Sir Henry Segrave
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Major Henry Segrave began his motor racing career, driving a privately acquired 260 h.p. 12 litre Opel, winning several races at Brooklands in 1920. His first victories of note, were the 1921 Easter 3 litre scratch race at Brooklands, the October 1921 JCC 200mile at Brooklands driving a Talbot-Darracq, and on the 3rd September 1922 both the 2 litre & 5 litre class Speed championships of Britain at Brooklands driving Sunbeams. He became the first Englishman to win an international Grand Prix event, by winning the French race at Tours on 2nd July 1923 in a Talbot-Darracq. This was an 800km race, taking over 6 hours. Further victories followed at the Coupe des Voiturettes at Boulogne on 1st September 1923 in a 1.5 litre Talbot, the San Sebastian G.P. on 27th September 1924 in a 2 litre supercharged Sunbeam, the Provence G.P. on 8th March 1925 in a 1.5 litre Talbot, and 28th March 1926 in a 1.5 litre supercharged Talbot-Darracq, and the JCC 200mile at Brooklands on 29th September 1925 and 25th September 1926 driving a 1.5 litre Darracq. His Record attempts began when at the beginning of 1925, a 6-cylinder 2 litre supercharged Sunbeam was taken to Montlhery, with drivers Segrave, Parry-Thomas, & Conelli, to attack the World 12-Hour & 24-Hour records. On 22nd February 1925, the 3-Hour record was set at 102.74mph, as well as Class E records over 50km (101.09mph), 50miles, 100km, 100miles, 500km all over 100mph, however bad weather called a halt to the proceedings. His World Land Speed Record career began, by driving a Louis Coatelen engineered 33 h.p. supercharged 3,978cc Sunbeam V12 'Ladybird', at a speed of 152.33 miles per hour over the flying kilometre, on Southport Sands in the UK, on 21st March 1926. On 29th March 1927, he drove this Captain J.S. Irving designed 1,000 h.p. Sunbeam, at Daytona Beach, Florida USA, to set World Land Speed Records of 1Mile at 203.79 mph, 1Kilometre at 202.99mph, and 5Kilometres at 202.67mph. The car was powered by two 12 cylinder Sunbeam "Matabele" aero engines with a total of 44,880cc. It was nicknamed the "Slug" by his support team, and "The Mystery S" by the American newspapers. Reportedly, 30,000 people came to watch the attempt.
In 1929, on 11th March, Major Henry Segrave drove the Irving Special "Golden Arrow", at Daytona Beach USA, to set a World Land Speed Record over 1Mile at 231.36 miles per hour, & over 1Km at 231.44mph. This car, designed by Capt.Irving & built at the K.L.G. factory, had an aluminium shell, & a 24-litre twelve-cylinder Napier Lion aero-engine capable of 930 b.h.p. "Golden Arrow" was retired immediately after its record run. A crowd of over 40,000 are reported to have watched at Daytona.
Sir Henry Segrave
Web Links
1927 Sunbeam - http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/world_land_speed_record_25.htm Golden Arrow - http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/world_land_speed_record_28.htm http://www.bluebird-electric.net/henry_seagrave.htm http://www.racingcampbells.com/content/campbell.archives/Segrave.asp http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/Museum/Transport/Cars/Sunbeam/1000hp.htm http://www.martyngriff.co.uk/seagrave_1.htm http://www.speedace.info/henry_segrave.htm http://www.lesliefield.com/personalities/henry_segrave_tributes.htm http://www.brooklandsarchives.com/ look in Galleries S3 & S4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Segrave http://www.historicracing.com/driversAlpha.cfm?fullText=1896&AlphaIndex=S http://www.f1empire.com/f1empire.htm?http&&&www.f1empire.com/history/pre-f1/drivers/0segrave.htm http://www.sunbeam.org.au/history/index.html http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/first382.html http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/337659
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