I came across a good CD reporting from the BBC the Crash at  Le Mans  with the Mercedes-Benz 300SLR. Though their is No direct  finger pointing Thank god\" It is a new perspective . I order two CDS Hopefully CMC will still build this  car surrounded  by controversy to this day.

Bob Geco
Long  BeachCA USA
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Hi Bob,

The BBC have just done a very good progarm about this very sad event, is that the one you mean or is it the original footage from 1955? There is also a vey good book about the crash written by Chistopher Hilton, who appears in the new program, well worth getting the book.

Regards

I just ordered the CD. I do not  know what is on it. I would like to know how I can order a copy of Christoper Hilton\'s book? Do yyou know the title and ISNB number. Then I can narrow my search on Amazon.com

Thank you very much for the information. I appreciate it.

Sincerely
Bob Geco
krwaxbz@yahoo.com

Please do not for get about getting me the informatin on how to order Christoper Hilton\'s book on the LeMans tradgety of 1955

Look forward to your reply
Bob Geco
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I just did a search on Amazon .com and I think I found the book by Christoper Wilkins  I ordered it. please confirm title? also you mentioned you found the footage of the accident four hours did you get this off the new CD just relesed or some were else. Please advise.

Bob Geco
krwaxbz@yahoo.com

you can watch the video excerpt here:

www.spike.com/video/1955-le-mans/2860678

Richard: Thank you for sharing this video of the deadly disaster at LeMans  in 1955. If you have not hear see my post on an available CD  by the BBC on the day this  happened. there is a website to order  the CD. I hope it will go in to more detail than the clip you send  me. Also Steve shared with me a book that came out about thee tragedy at LeMans 1955 the face that  changed motor racing  by Christtoper Hilton.. by motor  books. I need to read the book on order. however no fingers were pointed at Mercedes-Benz Or the driver. It was a narrow entrance that would of if not  Mercedes-Benz than some other manufacturer or driver getting killed. It  just happened at the wrong time and wrong place in history.

Bob Geco USA

IMHO this type of accident happened as often as people being run over by horse&cart that hardly got reported. If you compare this event with other racing events of pile-ups in racing and especially highspeed endurance racing, it opened up enormous amounts of safety regulations that would protect spectators and drivers alike.

Some of the safety procedures employed were chicanes, sharper corners, tire barriers, track official/marshal groups at every turn, camera\'s at strategic locations, better communications between pit crew and drivers, safety harnesses, rollcages, on-board fire extinguishers, etc.

At certain tracks like Nascar a high \'catch\' fence was put in place. Crashes still happened throughout history, and many more racing drivers risked their lives to pursue the fastest lap.
Technology would still fail, and freak accidents like this one still happened as cars rolled into spectators.

I see this as a tragic and harsh lesson to learn in highspeed crashes.

As the video so briefly showed, the Mercedes and Austin-Healey collided, where the latter plowed into the rear of the Mercedes. I\'m sure with modern crash investigative techniques one could find out the positions of the cars to find out how the crash occured. I certainly would like to know why Mercedes withdrew the rest of their cars from the race. Was there something in test runs that made the car unstable? Was there a tire blow out.

A friend of mine owned an Austin-Healey and said that its a fun car to drive and race as it makes cornering very exciting.

You\'ll note that pausing the video that the Austin-Healey\'s front right is severely damaged. He was behind the Mercedes. Maybe a critical error in judgement at high velocity caused the Mercedes and Austin-Healey to drift together and a pit maneuver ensued.

I\'d like to know if anyone can calculate the speed of the debris flying across the finish line? Is that a piece of that detachable spoiler that helps slow down the racing car? If that was upright prior to the crash.

Don\'t know if there was more footage about this race or crash. In those days raw footage was on celluloid and had a tendency to degrade.

Richard:

Everything you say makes sense.The rear spoiler was a hydraulic air brake that  was used to slow the car down through turns. It  was engaged in second gear. When mike Hathorne passed the 300SLR he might of disrupted the view and a split second is all it takes a hight  speed to  cause this this tragedy to happen. I have  read that Mercedes-Benz team manager Alferd Neubauer higher Pierre Levegh as a french driver  to help open new sales of Mercedes-Benz in France and that a Frenchman in a German car would be  good publicly and help play down the Nazi invasion of France in World War two. see the book Go Like Hell by A.J.Blaine. . Who knows what the reason was I just order a book from Author and historian Christopher Hilton who tries to put the event into perspective and tell what happened every account. sort  of like the JFK assassination in 1963. well I hope the Mr.Hills book will answer some very large questions everyone  must  have on this  incident. The book is called Le Man\'s \'55 The Crash That Changed the  face of motor racing . I appreciate your comments.

I hope CMC will finish the collection of 300SLR racing  cars with this diecast  model. Please keep in touch on I appreciate  reading your thesis on this subject.
Bob Geco
USA

Hiya Bob, I like reading the history on motorcars aswell and have collected quite a few books on this subject matter.

Eyewitness accounts are very important and many a car enthusiast would have some version of events.

I\'ll be looking forward to seeing other theories put forward.

The need for speed comes with enormous risk even by today standards.

Note that Mercedes dropped their airbrake spoiler pretty much straightaway. One of the theories I read about was that this device failed causing the 300SLR to rapidly slow down. Effectively the Austin-Healey hit the rear of the 300SLR spinning both cars out of control.

Its astonishing that the driver of the Austin-Healey survived.

Robert1955 wrote:

Karma:

I ordered the book a couple days ago by Christoper Hilton Le Mans \'55 The Crash That changed the face of motor racing. I got a quick reply from the vendor should have it soon after I return from the Newport Concours I am judging at. Strangely I signed up For Ford Mustangs SVT in stead of Mercedes-Benz I figure I need to learn a little about  something else.

The hole thing was a Greek tragedy with events that impaired Levegh\'s judgment. their is a chapter in a book I have called \"Go Like Hell by A.J. Baime. The book opens to the Prologue and tells the story of Pierre Levegh and the accident a Le Man\'s in 1955. The book is more a story of Henry Ford\'s passion for speed and his desire to buy Ferrari. A. J. Baime is a great writer and tells the story from both sides Enzo Ferrari and Henry Ford the second. you can not put  it down. It is a well researched book. of events and their toll from the 1964 to 1966 Le Mans racing.

I recommend it to any automotive motor sport enthusiast you can get ti on amazon .com.
Bob Geco




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Thank you for your interest in this subject. You are the second person who  said the air brake failed. until I receive the book from Christoper Hilton and read what he has to say. I am going to keep judgement to my self. I also ordered a CD advertised in Mercedes enthusiast about the subject at hand.

I would like you to please share any sources you have  with us. It is not that I think one person\'\'s opinion is always the end to the subject. Look how long it took for the JFK  Assassination  to come up with a more credible explanation of what happen. Still their will always be disbeliever and their own take on the story.

My goal is to try and understand what happened as much as possible. Still to this day strange stuff  happens and greatness falls victim to tragedy IE NASA Car all time great Richard Petty accident that killed him.

Again thank you for your writing me. I hope you will still share more of your information with this forum as it progresses.

I also want those  who have an interest to contact CMC and encourage them to build this car in a true to scale die cat  model.

Sincerely and drive safe.
Bob Geco
USA

I was rereading your comments and did some reading here is what I found.

The air brake was effective area of 7/1/2 square feet the air brake offered deceleration of around 3 Gs at speeds in excess of 150MPH.  The idea for the air  brake function was  a hyydamuic operated . The two hydramuic rams that raised this brake were energized by a pump driven off the gearbox, and a lever on the scuttle opened a valve and put the brake up. The idea behind the air brake was principally to assist the wheel brakes at the end of the  mulsanne staight, were heavy braking from 180 MPH was needed. at the end of the staight
the Mulsanne corner was taken in second gear and a linage was fitted to the  gear leaver mechanism so that when second gear was selected by the driver the air brake was lowered automatically.

During practice Sterling Moss made some experiments and it was found that he could use the air brake very effectively for most other corners and save the brakes and he also found he could corner faster at some points by load on the tyres ( a principle the Chaparrel have recently been using ten year later.

source of this information was taken from 300SLR Mercedes-Benz Profile  publications number 54. and Mercedes-Benz 300SLR Karl Ludvigsen.

Bob Geco