Realised His Ambition

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7300, 9 August 1930, Page 13

Realised His Ambition

DEATH OF SEGRAVE A FACT disclosed in the many tributes to the late Sir Henry ** Segrave is that he feared he might die tamely between the sheets, and that, in his own words, he wanted “to go out with his boots on.” A fellow motor-racer pays the following tribute to the famous record-breaker, who met his death at Lake Windermere, England, on Friday, June 13, after hearing the news that he had set a new world’s record of 98.76 m.p.h.

Born in 1896, the outbreak of the war found him at Eton, whence he passed, by way of Sandhurst, into the Royal Warwickshire Regiment; shortly after, he was seconded to the R.F.C., ending his fighting ca-reer in 1916 after being severely wounded. Thereafter, he did much staff work of a responsible and technical nature, until at the end of the war he resigned his commission.

His entry into the famous Sunbeam team commenced a racing career in which every notable event fell to his iron nerve and cool precision; he won the 200-mile race at Brooklands three times, and on two other occasions he was in the winning team; he was the only Englishman who has ever won the Grand Prix de Prance on an English car; on road and track, in England

and abroad, and in a succession of races far too numerous to specify, he showed himself to be a master of both.

By 1926 he had started upon his career of record-breaking; in that year he twice raised the record—to 152.3 at Southport and to 203.9 m.p.h. at Daytona. In March, 1929, he again won for England, at 231.3 m.p.h., the recoi'd which this country had lost to America;

Sir Henry Segrave's greatest fear was that he might die between the sheets, tamely; in his own words, he wanted to "go with his boots on.”

However far removed may be the reader’s ideas from those of Speed, yet there cannot fail to be in their minds a great admiration for this man who went his way with singleness of purpose, calm courage and tremendous executive capacity; to liis friends—and they were many—with whom be came in contact his loss in irreparable. He wrestled with Speed for the greater part of his life; in the end he paid for Speed with his life.