DEAD TRACK RIDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 229, 27 September 1935, Page 14

DEAD TRACK RIDER.

MOURNED BY WOMEN.

PRAY IN POURING RAIN. t DEFEATED AUSTRALIAN CHAMPION. (Special.—By Air Mall.) LONDON, September 7. An idea of the amazing grip which speedway riding—first introduced in Australia—has obtained in this country can bo gained from the scene outside the Greenwich Hospital this week when hundreds of women prayed in the jouring rain after hearing that Tom Farndon, the speedway star who was injured in a crash at the New Cross Stadium, had died. These women admirers had stood for hours, many crying, watching each bulletin as it announced that there was no change in his condition. Farndon died after being unconscious for 4S hours. Relatives and several New Cross speedway riders were at his bedside. Throughout the day there had been hundreds of callers. Tramway car and omnibus drivers stopped outside the hospital to make inquiries. By nine o'clock the crowds were so great that police were called to control them. Several women in the crowd said that they would never visit a speedway again. "Everyone loved Tom Farndon," one woman added. "He was a wonderful rider and one of the cleanest and most unspoiled stars on the tracks." Farndon, who leaves a widow and a child, was a champion of champions, for after beating Vic Huxley, Australia's Test match leader, for the British individual title in June last year, he defended the championship successfully against all comers. He began his working life in Coventry as a body builder with a well-known firm of motor car manufacturers at 50/ a week, and took to the speedway as a novice at the age of 18. In a short while he was earning £3000 a year. Farndon represented England 21 times in the Test matches with Australia, and held speed records at every track in the country. His English record of 40.37 miles an hour for a single lap set up at Crystal Palace in 1033 has never been equalled for a quarter-mile circuit.