CAR JUMPED FOUR FEET IN AIR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17878, 21 June 1926, Page 6

CAR JUMPED FOUR FEET IN AIR.

FATAL END TO MOTOR CONTEST. HILL CLIMB WAS KEPT SECRET; POLICE MUST BE TOLD IN FUTURE. SYDNEY-, June 10. “ The blue car bumped three or four feet in the air . . . The driver’s face was ghastly pale . . . The car crashed through the front fence . . . timber flew in all directions ... I found the driver lying right back seriously hurt.” This was part of the story told at the Coroner’s Court to-day by an eyewitness of the smash in the hill climb in ITarbord Road on May 15, when the well-known racing motorist Albert Valentine Turner was killed. Turner, who was thirty-nine years of age, was married, and had two children. Mrs Georgina Caroline Peterkin, of Ilarbord Road, Ilarbord, said that about 3.45 p.m., when a gre<it number of people lined each side of the road, the hill climb started. The. first car came up the hill at fast speed, 'reached Brighton Street, then slowed down and turned round. Hit a Post. Ten minutes later a louder noise attracted her to the front verandah. She saw a small lJlue. racing car bump in the road just opposite her garden. “ It seemed to me to rise several feet in the air and shake the driver’s hand off the wheel,” she said. “ I thought something had gone wrong with the car, and it had run away with him. “ The driver’s face was ghastly pale. He bent low down to his right side as though to reach something. The car seemed to be going quicker, and slightly to the right, towards our garden fence. “ Then the back wheel struck one of the posts of the fence in front of my house. It swerved to the left and back to the right, and crashed through the fence. The driver’s head was bent to the right, and I think it struck one of the posts. “There was timber flying in all directions. I ran over and found the driver lying right back with his head near the differential.” Keith M'Kay, motor salesman, who was a competitor in the contest and was to have driven one of Turner's cars, said he drove over the course in another car before the start. Turner, who also drove up, said to him, “ If you get into any trouble on the turn, go between the posts and the fence.” He understood Turner to mean that he should leave the road and go on to the unmade footpath in front of Mrs Peterkin’s house. Road Tested at 60 M.P.H. Arthur Sydney Jones, secretary of the Sydney Bicycle and Motor Club, which promoted the contest, said there was seventy yards of asphalt road be- ■ yond the finishing line, and the course yas straight. The first car, crossing at about fifty miles an hour, eased up and turned round comfortably. • Turner, who was next, crossed the line at about sixty miles an hour. He did not seem to reduce his speed, and at the end of the good road the machine jumped and threw Turner up. He was then on the extreme right of the road, as though making for the footThe finishing point was fixed, after consultation with Fred Withers. The latter tested the course at about sixty miles an hour, coming down to about thirty before’ leaving the asphalt. Mr Joges said that officials were stationed on the road to let vehicle drivers know that a competition was being held. Keeping it a Secret. Inspector Lilley: Were they in a position to stop traffic? Witness: No. Did you notify the police that the competition was to be held.?—No. I did not know that that is necessary. Had you or the club any authority to hold the contest on a public road?— From whom may I get authority? As far as I know there was i\one. The Coroner: Was there any public intimation given qf this hill climb, and of where it was to be held? Witness.: No. The competitors, Mr Jones said, should not have known which hill the competition was to be held on until they got there. “ Members of the club want these contests,” he said. “We do not ask them to go in them.” “ Should Let Police Know.” In returning a verdict of accidental death, the Acting-Coroner (Mr Reed) said that the evidence led him to think that such motor contests were fraught with the probability of great danger, not only to the contestants, but to members of the public generally.

“ If these contests are not regulated by some public authority,” he said, “ notice should at least be given to the police that they are to be held.”