[JDS]

.

An amazing piece of footage of Mike Hawthorn doing a lap of Le Mans in 1956

in a D Type Jaguar. It's incredible to see the bikes and traffic out on the

track, and an almost total lack of safety, bearing in mind the previous year a

Mercedes flew off the track on pit straight and killed 84 people, seriously

injuring a further 120. The accident was inadvertently caused by Hawthorn as he

braked to go into the pits, his Dunlop disc brakes were awesome, and other cars

braking hard to avoid running into the back of his Jaguar lost control resulting

in a Mercedes hitting a sloped earth bank, launching into the air and

disintegrating.



Incredibly the race continued, although Mercedes withdrew it's remaining

cars, and Hawthorn went on to win.



Was this the first on-board camera?

http://vimeo.com/59410466


Just love Hawthorn’s posh boy comment of – “typical French”.

Enjoy

John

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[Ian SAVS]

Really cool John! The microphone setup was very interesting given the technology of the day, that was probably an advanced setup allowing the watcher to be able to hear Hawthorn's voice over the wind and other cockpit noise. It is wild the amount of people riding bicycles and the like on the track, while this fellow is racing around it at those speeds!

 

[JDS]

.Ian

Hawthorn wasn't racing in that video.. It was a pre-race practice lap and familiarization lap before LeMans... The actual race speeds are much, much faster and Hawthorn gives an indication of what speeds he will be doing on race day..

LeMan race circuit is an actual road, as was Spa in Belgium.. The old Spa race circuit was over 9 miles long in the good old days.:jsm:


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[Ian SAVS]

.Ian

Hawthorn wasn't racing in that video.. It was a pre-race practice lap and familiarization lap before LeMans... The actual race speeds are much, much faster and Hawthorn gives an indication of what speeds he will be doing on race day..

LeMan race circuit is an actual road, as was Spa in Belgium.. The old Spa race circuit was over 9 miles long in the good old days.:jsm:


.

Sorry John, I was using racing not in the literal, but in the figurative of "going fast" and in the sense that it was an open road.

FukAll could you imagine a race having pedestrians and average motorists thrown in for a challenge??? DaSilva is in the lead... oh and he hits a Volkswagen Beetle!!! Looks like he's out of the race! :violin:

 

[JDS]

..

Have you seen those old clips of the various World Rally stages , where the cars just miss the crowds and rally anoraks by the side of the road ?

Frightening !! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYIH7ApCxoM

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[silentservice703]

Crazy