AMAZING ESCAPE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 3, 3 December 1931, Page 7

AMAZING ESCAPE.

PEER’S MOTORING CRASH.

EFFORT TO CREATE RECORD

Viscount Ridley, the motor racing peer, attempting to break a “baby” car record at 110 miles an hour at Brooklands on October 28, skidded sixty yards, crashed through a corrugated- iron and oak fence, knocked down two sturdy pine trees, and completely wrecked the car. His only personal injuries were severe cuts on the leg. This is the most amazing of the many 'wonderful ■ escapes from death recorded on the Brooklands track. Lord Ridley, who was driving the car he himself designed and assembled, had already beaten his own record of 105.42 miles an hour for the flying kilometre. He was making for the nying mile when the car crashed so suddenly that it was unseen by anyone. . . A workman painting offices on the course heard a crash, and the absence of any impression on. the tapes of the electrichl timing apparatus convinced Mr Bradley, the official timekeeper, that an accident had occurred. The motorist was discovered sitting unconscious in his driving seat amid the wreckage of his car, which was still standing on its wheels and resting against the tree trunk. When he crashed into the fence, Lord Ridley had skidded while going off the Members’ Bank opposite the Fort on his reverse journey. Twenty yards of the fence were torn clean away; the two pine trees were cut down as if by a powerful saw, and the small car was in pieces. Lord Ridley recovered consciousness in a few minutes and his only thought was for his car. “How is the ’bus?” he asked a mechanic. “Hardly touched, sir,” the man said soothingly, not wishing to tell him the bitter truth. . , , , Lord Ridley’s- right leg was deeply cut, but apart from shock and a slight abrasion on his forehead he suffered no other injury. He was taken to hospital where it was stated that there might be a small fracture in the ankle. The motorist was saved from death by the collapsible steering wheel he had made himself. It had to be removed to enable him to enter the driving seat and bolted back again. The wheel had pinned the driver to the seat and prevented him being thrown out. The “Ridley Special,” as Lord Ridley called his car, is of the “baby” class with an engine rating of 750 cubic centimetres. ■ •

“I can only say that the accident was caused by a" skid,” said Mr Bradley. “Marks in the track give the impression that the front wheels locked. The track was wet at the time. In a week or two it would have been closed to any recordbreaking attempts. Lord Ridley had one of the most amazing escapes I have ever seen.”