NOT A RECORD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19784, 7 March 1927, Page 7

NOT A RECORD

SPEED KING’S LAST RIDE ' PARRY THOMAS’ END A BRAVE MAN, SAYS CORONER. [By Telegraph—Per Press Assn.—Copyright.] % Received March 6, 6.30 p.m. LONDON, March 5. The official timekeeper says that Parry Thomas did not achieve a record. When he was killed he was doing 170 miles an hour, but on the previous run he was only a fraction short of 175. This is not recognisable, because it was not maintained over both laps. “I have never seen such speed,” said the mechanic, Pullen, a devoted friend of Thomas’, who 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 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. Thomas’ bravery shows that the manhood of the Empire is not dead in 1927.” THE END OF BABS “BURIED” WITH CEREMONY. MAY HAVE A HEADSTONE. Beceived March 6, 7.20 p.m. LONDON, March 5. Parry Thomas ’ giant racing car Babs was towed from the beach at Pendine and buried in a great gave 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 and the villagers therefore dug a huge pit, to which the car was dragged by a tractor. The spectators uncovered their heads while the sand was shovelled over it, and it is expected that a stone will be placed on the spot to mark its 11 grave. ’ ’ A FELLOW SPEEDSTER APPRECIATION FROM MAJOR SEGRAVE. SCIENCE AND SPEED. RUGBY, March 4. Major Segrave, who is travelling to the United States to attempt a speed of 200 miles an hour on Florida Sands, ■wirelessed an appreciation of the late Parry Thomas. He says that Thomas was one of the greatest exponents of motor racing, a quiet, unassuming and brilliant clever engineer, and the only man in the motor racing world who both designed and drove his own car.

The newspapers state that motor racing is not only a sport but a science, from which the manufacturers of ordinary cars receive valuable data on design and metallurgy.