TRAGEDY OF SPEED

Otago Witness, Issue 3808, 8 March 1927, Page 30

TRAGEDY OF SPEED

RACING MOTORIST KILLED. DEATH OF MR PARRY THOMAS. LONDON, March 3. Half an hour after Mr Parry Thomas, the world’s foremost racing motorist,

stepped unconcernedly into his famous Babs” at the Pendine Sands against the doctor’s orders, owing to his suffering from influenza, in an endeavour to wrest the speed championship from Captain Malcolm Campbell, he was lying dead and the car —a product of his own engineering genius —was a tangled mass of debris. The disaster occurred on the fourth attempt. He had changed his plugs, travelled one way, and was about to enter the official mile on the way back, having attained a speed of 170 miles an hour, when the driving chain of the back wheels snapped, clipped the cogs, locked the wheels, and wrapped itself round them. At a terrific speed the car skidded violently. Pieces of mechanism were hurled hundreds of yards, then the machine somersaulted twice and again skidded, almost broadside on. A rear wheel bounded like a rocket towards the sea, and the" chain unwound, broke through, a mudguard with staggering force, and struck Mr Thomas on the neck, tearing off the scalp from the neck to the forehead, and virtually decapitating him. Death must have been instantaneous.

The car came to a stop more than half a mile from the scene of the accident, turned on its side in a crumpled heap, and burst into violent flames. Pieces of the car body, portions of mechanism, and the windscreen were pounded into an inextricable tangle. Mi- Thomas was lying entangled, and before he could be extricated his legs had to be broken.

There was a heart-rending scene when one of Mr Thomas’s mechanics rushed towards the starting point, crying like a child and shouting: “Oh, my God! He is dead. Parry Thomas is dead.” Mr Parry Thomas’s final epic appearance at Brooklands was in October last, when he broke three records. He was obviously a sick man when he went to his death. “Do you have a mascot,” he was asked just before he stepped into his car. “No, I do not trust in false gods,” he replied. At that moment a mechanic arrived with a black cat, presented by a lady motorist, which he tied to his car.

Mr Parry Thomas. was literally unwrapped from I ‘Babs.’l It was a 4CO horsepower car,"and developed over 600 horsepower. It had 12 cylinders and four carburettors. Since Campbell took the record a month ago . Mr Parry Thomas had changed the shape of the car and fitted it with a new radiator. Captain Malcolm Campbell said: A stout-hearted fellow :■ has gone. You take your life in your hands in attempts of this kind.

Mr J. G. Parry Thomas was a very clever designer as well as a driver with an international reputation. He designed and built the Leyland-Thomas, with which he was so successful for some years. In 1926 he held the world’s speed record at over 170 miles per hour on the. Pendine Sands, but on February 5 last his record •was beaten by Captain Malcolm Campbell, who in his racer, “Bluebird,” attained a speed of over 174 miles an hour. APPRECIATION OF VICTIM. VALUE OF SPEED TRIALS. RUGBY, March 4. Major Seagrave, -who' is travelling to the United States to attempt a speed of 200 miles an hour on the Florida Sands,

wirelessed an appreciation of Mr Parry Thomas. Re says that Mr Thomas was one of the greatest exponents of motor racing, quiet, unassuming, and a brilliantly clever engineer,, and the only man in the motor racing world who both designed and drove his own car. The newspapers stated that motor racing is not only a sport but a science, from which manufacturers of ordinary cars receive valuable data on design and metallurgy. VERDICT OF ACCIDENTAL DEATH. LONDON, March 5. The officially checked speed of Mr Parry Thomas at the time of the disaster was revealed at the inquest as 179.5 miles per hour, and raises the interesting question whether he regained the world’s record in the moment of his death. Nevertheless, it will fie unofficial, because he did not complete the course. “I have never seen such speed,” said Mr Pullen, a mechanic and a devoted friend of Mr Thomas. Pullen jumped to the top of the blazing car, turned off the petrol, and dragged the body -free. “I have considered and examined everything, and I believe that a stone caused the driving chain to snap. The car was as fit and proper as human brains and ingenuity could make it,” said Leslie Callingham, an engineer. The coroner, in returning a verdict of accidental death, said: “He was a great man, and a plucky man. I am not one to condemn record-breaking. The history of England is made by pioneers. Mr Thomas’s bravery shows that the manhood of the Empire Is not dead in 1927.”

SPEED NOT A RECORD. LONDON, March 5. The official timekeeper says that rarry Thomas did not achieve a record when he was killed. He was doing 170 miles per hour, but on a previous run he was only a fraction short of 175 miles. This is not recognisable, as it was not maintained over both laps. BURIAL OF THE CAR. LONDON, March 5. Mr Thomas’s giant racing car was towed from the beach at Pendine, and was buried like a human body in a great "rave dug by the villagers on the sand dunes. It was at first proposed to take the car out to sea, but it was thought that it would only be washed ashore. The villagers therefore dug a huge pit, to which the car was dragged by a tractor, and then heaved in. The spectators uncovered their heads while the sand was shovelled over it. It is expected that a stone will be placed on the spot to mark the grave.