The Miami News from Miami, Florida • 27

THE MIAMI NEWS, Sunday, May 31, 1964 5C Holocaust On The Northwest Turn VQT r- -r, iU A 1 To the oiifo driver in the heat of competition, there comej at times the horrible realization that something has gone wrong. His car is spinning out of control, he sees a field of racers coming hi way and nothing can be This awesome realization must have struck 27- year-old Dave -MacDonald a moment beore Eddie Sachs did. His car spun coming out of the northwest turn (left) on the second lap. It crashed into the wall and burst into flame, Sachs, the veteran driver, was coming down the path. But you do not stop 150-mph racing cars instantly.

It all happens so fast. And it happened to Sachs. His racer smashed into the wreckage and flames (lower left) and the happy-go-lucky driver burned to death before help could reach him. The gallons-upon-gallons of flaming gasoline raced across the track. Car-upon-car smashed into the U'recfcage and the scene was that of horror and panic (below).

Sachs died instantly; MacDonald lasted two and a half hours more, but it is doubtful if he ever knew what hit him immediately after that one, final, horrible moment when he knew he no longer was master of his machine. MarDonaM's KrarK-iiiiie Car Goes Into Fatal Spin In A Split Second It Will Hit The Wall I 1 I i 1 i Ml V'- i at 1 N- i-. i'. i 1 f-V s' 1 i-l -i-A ft, Wa .1. 4 THE MOMENT EDDIE SACHS SMASHED INTO MacDOXALD RACER Other Cars Maneuver Around The Explosion That Took Two Lives FROM THE INFIELD SIDE OF THE TRACK, AN AWESOME SIGHT Flames And Heavy Smoke' Cover The Width Of The Strip TV Fans Showed Esprit Be Fords Early Cont'd from 1st Sports Page Indianapolis 500-mile automobile races.

More than 8.500 saw the Indianapolis race at three Dade County arenas yesterday. Bill Flingos. the stock car driver who ran the operation at the Mahi Shrine Temple Auditorium, recognized many as the fans who come to the local automobile racing tracks. Some came to cheer the Lotus-Fords, the favorites and some to cheer against the Fords. As the Fords dropped out, Bobby Marshman, then Jim Clark, then Dan Gurney, the crowd at the Shrine responded with sighs and applause.

"Follow those people who are clapping when they leave," said a Ford man, "and you'll see every one of them getting into Chevrolets." A tall, striking brunette was first in line when the ticket window opened at 9 a.m., two hours before the race was scheduled to start. "I drove here from Belle Glade this morning," she said, "and I've been waiting since 8 o'clock. You guess I've got time to go and get some breakfast before T'.) the race starts? I'm not going unless you're sure I'm to have a seat when I get back." The seats didn't sell out but the race programs and in a half-hour after they went on sale. "This has got be more successful next year," said Flingos. "Lots of these '''i people didn't understand iust what tho spt.nn 'g mmm mm ihwimmiimmhiiluuuih.

iiimui ij a "x-v "mo 1 nilUVT I talked to quite a few who thought they. were going to be tuy- vst i sitting arouna a bunch of television sets." The picture was on a conventional elosed-cirruit terpen Fireball's Condition Improved CHARLOTTE. N.C. AP) -Stock Car racer Glenn (Fireball) Roberts, although still in serious condition with burns suffered in a race last Sunday, "continues to make satisfactory progress," Charlotte Memorial Hospital reported yesterday. The hospital said the 33-year-old racing veteran from Day-tona Beach, was reasonably comfortable and is eating a soft diet without difficulty.

As a further indication of his Improvement, the hospital reduced from three to one the daily medical bulletins prepared on Roberts' condition. Roberts had been on the critical list for four days, suffering Worn burns over 80 per cent of Js body. About 30 per cent were third degree burns, one of his physicians reported. Roberts was hurt in the opening minutes of the $100,000 World-600 mile race last Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway when his car figured in a Uiree-vehicle smashup. movie theater-sized and came in clean and With the exception of the reporting on the two fatalities, the -'-presentation was excellent, far better than standards set by previous closed-circuit sports telecasts, and superior to net- work sports coverage for special events.

The infield interviews by Chris Economaki. a veteran i auto racing reporter, were outstanding, with rapid explanations for withdrawals and strategy. The photography was first-rate, too, with an exceptional sequence on the pit fire which disabled Parnelli Jones' car. The pictures on the crash which killed two drivers at the start of the race did not show much detail the cameras were too far away to penetrate the smoke. The deaths of Eddie Sachs, burned to death in his car, and Dave MacDonald, who died later in a nearby hospital, were treated as if they were unfit subjects for comment.

A half-hour after the crash, the closed circuit audience was told that there would be a minute of silence, before the re-start, "for Eddie Sachs, who was fatally injured." It was the first mention of Sachs death. Earlier, a driver had told Economaki that he had seen Sachs' car hit Mac-Donald's broadside, but no other mention of Sachs had been made. McDonald's death was reported in the same fashion. "It is with deep regret that we report," said the "that the hospital has announced that Dave MacDonald has died." No further mention was made of MacDonald. The hour and 42-minute delay between the accident and the restart was competently filled with interviews of the in- volved drivers, as well as a taped re-run of the accident.

Most of the excitement went out of the race and the telecast when second-place finisher Rodger Ward took his fourth of five pit stops, and during the last hour the question was the durability of A. J. Foyt's Offenhauser. The television audience stayed to the end, however, watching the Fords go bye-bye. A fellow wearing a baseball cap with a' sparkplug insignia, and a jacket with an auto club emblem on the back, had the last word in the parking lot.

"Vroom," he said, patting the fender of his Chevrolet. "Vroom, vroom." lip, s- 1 FlamingTire Swirls Into Grandstand As Mechanics Run Jor Safety f- if. r-. i i -i i rA A A.