1970s #1 Ford Escort Wreck At Scandinavian Race

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Jesper Hvid
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1970s #1 Ford Escort Wreck At Scandinavian Race

#1

Post by Jesper Hvid »

Luckily, the steering wheel for some reason is on the right. Could be Aage Buch Larsen or Tom Belsø, early 70s.

KMK could be an abbreviation for just about [anyfink] Motor Klub, Danish or Swedish. Rally or dirt track, no idea, but I don't think it's the former, then the navigator would have been seriously fucked.

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#2

Post by PTRACER »

It's odd, there's a gravel road just behind the car, but there's too big a crowd for it to just be a rally event.
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#3

Post by caneparo »

can't be a rally event because at that time the car brought plates and this doesn't have it
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#4

Post by Airflow »

KMK could be Karlskoga Motor Klubb, who organized the folllowing event.

http://www.motorsportmemorial.org/focus.php?db=ct&n=297

On 09 August 1970 Karlskoga hosted a varied racing programme including the most important events of Sweden at the time, attracting a very large crowd of spectators. The main race, named Swedish Grand Prix, was disputed by sportscars; its winner was Chris Craft in a McLaren M8C - Ford Cosworth DFV entered by Ecurie Evergreen, followed by Helmut Marko in a Porsche 908/2 and Jo Bonnier in a Lola T212 - Ford. Peter Hanson in a Chevron B17 won the Formula 3 race, leading Gerry Birrell (Brabham BT28) and Freddy Kottulinsky (Lotus 59).

Also raced that day was the popular Kanonloppet for touring cars. Its name - Swedish for "The Cannon Race" - derived from the Bofors weaponry factory located in Karlskoga. During that race the Ford Escort driven by Finnish competitor Pekka Virtanen and the BMW 2002 of Swedish Rune Tobiasson tangled at the flat out right-hander at the straight leading up to the Velodromkurvan ("Velodrom Turn"). The cars bounced at the bank surrounding the circuit and ran into the crowd at high speed.

Five spectators were killed and twenty-five other were injured; driver Pekka Virtanen broke both legs. According to newspaper "Il Resto del Carlino" two of the victims were women, two were men and one was not identified yet. At least one of them was a Norwegian citizen.

The Karlskoga circuit was run by the Karlskoga Motor Klubb, a well-known amateur club. The accident of 09 August 1970 caused profound commotion in Sweden, and the circuit was closed for several years. When it reopened, in 1973, a new linkage connected the straights leading to and returning from the Velodromkurvan, bypassing it and shortening the track length from 3.172 to 2.530 kilometers.
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#5

Post by Rainyday »

It actually matches the image on this thread quite well. It's strange that other source claims that both drivers escaped injury, and the other one says Virtanen broke both of his legs.

Strangely enough, there was a Finnish driver called Tuisku Urpiala (as said in other thread), also driving Ford Escort in the 70s. He seems to be quite a veteran in Finnish motorsport as he ran in some Super Saloon races even well into 2000s. He also, interestingly, seems to have been involved in drag racing along with being team mates with Mikko Kozarowitzky, also known as the only Finnish F1 driver ever who failed to qualify to a single race.

Some information on Tuisku.

Sadly it's very hard to find anything regarding Mr. Virtanen since Pekka is one of the most common male names in Finland and Virtanen is (I think) the 2nd most common surname. This one seems to be a hard nut to crack, though the image on the other thread fits very well to the aftermath picture, where damaged roof is very evident. I just can't think of the cause for his broken legs...



EDIT: No, it's not Virtanen. Look at the car number! The car foreground in the other thread has #1 in it, so it can't be the wrecked one. Altough that being said, it might just be that the car in the air flipped in top of the Escort and caused the strange damage to the car...
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#6

Post by PTRACER »

It might be the same car and the same livery but it's not the same race. The Escort in Jesper's picture has a large CASTROL logo on the front between the lights, whereas the one in the picture you posted just has a standard number plate OR a smaller sponsor's logo.
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#7

Post by PTRACER »

I have binned this for the fact that the guy who OWNED this car and repaired it has no idea who crashed it:
"Flemming had an accident on track at and wrecked the car. Bo “Emma” Emanuelsson bought the damaged car from Flemming and repaired it for racing"
Which was then refuted by:
Extract from Bo /Raymond e-mail” 4/11/2013
The car that he bought from Flemming is not this car! That was repaired and raced by Bo in a red colour with sponsring from a Swedish magasin *BILSPORT'. So, we can forget the story with Flemming....... What happened to that car he don't remember. He also said that that car should never have been repaired!!! It was so badly damaged. But as we talked the memory came back, so we will keep contact if something new comes up.”
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#8

Post by Jesper Hvid »

Binned, goes to Scandinavian Graveyard section. Crop + thumb + keep comments.
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#9

Post by PTRACER »

I'm going to resurrect this briefly. This is definitely Karlskoga.

In the 1970 Kanonloppet, Ulf Larsson crashed a #1 Escort, but I don't think it's him. This seems to have a dark bonnet and the steering wheel is on the wrong side. Do we have any Swedes who can do some searches online? I tried but failed.

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#10

Post by Jesper Hvid »

No, it's not that.
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