Hailwood wins again

Press, 15 June 1978, Page 10

Hailwood wins again

‘NZPA staff correspondent London Mike Hailwood swept to the second victory of his temporary motor-cycling “comeback” this week when he won a Formula One race at Mallory Park in Leicestershire. The 38-year-old veteran of the sixties, who now lives in “retirement” from racing in Auckland, was making his first appearance as the Formula One world champion—a title which he won on the strength of his single victory in the Isle of Man Formula One T.T. a week before. Riding the 860 cu cm Ducati on which he won on the long, twisting Isle of Man [circuit, Hailwood proved his 1 mastery on the completely--1 different Mallory Park track,

'which is so short it can be flapped in under 50sec. The win gained him the “man of the meeting” trophy but although he is planning ■ two further races in Britain | in July, he still maintains that his current racing is not a come-back in the full competitive sense. And the Isle of Man Coroner’s Court has found that the Auckland motorcyclist, Michael Adler, died from “severe brain damage” in an Isle of Man hospital. The court recorded a verdict of "death my misadventure,” following AdJer'g crash in the classic T.T. race on the island. Adler, a 27-year-old sales representative of Belmont, Auckland, had died from “severe brain damage resulting from a fractured skull and other head injuries,” the court found. Witnesses described how Adler, on the final 60.75 km lap of the six-lap race, had approached a difficult comer

“on the wrong racing line.” He had lost control of his machine, which hit the footpath, hurling him into a stone wall. The mass-circulation “Daily Mail" newspaper has called the T.T.: “An annual bloodletting ritual ... a grisly jamboree.” An article by Mervyn Edgecombe headlined “The killer T.T. . . . sickest sports festival of all” said the T.T. series was “a week in which death, no matter how horrific, becomes commonplace.” Edgecombe, who attended ■ the series, said his “undying recollection . . . will be the undiluted callousness and the indifference to loss of human . life.” In spite of the five deaths this year and the serious injury toll, the Auto Cycle Union, which runs the T.T., had made no effort to invoke stricter safety procedures, he wrote.