SPEEDWAY CRASH.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 141, 17 June 1929, Page 7

SPEEDWAY CRASH.

Famous American Driver Meets

Death In Race.

RAY KEECH'S MISHAP

(Australian Press Assn.—United Service.)

NEW YORK, June 10,

Ray Keech, a famous motor racui , .' driver, was killed yesterday on tlsrf Altooua speedway, Tipton, Pennsylvania. His car capsized at the 100-mile mark in a 200-milo event. Keech was leading the field when a car driven by Eob Robinson struck a hole in the wooden track, shot up into the air and bounded down in the path of Keech, who was ■ close behind. He

tried to avoid the smash but lost control of his machine and a second later two other machines crashed into him. Robinson and Ernest Triplett, another of the drivers involved, were not hurt, but Cliff Woodbury, a fourth racer, was badly injured, though he

will probably recover

The petrol from the wrecked cars ignited the track, but the fire was quickly extinguished. There were 25,000 spectators crowded around the mile and a-quarter oval, which Keech was negotiating at a speed of 119 miles an hour. The race was stopped after the accident. The awards of the prizes will be made on the basis of the cars' standing at the time. That gives Keech first moner.

The deceased was 2S years old

Not till he had broken Captain Malcolm Campbell's world's speed record in April, 1928, was Mr. Ray Keech known to the world outside America. In that run at Daytona Beach, he raised the world's record for the mile from 206.96 miles an hour to 2(17.55 miles an hour. He drove the three-engined Triplex racing car owned by Mr. White, in which Lee Bible was recently killed while trying to wrest the world's title from Sir Henry Segrave. Keech's last race was the celebrated 500 mile event run at Indianapolis on May 30 of this year. He won from a field of 33, his average speed being 97.585 miles an hour. He won the Canadian five-mile dirt track championship at the Canadian National Expedition in August last year.