RACING CAR FATALITY.

Thames Star, Volume LX, Issue 16960, 6 December 1926, Page 7

RACING CAR FATALITY.

-STREET CROWD MOWED DOWN.

SKID WHILE GOING AT HIGH SPEED. Captain It. B. (Dick) Howey, the noted English racing motorist, was -'killed in an accident during the international motor-car races at Boulogne .recently. While taking one of the most dim"cult bends at a speed of seventy-five miles an hour, his car skidded, and, mowing down a crowd of onlookers, ■ crashed into a tree. Captain Howey was thrown out and killed instantly. A spectator, who had a foot torn off, was also killed, whole a policeman and another spectator were so badly injured that their lives are despaired of. Captain Howey was driving a French fiye-litre Ballot car. The Baincthun Hill, the scene of many fatal accidents -on the Boulogne circuit, was packed •on either side by crowds of people whom the police were unable to keep in check. The Vierge bend, where the accident happened, is opposite a little loadside ■ chapel, and here the spectators crowded so much on to the roadway as to leave little room for the cars to pass. The driver began to take the bend with great skill, but, apparently, the presence of the crowd upset his calculations and he lost control of the steering wheel. . The car turned completely round, and, after charging the .spectators, plunged at top speed into a.tall poplar. Captain Howey was picked up with terrible injuries to the head. The man whose foot was torn off was ,M. Louis Pieters, a Boulogne contractor, who died from loss of blood. M. Duboille, a friend who was standing by his side, had his chest crushed in .and was hurried to hospital in a critical condition. A policeman named Guiltez was terribly injured, and a young man, M. Emile Dubuisson, had his right foot -crushed. Major Segrave, the well-known Eng- ; fish driver, .who was also taking part in the race, was starting when the accident occurred. He and all the other ■,competitors were at once pulled up. A painful incident occurred when the bodies of the two dead men arrived at Boulogne. A young man among the --onlookers in front of the hospital anxiously inquired for the names of the victims. He was told that one of them • was M. Pieters. The inquirer was M Pieters’ son. He collapsed on the pavement and was carried into the hospi-

tal behind his father’s mutilated body.

Captain Howey was twenty-five and r a bachelor. He had no previous exi.perience on the track on which he met his death. In the opinion of Major Segrave the accident was due to Captain Howey’s unfamiliarity with the track.

Captain Howey was a scratch man in events at Brooklands apd was the holder of the Brooklands founders’ gold cup. He won the gold cup at Easter and was also successful in the race promoted by the London Evening News. He usually drove the eight-cylinder

Ballot car in which he met his death. He had purchased this car and several others from Count Zborowski.'the famous racing motorist who was killed at Milan about eighteen months ago, and who was a great friend of Captain

Howey. The accident was witnessed by Mr Parry Thomas, who was also taking part in the Boulogne trials.