Who saw the Tom Pryce crash in 1977?
Robert Kacsich
was maybe the most appalling accident in the history of F1. A 19-year-old
marshal tried to cross the track to put out the fire on Jacques Laffite's
Ligier and ran directly in front of the Shadow of Tom Pryce. The fire
extinguisher bottle hit the driver's head; both Pryce and the marshal died.
While many of the old crashes were shown on TV in various programmes, this
one was never shown - either because it was missed by the cameras or because
the producers did not want to show it - for understandable reasons.
Did any of you watch the live coverage in 1977 and the crash? Was the crash
visible on TV in full detail? In that case, please tell me some of the
dreadful details because I want to know everything about the crash but I just
don't want to see it!
TNX in advance
Robert
Richard Humberstone
surely must have been televised in South Africa. The Autosport report
carried a long-distance photograph of the marshall running across the
track just before contact. As I recall, the inexperienced marshall
underestimated the effect that a heavy extinguisher would have on his
running performance. Niether man had a chance.
The extinguisher apparently hit Pryce in the face and killed him
instantly, the car running straight on at the next corner as a result.
I thought the fire was actually in the other Shadow but I could be
wrong here. What I do remember is that it was only minor and died out
before anyone else could get to it with an extinguisher.
Such a shame that Tom Pruce never managed to achieve the success that
many thought he deserved. In my opinion he was the best British driver
in F1 at the time (including Hunt).
For the benefit of anyone who may object to my claiming him as British,
I accept that he was Welsh but calling him the best Welsh F1 driver
means very little since I can't think of any other Welsh F1 drivers.
I will look up my old Autosport report over the weekend and post a more
accurate report next week.
John Napper
sna...@stratauk.demon.co.uk
Richard Humberstone
Earl Ma
says...
>
>From what I have heard the crash of Tom Pryce in the South African GP
1977
>was maybe the most appalling accident in the history of F1. A
19-year-old
>marshal tried to cross the track to put out the fire on Jacques
Laffite's
>Ligier and ran directly in front of the Shadow of Tom Pryce. The fire
>extinguisher bottle hit the driver's head; both Pryce and the marshal
died.
Actually, it was Pryce's teammate Renzo Zorzi whose car had stopped.
Pryce crashed into Laffite after the fatal impact.
>
>While many of the old crashes were shown on TV in various programmes,
this
>one was never shown - either because it was missed by the cameras or
because
>the producers did not want to show it - for understandable reasons.
>
>Did any of you watch the live coverage in 1977 and the crash? Was the
crash
>visible on TV in full detail? In that case, please tell me some of the
>dreadful details because I want to know everything about the crash but I
just
>don't want to see it!
I've never seen any photos of even the wrecked cars, let alone the
incident. I could not tell you if it was ever on TV as I hadn't started
following the sport yet. The one analogy I can provide was seeing
Villeneuve's crash on the local 10 pm news - and never again.
Earl
Robert Barker
>
>While many of the old crashes were shown on TV in various programmes, this
>one was never shown - either because it was missed by the cameras or because
>the producers did not want to show it - for understandable reasons.
There is actually a video that does show the crash. It's a video called 'The
Quick and the Dead' (sheesh). Narrated by Stacy Keach. Don't recall the
production date. The first few minutes of the thing show several accidents and
the Pryce accident is one of them - it's only a couple of seconds in
length but is horrifying stuff - something you don't get out of your head. The
video isn't half bad once you turn off the narration - sort of like The Speed
Merchants on a video.
Tony K
>
> In article <47cor8$2...@news.tuwien.ac.at>, e912...@stud1.tuwien.ac.at
> says...
> >
> >From what I have heard the crash of Tom Pryce in the South African GP
> 1977 was maybe the most appalling accident in the history of F1. A
> 19-year-old marshal tried to cross the track to put out the fire on Jacques
> Laffite's Ligier and ran directly in front of the Shadow of Tom Pryce. The fire
> >extinguisher bottle hit the driver's head; both Pryce and the marshal
> died.
>
> Actually, it was Pryce's teammate Renzo Zorzi whose car had stopped.
> Pryce crashed into Laffite after the fatal impact.
>
> this one was never shown - either because it was missed by the cameras or
> because the producers did not want to show it - for understandable reasons.
> crash visible on TV in full detail? In that case, please tell me some of the
> dreadful details because I want to know everything about the crash but I
> just don't want to see it!
>
> I've never seen any photos of even the wrecked cars, let alone the
> incident. I could not tell you if it was ever on TV as I hadn't started
> following the sport yet. The one analogy I can provide was seeing
> Villeneuve's crash on the local 10 pm news - and never again.
>
> Earl
>
I remember seeing the race on SATV live. All the facts in this thread
are correct. The young marshall crossed the track to put out a fire.
From his view of that section of Kyalami, there is a rise which means
the on-coming cars were not in view until they were fairly close. At
the time that was one of the fastest straights in GP racing and one
presumes he misjudged the speed of Pryces car. The front left wheel/
suspension of the Shadow caught the marshall's legs and tossed him
into the air like a rag doll. He summersaulted at such speed that his
long trousers were pulled down and he flew into the barriers.
The fire extinguisher stayed pretty static and hit Pryce on his head
and apparently exploded his helmet. He was presumably dead on impact
and his car careered down the straight at +- 180mph hitting Lafitte
on the way. The drunken car eventually went straight at Crowthorne
Corner and into the safety fencing to a halt.
We had this played over and over on our TVs at every new hour for
a few days and it certainly was a disturbing sight. The 'verdict' at
the end was that the marshall made an error of judgement and that his
marshall post was not ideally situated because of the limited view.
Tony
VINCENT B HO
: The marshall name was a 19 year old Jansen van Vuuren. The car that was
: stopped in the track originally was Renzo Zorzi's Arrows. After Pryce was
~~~~~~~
: killed, the car continued to run with its driver dead, and was hit by
: Laffite's Ligier before both cars stopped. Autocourse also has captured
: the photos...
Sorry, this should be a Shadow....a fellow netter kindly pointed out to me.
After all, Arrows did not start racing until 1978!
--
[9C [0;5;35m* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * [35m* [0;35m
Vince B. Ho V Forza Fiorentina!
San Francisco State Univerisity I Club Viola Signorelli Firenze
MBA Student O 10/29: Fiorentina 3 Bari 2
(415)255-5963 ALE ALE V I O L A PER S E M P R E
h...@sfsu.edu A CLAMP, Shoujo, H, MG & MB ML
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~hbv/hbv.html
[9C [0;5;35m* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * [35m* [0;35m
[0m [255D
Christian Ehrnrooth
>The marshall name was a 19 year old Jansen van Vuuren. The car that was
>stopped in the track originally was Renzo Zorzi's Arrows.
Actually it was Renzo Zorzis Shadow. The Arrows team started to race in 1978.
I saw the Tom Pryce crash on Finnish TV in 1978 after Ronnie Peterson got
killed. Ronnie crashed at Monza and died the next day (on my fifteenth
birthday) due to thrombosis in his leg(s) and lung(s). They showed his crash
again on the news and the Tom Pryce and the Niki Lauda crashes. Not very nice
to look at any of them.
X-ian
Richard Humberstone
of this horific accident but a couple of details have been missed so I
will reproduce the account from Jeff Hutchinson in Autosport dated
March 10, 1977 as promised. It was lap 20 of a 78 lap race.
"Renzo Zorzi, running back in nineteenth spot, pulled his Shadow up
halfway down the pit row on the outside of the track when his engine
died.
As he was climbing out of the car, leaking fuel ignited and he ran clear
before thinking to return and press the fire extinguisher button which
killed the fire that had virtually died down by itself. Just when the
small drama seemed over, two marshalls suddenly jumped the pit barrier
and ran across the track at a point where visibility was very limited.
The first marshall, a few feet ahead of the second, just made it across
safely while the second, 19-year-old Jansen van Vuuren, was hit square
on by Pryce as he raced at full speed almost side by side with Stuck
whom he was trying to pass.
The marshall was thrown along the car and to the side of the track like a
rag doll while the Shadow continued at full speed down the track, Pryce
almost certainly killed instantly by the marshall's fire extinguisher.
The Shadow veered at a shallow angle across the track and ran along the
inside barrier, eventually bouncing off it back across the track right
into the path of the oncoming Ligier, which Pryce had passed only a
couple of laps before.
The Shadow bounced high into the air and slammed into the outside
catchfencing and retaining wall, Laffite ending up there too, the French
driver lucky to escape with nothing worse than a couple of bruised knees,
although his car was badly damaged."
The report goes on to mention that part of Pryce's roll bar was picked up
by Lauda's Ferrari and became jammed in the left hand side, causing water
loss and consequent overheating, followed by a loss of oil pressure.
Lauda made it to the finish, stopping as soon as he crossed the line
with only 4 of his 12 litres of water remaining but he had won the race.
A related article elsewhere in the same magazine considered the
possibility of full roll cages around the drivers and included a photo
of a 1974 Indy car fitted with such a device. Apparantly this was
abandoned as the airflow to the rear wing was badly affected and the
car's lap times immediatelt increased by 5mph without the cage. An
accompanying picture showed how close Pryce's rear wheel came to
Laffite's head (about 2 feet as it climbed over the Ligier's front
wheel).
It was also mentioned that Pryce was travelling at over 160mph when he
hit the marshal and "the impact of the marshal's heavy extinguisher
against the Shadow was such that most of the car's very substantial
roll-over bar was torn away, so it seems doubtfull that even a device
such as that proposed at the F1CA (now called FOCA) meeting could have
done very much to protect the driver."
Let's just hope that such a stupid and needless accident never happens
again.
John Napper
Pete Fenelon
> Sorry, this should be a Shadow....a fellow netter kindly pointed out to me.
> After all, Arrows did not start racing until 1978!
Not that there was much difference between the first Arrows and the
then-current Shadow :)
pete
--
Peter Fenelon - Research Associate - High Integrity Systems Engineering Group,
Dep't of Computer Science, University of York, York, YO1 5DD (+44 1904 433388)
Mail: pe...@cs.york.ac.uk & Homepage on: http://dcpu1.cs.york.ac.uk:6666/~pete/
naidoon
>sna...@stratauk.demon.co.uk
>As I recall, this race was not actually shown on British TV but it
>surely must have been televised in South Africa.
To the best of my knowledge, these were the early days of TV
broadcasting in South Africa, and the race was certainly not broadcast
live. I think that there may have been some snippets of the accident
on news broadcasts. I will try to fish out some of my local newspaper
accounts of the accident and post later.
Gosh, recalling this makes me feel old!!
Regards
Rajen
Rajen Naidoo
Occupational Health Programme
Faculty of Medicine
University of Natal
P.O. Box 17039
Congella, 4013
Durban, South Africa
Bob Sanderson
>snip------------------------
Gosh, recalling this makes me feel old!!
Don't feel bad Rajen, I saw Damon's old man race ;)
Bob
(0 0)
--oo0--U--0oo----------------------------
San...@li.net * CompuServe: 73062,2327
http://www.li.net/~sandman/msports.html
-----------------------------------------
Don Grunbaum
In article <47rii8$d...@linet02.li.net>, Bob Sanderson (san...@li.net) writes:
>In article <47pk6m$7...@owl.und.ac.za>, nai...@med.und.ac.za (naidoon) wrote:
>
>>snip------------------------
>Gosh, recalling this makes me feel old!!
>
>Don't feel bad Rajen, I saw Damon's old man race ;)
>
>Bob
>
I've got his (Graham's) autograph.
Don Grunbaum
Data Processing Manager
Trox Brothers Limited, Caxton Way, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 3SQ U.K.
Tel +44 (0)1842 754545 Fax +44 (0)1842 763051
Roger Virgo
>
>In article <47rii8$d...@linet02.li.net>, Bob Sanderson (san...@li.net) writes:
>>In article <47pk6m$7...@owl.und.ac.za>, nai...@med.und.ac.za (naidoon) wrote:
>>
>>>snip------------------------
>>Gosh, recalling this makes me feel old!!
>>
>>Don't feel bad Rajen, I saw Damon's old man race ;)
>>
>>Bob
>>
>I've got his (Graham's) autograph.
>Don Grunbaum
I got to sit in his Lotus 49b at the Lotus car show at Alexandria Palace.
Date that???
Roger and out...
--
Roger Virgo Information Systems Division
Email: r...@BarwonWater.Vic.Gov.Au Barwon Water
Phone: +61 52 262597 61-67 Ryrie St Geelong
Fax: +61 52 218236 Victoria 3220 Australia
leonard...@gmail.com
brafield
>
> Did any of you watch the live coverage in 1977 and the crash? Was the crash
> visible on TV in full detail? In that case, please tell me some of the
> dreadful details because I want to know everything about the crash but I just
> don't want to see it!
As far as your "want to know everything" --- no you don't, not really, because even a word description will haunt you.
D Munz
Unpleasant stuff.
FWIW
DLM
ollie...@gmail.com
Geoff May
> Me
My brother was there too. I wasn't as my father felt I was too young to
be at the GP.
Cheers
Geoff
Sir Tim
~misfit~
> Me
Wow! What a claim to fame! You must be so proud to have watched a man die to post about it now 42
years later during an unrelated race weekend.
--
Shaun.
"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville
This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.
texa...@gmail.com
> Wow! What a claim to fame! You must be so proud to have watched a man die to post about it now 42
> years later during an unrelated race weekend.
> --
> Shaun.
>
> "Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
> in the DSM"
> David Melville
stnsls.l...@gmail.com
> was maybe the most appalling accident in the history of F1. A 19-year-old
> marshal tried to cross the track to put out the fire on Jacques Laffite's
> Ligier and ran directly in front of the Shadow of Tom Pryce. The fire
> extinguisher bottle hit the driver's head; both Pryce and the marshal died.
>
> one was never shown - either because it was missed by the cameras or because
> the producers did not want to show it - for understandable reasons.
>
> visible on TV in full detail? In that case, please tell me some of the
> dreadful details because I want to know everything about the crash but I just
> don't want to see it!
>
> Robert
Wow that's an old thread
Sir Tim
available.
Rehan Ahsan
> I was there but did not witness the crash directly. Still, I saw Pryce's Shadow being towed on the back of a truck after the race. It was covered in blood. Terrible. However, I do have photos taken of the accident that prove that Frederick Van Vuuren was not torn in half by the impact. The pictures were taken from where the two marshals had crossed the Kyalami straight. Van Vuuren's trousers were ripped off on impact giving the impression that he had been torn apart. This is in fact not true. If you like, I can send the pictures via email to prove it.
Rastko Komnenić
> I was there but did not witness the crash directly. Still, I saw Pryce's Shadow being towed on the back of a truck after the race. It was covered in blood. Terrible. However, I do have photos taken of the accident that prove that Frederick Van Vuuren was not torn in half by the impact. The pictures were taken from where the two marshals had crossed the Kyalami straight. Van Vuuren's trousers were ripped off on impact giving the impression that he had been torn apart. This is in fact not true. If you like, I can send the pictures via email to prove it.