Monday, September 20, 2021

Blower Bentley and Birkin in trouble


 I just found this picture, too late to include with the previous supercharged Bentley post. Quite a snapshot, Sir Henry Birkin was driving the Bentley at Brooklands in a record attempt when it caught fire inside the cockpit. He is standing up to get away from the flames, and is about to jump out of the car at about 60 mph. He was not seriously injured.
 In another record attempts with the car he recorded a 137 mph lap. The size of the car is even more apparent in this shot.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK, *he* wasn't seriously injured, but what about the car???

Geez.

rdguy

Mister G said...

I could not find that out. It's Brooklands, a banked track, maybe it just slowed down and stopped. Did marshalls carry fire extinguishers back then? It was fixed and ran again...