Thread: Vintage Racing?
View Single Post
  #119  
Old 05-15-2017, 11:28 AM
brian1961 brian1961 is offline
Member
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 1,323
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by BruceinGa View Post
At the race we assumed it was Nicholson because his name was on the car. As you can see by my photo no one was retrieving a beer can, they were just over the fence so they could get a better view. I have newspaper clippings that state 20+ were killed that day and several others died later.
Maybe I don't remember correctly, I'll check into that.
It took me an hour to find the newspaper clippings. I was wrong, 11 died that day. It's odd that you get something in your mind and you could swear that it was right, until you see it in writing.
I can sure relate to that. Memory does funny things to you when you try to retrieve it 40 years later. However, when researching and writing my book on postwar regional baseball cards of 1947 - 1971, NEVER CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, I painstakingly checked and double-checked facts of all sorts, taped interview transcriptions, and so on----to get it right! A few times I was annoyed to discover I didn't remember "it" as it actually was, and the correction was made in time! So far, I've only found two typographical errors, which still enraged me, but then I had to console myself over the fact it's 478 pages in length. For those with tendonitis in their wrists, they will enjoy an E-book on a CD, as opposed to a heavy book to hold!

Don't feel bad, bro. The tragedy you've been recounting was flat-out bad, and in a disturbing way, parallels the '55 LeMans catastrophe in that spectators were jammed to the edge of the fence to get a better view. Looking directly right from where they were, they could see the speeding cars, for a few seconds, coming right at them....., just as the gentleman with the camera was, whose amazing footage was loaded up on You Tube, and linked here.

---Brian Powell

Last edited by brian1961; 05-16-2017 at 11:45 AM.
Reply With Quote