BLUEBIRD PROJECT

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30201, 5 August 1963, Page 11

BLUEBIRD PROJECT

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(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) MELBOURNE, Aug. 4

The British driver, Donald Campbell, told Reuter yesterday he hoped to meet Sir Alfred Owen during the British industrialists’ visit to Australia.

Speaking by telephone from the remote Northern Territory town of Katherine, Campbell declined immediate comment on remarks made in Sydney on last Thursday by Sir Alfred Owen, the British industrialist, who is one of the sponsors of the Bluebird world land speed record project. Campbell said the telephone call from Reuter’s Melbourne office was the first he had heard of Sir Alfred Owen's remarks.

Speaking to reporters in Sydney on his arrival for a 12-day visit. Sir Alfred Owen said Campbell had wasted time exhibiting the Bluebird car in Melbourne and Adelaide instead of concentrating on the project’s objective—the world record.

The attempt at Lake Eyre. South Australia, in May was washed out by rains and floods.

Campbell said he arrived in Katherine on Friday after four weeks’ trekking through the vast area of northern Australia seeking an alternative site for the record attempt. In that time he had seen no newspaper, heard no radio, received no letter and was unaware that Sir Alfred Owen was in Australia. Campbell said: "I don’t think it is right for me to comment until I have seen the full account in writing of what Sir Alfred Owen said and when he has confirmed what he said to me personally.”