1958-08-16 — Page 6

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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1958.

Men of speed

THE LE MANS CRASH THAT STUNNED ALL EUROPE.

AND MADE HAWTHORN SAY: 'I'LL NEVER DRIVE AGAIN'

The secret battle

of

Disaster Day

• While the news of the Le Mans race disaster spread across Europe one lonely, shaken man sat behind a locked door and fought a battle which none could share with him. Then they came to him and said:

"It's your turn to drive again......

was the week-end of Pentecost. Throughout all France that Saturday morning in June 1955 IT

the shutters on the bedroom windows swung back to frame a sky as blue as the sun was hot. And over breakfast each family made its plans to grasp this golden holiday. Happily they argued whether it should be the sea, the mountains, the river or a picnic among the vineyards.

All except a quarter of a million of them.

They had already made up

Abel mlads.

They were going

to Le Mons to ate the must

fremendous buttle ever staged on

the eight-mile

there.

car race circuit

would be

by ROBERT GLENTON

an

heord it those three years can remember 62lll,

пуда

Eighty-two people died in that fraction of time.

Still in the pita opposite there were horrified men who found in a tiny portion of their mind death of space to mourn the

Furio

But they were wrong. It was

Levegh, the French hero, who

was

of

happened?" but he barged them away",

brutally With 82 dead and over 100

izjured te

of

thought of those All ho quarter

million Freuch Tolle'ay-makers téeming out of the circuit was impossible.

He was near to tears, could say was, "Oh, God! never drive again."

There was One silent man Hawthorn never even notleed.

He was Ivor Bucb, his co-driver. He was new to this sort of Le Mans racing. He could still find tension in the way

can lose

in mality at 170 miles an hour, when This was the moment Hawthorn should have hastly

purenci on advier and informa-

officers do

AL

thuy change

watch.

there was no flap on the

Bo the carn went on. And eventually the opectators shut around their eyes to the ruin them and looked at the again.

TAILING

IOCO

Now the Mercedes was lead-

The biggest victory at La Alans that day had been won.

But there was still the battla with the Mercedes. Once Jaw- thorn was in the car he drova through a nightmare lap arter lap, but the Germans looking in their mirror could always" BOG hia mertare,

And everyone shut their cars to the dolorous voice of the commentator calling endlessly the names of relatives who were wanted at the bedsides of the dying and the kifuzed.

tion, in the way that ships ing with Jaguar falling close,

In the British pit the eyes

-It was a long time before any wore still fixed on the closed

glorious Yould one noticed that the door of that caravan, Hawthorn take his turn when littering day had gone, that the car came in to refuci? low cloud had covered the stars. Had be hoen broken fgr, ever? In harmony with the day that In the caravan gentle words tragically it started to rain.... and reasoning were having no a steady seeping, sorrowing effect on him.

dafzzle.

But for Bucb word, just iL shoulder from ine team and he bungled into managerT, the cockpit.

Buch 1x short, stocky Cornishman.. teemingly earthy as his native county, but I have been his co-driver loo, and I know the sensitivity underneath.

The thought of a victory for Jaguar had now taken second place, bravely and well as Bueb was driving.

started So well ended

A GLOW

1

After hours of racing, one didn't have to look. One could tell the different cars by their of the engine notes, the rasp

bellow of the Ferrari, the Mercedes, the high-pitched grumble of the Jaguar.

Everyone reiterated that the accident was Mo faull of his, but Hawthorn was laconsolable.

Through the night reared the He could not be calmed, STRUNG UP Jaguar dead, The

cars, the headlamps a pin point, Hawthorn had inpped him,

He was strung up before the All the old familiar remedies a blinding dazzle, and just os Fangio was behind

had rice

startu!. Now e

nice rapidly, a glow on the horizon. brandy....the ...the Levegh in his last living couldn't even pretend to bo hot Gup

wero of tea....they moment had time to see Macklin unpassive. Never has a man wasted. in front. He had a second), to had a worse introduction to Le save his life. And what did he Mann. Nor a greater responst- do with it?'

bility. When most men would have From

being co-driver, his struggled ugalost nature and anxious look at Hawthom's face against fate, clutching at the old han that from now on he steering wheel to might carry Jaguar's urgent the struw of a They swept by Castellotti. His bundle of white rugs OT!

existence, fight for

Levegh fortunes on his own shoulders. road.

the Almust deliberately,

car chose another course,

Grimly he let in the clutch and pointed its squat nose at three

He thought of Fangle, hotly rockeled away from the hotros grey-faced men who stood on

overtaking him, Fis last around him. the verge.

They were a photo-

gesture was to fiing his nem grasher, a gendarme, and a man

out in an almost perfect with an armlet.

highway code signal to warn the South American,

Night

his Ferrari Wits over, exhausted. Time and time again. the hip record was broken.

The timekeepers were dazed Farelo look the record again ngain....then at over

men.

Stirling Mogg prides himself Not for them the tranquillity on his abling to emulate

week-end. At be Olymple gold medallist in this of an idle Mans for all 24 hours of the xpřín). Face peace would not even And standing

FL room

But today, he was sitting on tashed and whipped and the it comter with his eyen battered by the brutality of the un Fangio, for he was co-driver Casteet sports cars in the world, with the South American in 122 miles an hour Hawthorn They didn't move as, with their Mercedes. Mors would not smashed it, Those thousands of tyres yelping, the Healey ernst- There would be the British be driving unth later. Every

It saved Fangio's life. At 150 Jaguars, those olive green cars car at Es Maus now had to people on the outside of the ed into them, over them, and

hour he

swerved thai in the last few years had have two drivers. The author- cireult were exalted, dizzy with stopped on mute and as still as miles

But on the Inside, the if the wind-stream while that through the names

post the almost nude Le Mans their fics, alarmed by the growing

moment alunned Macklin and roared out specs, full that no man could mea, in the pits were appre- had enveloped it a

Eensive,

before had never been.

of sight, down the track. Then there were the brooding resist the fearful fatigue of 24

Hawthorn, his mirror reflect- It was a Recond as frozen the leading drivers Soon silver Mercedes, as arrogant us hours driving by himself.

In time as a fly in amber. And ing disaster, overshot the Jaguar a string of Teutonte victorles

OWI

could make them,

And the Nalian scarlet and snarling.

Ferraris,

FOR PRESTIGE

It was going to be a ballie for national prestige, far more so thon a grand prix, for the cars that race at Le Mans are re- garded as production inodels, the Kind you can buy in a show-

TOGM,

For the car that won, a Awesome mountain of dollars, frattes, pounds, Hre, escudos, and plastres was walking.

No wonder the makers had - signed up the fastest drivers m the world to all them,

race

Hawthorn, who had already won the

once, Fanglo, Mess, Maglioli, Castellotti, Trin- ignant, Collins and Kling, they were all there.

For the 250,000 Frenchmen the hero was greying Porre Levegh

Only a couple of years belor, he had led

SILENCE.....

Suddenly there was silence. The loudspeakers were dead, the spectators stood on hushed ip-ing. The drivers crouched in their viteles, hypnotised by the poised starting flag.

I dropped!

First the soft, urgeni palter of the drivers' feet.

Then one engine blasted the sky, another, a hrd.

Siberri.

would be overtaking the cars in

An

Hawthorn gave no thought to Bucb and his fortunes,

He never even heard the car roar away.

The foverial desire of those around him was to bring some eort of spark back to Ilawthorn.

It was just after midnight when weary cars strained hard and there was sudden alience They felt that it was vital, behind the pits. Ono sound in If he was ever to drive again, this Le Mans orchestration was It was the Mercedca. that he should get back into his missing. car. But they had loss than Everyone crowded to look at two hours to convert a heart- the Berman pit. It was deserted. broken man into the buoyant, resilient figure he had been such after the erash Mercedes had At midnight, just six houNA a short while before.

decided to withdraw their acknowledgment

And all he could hear was the voice from the Mercedes pit

With the minutes racing by in to all who would and that whole little world disaster. crying out

that the Englishma listen

skrieking of speed, they spoke Hawthorn had caused the crash. carefully and quietly,

"Mike, the know."

And above it all the loudspeakers

drowning

raucour

Through the flames

drove Fangio

4s fast,

now

Tyren shrieked as wheels

their own teams....cars which pun, Through the baze of

of exhaust, the ears should, on performance, be just rubber, were Indescribably mixed. They weaved, swerved, came within wild tichten of collision, And then they were gone. As the ears swept out of sight, Castellut in his Ferrari wa

Le Mans Hawthorn was in second place. co Fangio driving furiously 123 Talbot. Beorning a

E driver, he had raced for over 23 still not in the first ten.

of the 24 hours without rest.

The crowds were

wes

delirious.

Worte s),

the two leaders would have 10 be thinking about a pit stop. They to refuel and to would have change drivers...all in the

narrow wit}

for 82 people, standing under pit. When he stopped he ran the blue sky with all its back, for it is illegal at Le Mans promise of summer days, the to reverse the car.

last, thing -they would ever sce. For the silver Mercedes._ with no hesitation in speed, crashed into the earth safely bank. One moment His driver's head. aourite opainst the sky, flopped forward and then there was a sheet of fame.

shadows

'KEEP ON....

"Get going." yelled his pit

manager.

next

time."

in

"Kcep on, come

Hawthorn drove

round those eight inlles of road

120-mile-an-hour deze,

four

agony Deross the track with-a gramophone record.

It was "La Mer."

DEMENTED

They led Hawthorn to a green. caruvan and the door shut,

The

you can drive, you they reasoned. "You

ought to. You must.

ASLEEP....

cars

of the

It was daylight before many knew.. Ex-

wearled

It wasn't pf the spectators your fault, you know, it wasn't," hausted by the din of the brawl between the British and Hawthorn, hands botween his the German cars and

zeen, knees and dead eyes staring at by the horrors they had

If the the etravan floor, paid no aften drizzle that night. In care, an

thousands fell asleep

little tents, huddled under rain- coats on the grass they drowned. And only a lonely Jaguar, -driven by

man stiff with

tion.

"They must stop the race," he muitered.

Il friends, men who were sorrow, swept round endlessly. driving too, as soon of their cars Without mechanical trouble it had come in, patted him on the could not all to win. It had shoulder, repented the argi- no trouble. When the official ments. Someone noticed that clocke dragged its hands round It was quite a few minutes since to four o'clock on 'Sunday, Hawthom had begged for the Jaguars were the victors, Jace to bo šlopped.

race went on, although

They secretly yearned that hig only yards away the bodies were distress was burning out. Out- Leing placed in lines, priests side, lap by lap, Bucb was fight

ARTIFICIAL

Hawthorn, his eyes red, his were giving a hasty Absolution, ing hard, but soon the pit signal, wrists aching, bowed to allow and the police with their sts to keep back the flagged in.

were fighting would be waved and he would be an official to put a laurel wreath demented relatives.

And

Was

going to drive?

No one could tell.

Hawthorn round

Jaguar would be back in

his neck, he kissed pretty girl who waited near by, gave a showman's grin as brier as it was artlacial, climbed into

saloon car, and was gono. nster that had shaken the dispute,

By Monday morning the dis- Europo

Who caused It? WIL

come-

of the track in leading, then came another front of the grandstand,

As order relurad hurriedly Feruri and then lawthorn #

to the Jaguar pit, one thought One of them. ..or bath....

It took just over four minutes, Wus it everyone's mind.... A mechanie held out the his Jaguar.

minutes for his face to # Wis their frat duty to signal, Burb waved a blurred Fangio had made a bad start, would ight fanatically to gain such a lead that the seconds half over,

it was as though a napalm whiten and his lipa to tremble. console and reassure Hawlhom, acknowledgment.'In minutes the had become a matter for angry, lost while petrol was pumped in bomb had burst. Before the tap was

Precisely, skilfully he drove would still keep him in front,

Into

One man from the pits.. the pit. The mechanics started to refuel and Hawthorn Mercedes pil too. He Was serambled out.

Stirling Moss.

Moved by "Lofty" England suddenly one be tried for manslaughter? Bawihom's distress ho softly walked across. He looked at Who is the criminal? They The Jaguar pit was stunned, comforled him. But all his rival the crouched Hawthorn, touched were the questions to which the and French people insisted on on So near had it been to the could

shout des oh him on repeat was "Why,

the

"Come crash that lie Gocupants were why, don't they stop this damn muured:

an, Mike, answer. dazed and concussed, with rece?"

It's your turn." shock.

Everyone paused, and started. That is what thousands were Hawthorn slowly turned his

head and got to his feet,

With quick détermination, he

the

tion, he had wrecked his engine, broken the lap record.

The érowds wept that day.

But now Levegh was to race

again Ironically, the French

their idol was driving.

DESPERATE

smoko

The didn't get one, Eventually an inquiry, was set up. 11 exonerated everyone.

+

NEXT WEEK:

There was a small broken asking. huddle of women, wives. girl friends, helpers of the drivers. Even the French Prime put on his helmet, tugged at Hawthorn pushed blindly Minister had telephoned to ask. his gloves. As the weary Buch through them,

But the organisers knew better. leaped from the Jaguar, Haw- The Unknown Who The men clung to him and Every read was wanted for thorn slid into his place, a brief who asked carefully, "Mike, what àmbilances.

salute with his hand, he was off.

Already the Jaguar warning A sheet of fire, pure and cruel, igual was waved as Hawthorn casi sudden

sharper. went by. At 150 miles an hour dayjor than ever thrown by tìmi And he had had an unbent Levegh was already seventh saluted it with a hurried day's Sun. And the treacly, oily

Mercedes tent. when in the last kading able lead

curled and maments, stunned by exhaus Minutes later, Castellotti had lek of his hand as he roared black

by. For the moment he had the mounted. ascendancy. He was lending Frogio.

Through it, over it, over the In just over four minutes he barrier and over the upturned would be round again, braking faces of the crowd the ruin of would have to cheer a German He was travelling round at hard, with the pit crew lense to the car catapulted. Mercedes, for that was what more than 17 miles an hour, hood in fuel as fast as they Ahead went the engine, to one Hawthorn, mouth half open, could On the counter, fils sie went the back uxic. The drivers gathered at the elbows julting, was hard behind co-driver, squatted,

"Through the air they wailed. pits, They wure not happy, him.

For them, the seconds licked And a scream went up from they were not unhappy, perhaps

And Fanglo Racing harder very slowly. They peered up the the crowd that everyone than anyone could remember track. All that was in sight he had pulled up to sixth place was an Austin Healey, driven passed Loverh. Boon by fance Mucklin. The Fangio was reconds behind had been entered to show that it the two leaders. He had also could put up a consistent 100 put the lap record up, to 110 miles an hour, average through

otts the race. It was considerably slower than the Ferraris, the And the peril of Le Mans had Mercedes, and the Jaguars,

Macklin Already the little slow

was travelling ** cars were being lapped. No about 120 miles an hour,

a life gloomy. Le Mans is an

awkward, wearying clrcuit,

It

has its own individual dangers,

and cach driver but the one that

most was sceretly feared the the long straight past the pits.

It was so narrow, as narrow as a main road. Here there would always be a confusion of cars pulling in for attention; and there would be the slower,

alter ears lo avertake.

It

THE START

drive place to Was

miles an hour.

grown.

car

matter how much their drivers A skilled driver, he had time, watched the mirrors and pulled to study his mirror closely, over to the right to let the It showed a picture that bowling lenders through, on the would put most inen off driving corners there was baulking and for ever, Bearing down on him through with the utmost care the slides grew wilder as the was a blur that could only be and cautione. But still it was Ferraris, Jaguars, and Mercedes a Jaguar and a silver shimmer

and long, fast “stralghi,

fought their biller fight,

inngnitying with every heart- every man knew that here to

Fangio, lawthorn, and Castel- bent. which must be a Germanı must grasp the opportunity lotti did nos finch, The Britan Mercedes. for speed.

Italian now broken the record again.

Across the track, on the fair. ground the brass music blared, the side-show barkers bellowed,

was. only see, behind the HOMELY.....

and Fangio had

and the swelling crowds added an hour down the straight they He pulled over to the right to let

a backround drone.

At 100....170....180 miles But Macklin was experienced.

ruced It was Bke. a lunatic the fight go through. dush along a Bank Hollday by- The Jaguar whistled past, The drivers were led when pass They were sharing the and drew towards the pit. Jour o'clock was only minules track with over 50 other cars. Macklin pulled out a little way away. They wandered out from Over in the fairground the to pass 1.

the pits, looked at the millions roundabouts gyrated forlornly,

of fairy lights, Insipid against the side-show men grew hoarse

the sun, down the long chaply, and moumed their ruined track and as the cars in their harvest.

оп

No one was going to leave the

The din when a Mercedea Travelling at about 150 miles an hour hits a Healey travel-. tirip 20 or 30 miles an hour slower is surprisingly small.

Many a business man driving home runs Into the car in front with more. commotion

silent row.

The start to the Lo Mang cireult while the most desperate race is unique. The vehicles are race that Le Mans had ever ined up diagonally the seen was still on. right hand side of the track. Then, right before the thickest Opposite them and the width of crowds Fangio passed flawthorn the

It was a homely sound, lo. rond nway aro. white....and broke the lap record

Hawthorn passed Fanglo the crash of a dustbin 114, But painted circles in which the agala. drivers stand.

...no other car now mattered. 10 the high-trung crowd it When tho fing drops the Sometimes the Jaguar and some magnetized their cars and eyes. The Healey was spinning DD drivers have to veamper scross, times the Mercedes led. Occa- jeap Into their cars, press the sionally they cornered side by the track like the tottering top

alde.

of a child. Its driver lay liko a slatter and race away.

Won Glory

DONKEY RIDES

*** Resiambar-we aren't playing pain. we aren't ni the Walts, Olly, we aren't Wells Fargo. Just ench to the pler and hack nice and slow