for this? Was it disillusionment because of his premature retirement, or some non-conformist gesture?

[FLB]

Originally posted by COUGAR508
Did Johnny give any reason for this? Was it disillusionment because of his premature retirement, or some non-conformist gesture?

Non-conformist. He wanted racing out of his life. His girlfriend at the time said to him 'Don't you think all of this is ridiculous (i.e. the trophies)?', so he threw them out in the water.

(Source: Mes excès de vitesse, his autobiography published in 1974)

[MoMurray]

Three incidents that might qualify for this thread (loosely).
1 The fishing boat incident in Strangford Lough when Joey Dunlop, his brother Robert, Brian Reid and Stephen Cull (I believe) were transporting their racebikes to the Isle or Man for the TT and the boat sank after missing the tides. All were ok and infact all the bikes were recovered and raced. Actually, none of Joeys bikes were aboard. (just noticed this has been mentioned)

2 One AJ Foyt sank a bulldozer in a pond this week and by his own account was lucky to escape http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/61319

3 Does the Servoz-Gavin incident ring of Muhamad Ali throwing his Olympic gold medal off a bridge in Louiville where it apparently still rests at the bottom of the Ohio river.

Mo.