DEATH RODE WITH AMERICAN RACER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 612, 14 March 1929, Page 1

DEATH RODE WITH AMERICAN RACER

KILLED WHEN CAR TURNED OYER

Grim Tragedy at Daytona Beach vVATCHING CAMERAMAN CUT IN TWO ifi z. 11 ess Association) (Lnited Service J k LOCAL Lee BibYe T 0A ’ S , EACH ’ Wednesday. A and was killed tod . crashed into the sand dunes hour In ottompt“ to make a wosS'"” 8 J*. 2 ” miles *» While-, Triple car r ° cord mMr J M h y .h,^r^,Torwa^i U o c h r'“ T ™ b ' ~ “

The crash occurred whan Bible, who was not experienced in speeding on this stretch, sent the car too near the surf, and attempted to swerve back toward the stands. He turned the wheel too sharply, and the Triplex overturned like a toy motor against a sand dune, and caught fire. The car swerved two miles north oi the grandstand, on the north-hound

Bible, who had qualified this morning to drive, was caught and crushed under the wreckage. He was entangled in the three-ton mass of twisted steel, but his crumpled body *** pulled clear before the car caught hi swerving, the car struck the rathe News cameraman, who was standing on the sand dune, and cut jm in two - Another cameraman who "afety tandlns ° n the dl,ne leaped to r„i U n.c, reViOUSly - 011 (he SOUth-bOUnd tan. Bible had registered 153.12 miles an hour. nJ U n n K,‘ S the car to beftin tl!e second remarked: “It looks like a sood day for a record.” He waved “is hand and was off. Ji > « eding by ,he j ud se - s stand on the Bible was clocked at in* " mi ' es , an hour. Then he crashed great cloud of dry sand. •'lajor Segrave, witnessing the remarked that lie was rough with racing in his car in America this year. said' 1 iS 4 V6ry re srettablc affair,” lie j .Jh°usands lined the track watch- ! ftllt onl >' a mere handful were near ]

waere the wreck occurred, one of whom was Mr. White, the Triplex owner, who was a close friend of Bible. He rushed to the scene to remove the body from the wreck. Mr. Val Haresnape, secretary of the Automobile Contest Board, said: “The trials are over for a year after this regrettable accident.’* Bible, who was 42, was a former local garage owner, who became one of the fastest motor drivers in the world overnight. When he was apj pointed to-day to attempt to break j Segrave’s record in the Triplex, Bible | had said the opportunity was the ful- | filment of his lifetime’s hope, and he j had never before driven in a similar manner. I Trailb was one of the most daring j veterans of his craft. A few years i ago he went through hair-raising experiences while photographing the j | interior of a submarine, from which 1 water was being forced at great pres- | i sure from the chamber he occupied. 1 I-eo Bible had made an earlier attempt i to break Major IT. (_). T>. Segrave's new j record. On Tuesday he made two runs in wind 5 and rain, and averaged about ISO j The Triplex was the car in which the American, Kay Keech, made the record that Segrave beat. Keech’s record was 1*07.55 miles an hour. The visibility became too poor for Bee Bible to continue the attempt. Thousands of people were waiting to see the proposed run. Mr. White, owner of the Triplex, had j boasted that there was more speed in the machine than anyone had been able to get out of it. The result of the attempt to recover the record would depend entirely on the law of gravity. To beat (he record, Lee Bible would have had to travel at more than 231 miles an hour.