Saturday 14 August 2010

PENDINE

We visited the tiny Museum of Speed at Pendine beach last week. It houses 5 bikes and 1 car, Babs, which held the land speed record in 1926 on the 6 mile stretch of sand it now overlooks. A year later it crashed trying to break the record again killing driver Parry Thomas and was buried on the spot. In the late 60s it was exhumed and restored and has even been driven on the beach again.
The OEC JAP streamliner of Bob Berry was also used for record attempts in the early '30s.
Pendine sands were the home of many motorcycle races right up to the early 50s, hard to imagine up to 20,000 people spectating at the Welsh TT in its heyday between the wars.




1 comment:

Albert Crackleport said...

The sight of Raymond Baxter (of Tomorrows World fame) doing a documentary on T.V about BABS was inspirational to me in the early 70's (or thereabouts). I remember the car being driven on the programme with only the remaining bodywork in place. Brilliant ! I didn't know the car was residing in a museum at Pendine, must go look.