You have to admire these mens' determination and innovation! I found it fitting to include a wife's perspective that having a husband that involved with his love of speed and setting world record goals did not make for a good husband or father. It was a trade off, and he was "world class successful" in his racing endeavors!
Well this is a delightful surprise! The algorithm knows how much I enjoy your narrations (and history) and graciously suggested your channel. Finally something decent to listen to while I fold laundry to your mellifluous voice!
I just discovered your older channel here after migrating from Well I Never! You really must advertise your other channels more often! Anyhoo a story that is right up your alley is that of Kim Newcombe, the Kiwi underdog who posthumously took 2nd place in the 1973 500GP behind Phil Read. It's an astonishing story, and a tragic one that I wish every rider knew. In some ways Kim was the prototype for John Britten, that plucky Kiwi kicking ass against all odds in motorcycle racing.
21:30 I love the NOT FOR RECORDS on the tyre so mechanics don't get them mixed up. I imagine after a few runs they would get used for transportation and slower speed testing.
I saw a similar crash to Campbell's happen live at a speedboat event in America (Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta - unsure of the exact year, but mid 2000s to early 2010s?) it was a gnarly crash, but no injuries or fatalities. I happened to be right next to the local news crew when it happened, and got an impromptu interview after they asked some folks what just happened, and couldn't get an answer out of most of the folks around. All I remember of it after so many years is the boat launched up in the air, then submarined when it came down. You couldn't pay me enough to take that kind of risk. Salt flat racing, sure, boat racing? No thank you!
With the wreckage eventually found at a depth of 45m/150 ft making search dives for the wreckage really challenging, especially with the poor visibility the murky water has at Coniston, Royal Navy divers did attempt to find the wreckage & Donald's body, but with the technology available to them in 1967, they weren't able to find the wreckage & would have tried very hard to do so. Without any knowledge of where the wreckage actually sank after breaking up at such high speed, the area they would have had to search, in such poor conditions, pretty basic diving gear giving them very short dive times, & no sonar on their boats to help them, was immense. I'm a scuba diver, & to give you an idea of how difficult it can be to find things underwater, especially in poor visibility, I've been on dives where equipment gets dropped while descending a shot line attached to the dive site, as an example I'll use a dive torches, which were bigger than a coke can & would have been clear to see on a sandy sea bed, not yet covered by any growth build up, like sponge, kelp, anemones, or been buried by sand from surge & wave action. There should also have been a cloud of sand where it landed, to help direct us to the area. Despite dropping straight down from the same point it was dropped from (the shot being diagonal from the wreck to the surface buoy, not straigh up& down, because of current & wind), with vis of 0.5 - 1m , doing an expanding square search pattern until we got to the wreck the shot line was attached to, 2 of us searching, followed by a circular search from the wreck we knew it couldn't have reached, using a line that was let out after each pass, we didn't manage to find it. That's knowing exactly what we were looking for (for all they knew, the Bluebird had completely broken up on & there would just be debris left), a rough idea of where it should be, the torch having only sunk 10m or so, (so less possible drift as it sank than over 45m, also the torch:s momentum was from its weight & gravity, it hadn't be travelling at the speed the Bluebird was when it crashed, momentum all the debris would have continued to travel from as they started to sink), with us immediately following it to begin the search (obviously far more accurate than leaving the area then returning at a later date & having to relocate the point you think it went down at). The family at least knew the rough location of his body, unlike with the loss of people/sailors from sunken boats at sea, so Coniston Water became his grave, & the place they could go to feel closer to him. Hth
I had no idea that the land and water speeds had been set so high at such early years. It is amazing that Donald Campbell suddenly decided to set speeds himself in his thirties; usually, speed is a young man's game. I love that photo of Malcolm in his race car with young Donald standing in front. Donald looks like he is about to cry. I wonder if his father had just told him to stop his nonsense and smile for the camera?
