Only For the Dutch: on Local TV tonight Options

[Henri Greuter]

Hi guys,


Just, and only just in case you missed it.

Tonight on Dutch TV from 20:55 to 21:30 a documentary on one of the saddest days ever at the Zandvoort track and any race track in this world.
A documentary about an event about I am still embarrased to acknowledge that this could ever happen on a race track and happening on our beloved Zandvoort.
The death of Roger Williams in the 1973 Dutch GP.
A tragedy beyond belief and totally unnecessary. One of the featured people within the documentary will be the photographer who documentated this tragedy on the pictures that send shockwaves all over the world.

Program name: "Andere tijden" now I forgot if it was on either Nederland 2 or Nederland 3.
But the time is correct and so is the date.

I know, I should try to refer to TV programs with happy moments of racing history.
But regrettably, this is racing history as well and regrettably one of the major events in Zandvoort's history.
Fore those who are too young to recall this tragedy, be prepared for shocking footage as a result of unacceptable stupidity of people who felt themselves to be in control as race directors...
To this day I am still ashamed that this could happen at my beloved Zandvoort.



Henri Greuter

[Racer.Demon]

Will definitely be watching.

A Dutch TV team was at the unveiling of the Williamson statue in Donington and interviewed all the protagonists. There will be lots of original footage with the laconic Henrichs/Terlingen commentary, too.

http://forums.atlasf1.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59678

[Henri Greuter]

Thanks for the link.
Wasn't aware of that.
I'll never forget when Henk Terlingen reported back to the TV commentators and just simply said: "The driver is dead", just as if he came back from doing something innocent....

Henri

[Racer.Demon]

Originally posted by Henri Greuter
Fore those who are too young to recall this tragedy, be prepared for shocking footage as a result of unacceptable stupidity of people who felt themselves to be in control as race directors...

To this day, Ben Huisman is taking responsibility for the whole thing, so at least he accepted the blame.

[Lipp]

"andere tijden" (different (other) times) is a very good program. They are a very thourough in their investigation about history and events that had an impact at the time but that were somehow lost in time.

[man]

Perhaps you should have titled the thread as For those in Holland instead of Only for the Dutch

Thanks for the notice, i'll certainly be watching it.

Out of curiosity, which channel will be showing the 2004 season?

[QdfV]

SBS6 I believe

[Mischa Bijenhof]

I've just seen it, a decent documentary in my opinion. Race Director Ben Huisman until this day takes full responsility for Williamsons death.
Predictably, they had to point out that several of the drivers present at the grid of that fatal Dutch GP are no longer with us. It was suggested that "Five of them eventually died on a racetrack." So that would be Williamson, Peterson, Cevert, Revson and...? Which I think leaves Denny Hulme, who indeed died during a race, but that was quite a different story, right?
It was also mentioned that three drivers died in an airplane crash (Hill, Purley Pace) and one in a road accident (Hailwood)
Shame they had to add such a moralistic last sentence: "They are all trillseekers and who searches for danger will eventuelly find it somewhere." Hmmmm :\

[QdfV]

I saw it too. Indeed a decent documentary, with all sides able to speak and tell how they experienced that day. The last remark I did not interpret as moralistic to be honest, more like an observation and to put Williamson's death a bit in perspective. It was stated that one of the reasons this tragedy received a lot of attention in a sport where fatal accidents where occurring regularly was that it was so horrible and in front of a camera. The power of the camera and the tragedy, initiating more stringent safety regulations.

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by Mischa Bijenhof
a moralistic last sentence: "They are all trillseekers and who searches for danger will eventuelly find it somewhere." Hmmmm :\

That sentence wasn't meant to be moralistic, if you listened to way it was spoken you could hear the wry ironic intention ("People will think that...") - typical of the program's tongue-in-cheek style of presentation. And it wasn't the last sentence - IIRC the next sentence was something like: "Yet, it has been ten years ago now that somebody died in F1 - the late Ayrton Senna."

And yes, it was a very decent documentary - with images that are still as cruel and haunting today as they were then.

[dosco]

IIRC this footage was in the documentary "The Quick and the Dead" as narrated by Stacy Keach.

I watched that movie in 1992.....horrifying indeed. What stuck with me was other drivers stopping and attempting to extricate him from the burning wreckage....just awful.

I'm glad that safety standards are what they are today.

[mat1]

yes, it was a decent documentary, although I would have preferred the footage of the accident and the aftermath with interruption.

What I didn't see then (I turned off the tv set after the death of Williamson was confirmed) was the way the news was broken to Gijs van Lennep.

mat1

[Mischa Bijenhof]

As many other drivers, Van Lennep thought that Purley was the driver who had managed to get out of the burning wreckage. When told that it was Williamson and that he was dead, he reacted "Echt? Dat is echt kloten" (Really? Now that really sucks)
I guess I missed the tongue-in-cheek-tone in which the item was finalised.

[Racer.Demon]

I thought it was a decent documentary with no obvious errors or unnecessary dramatisation - unlike the recent BBC programme on Ferrari. The only thing I spotted - but told by the people interviewed so you can't blame the makers - was that thing about Purley being "a close friend" of Roger's whereas he really wasn't. That's something of a perpetuated myth.

And I felt the closing commentary was spot-on, as it stayed away from judging the events with 21st-century standards, correctly put it into the historical context of the time (the first Grand Prix death live on TV, which is why there was such a huge public backlash) and didn't pass any judgement. The thrillseeker comment directly followed the mention of David Purley's stunt-flying death off the coast at Bognor - and you can't deny that Purley was something of a thrillseeker.

I was especially glad to see the post-race footage with Purley and Van Lennep.

Also, I guess it could have been expected that Nando Boers was responsible for the programme's research, as he had already done a 10-page article on July 29, 1973 for the Dutch Formule 1 magazine (Mischa's rival magazine ;) ).

[Doug Nye]

Who really were the race marshals at the scene of Roger's accident...???? Did they appear in this programme???...

DCN

[Racer.Demon]

Yes, one of them did.

It was the same man who appeared in Boers' article mentioned above. Afterwards he refused to ever go near that place again as a marshal.

He claimed he was poorly equipped and had to hold on to the first rule that was imprinted into him by Ben Huisman during the pre-race briefing - "Always take care of yourself first." In the article he also claimed his main job was to prevent the oncoming traffic from racing into the wreckage, as there was no-one else to wave the yellow flag. In the footage he is the guy you see walking away from the scene to start waving his flag.

To me the whole string of events have a distinct Titanic feel about it, as also expressed by Huisman at the start of the programme. "We'd resurfaced and widened the track, we'd put up the crash barriers, we'd built a control tower. We had done serious hard work during 1972 and were proud of the result, proud too that the Grand Prix was returning to Zandvoort. We all started the weekend on a high, convinced that nothing could go wrong."

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Who really were the race marshals at the scene of Roger's accident...???? Did they appear in this programme???...

DCN

It was a strange lot around the burning wreckage - including some kind of police officer who clearly had more experience in controlling the beach traffic than helping to rescue a F1 driver. As we all know, it was agonizing amateurism to the nth degree. The marshalls didn't have any protective clothing - that's an excuse, but what did they do anyway besides trying to push Purley away? Why did it have to be David who used that -insufficient- fire extinguisher?
What was new to me was the fact that Roger still must have talked (screamed?) to David from his burning wreck. It send a shiver to my spine, as they say....

The documentary clearly highlighted that track communication was hopeless. There was no TV in the new control tower, so everybody at home or in the paddock with a TV set knew more about what was happening than the race officials themselves.

There was one race marshall interviewed in the documentary - I think it was him who told that their most important instruction was "to avoid getting hurt yourself" or something like that. He admitted that he'd never wanted to be a marshall again in that area....

The documentary will be retransmitted this Saturday 12:30 on 'Nederland 3' BTW.

[Svend]

Originally posted by scheivlak

The documentary will be retransmitted this Saturday 12:30 on 'Nederland 3' BTW.

Thanks for the heads up. I was unable to watch the documentary because I had to work.

Concerning the memorial, various letters have been sent out, the most important one being the letter to the owner/operator of the golf course. Work on the website is also well underway, the url will be http://www.purley-williamson.net

I'll keep you posted .

[Henri Greuter]

About the comments of Gijs van Lennep after the race,

I am not sure but I got the feeling that this was not transmitted right after the race. Since they alos did a brief fragment of Gijs' wife with Ruud ter Wijden (and he was with the program (Avro's Sportpanorama") I think that the after race comments were also within a separate program, aired by the AVRO while the GP itself was with NOS (or was it still NTS at that time?)

Other than that, it was indeed a very decent documentary.

Denny Hulme did indeed die in a racing car but the reports were he had a herart attack that causen him to crash.
Was kind of surprised that they didn't mention Niki Lauda surviving a near similar fiery crash.
(But then: strictly spoken: Peterson didn't...)

I dived into Heinz Pruller's Grand Prix Story '73 after that TV to read what he wrote...
The sad part of it was the for a stunning low amount of money the German ONS rescue cars could have been hiere and stationed on the track, Stewart even recommanded them to the race organizers.
Pity.



Henri Greuter

[Frank de Jong]

I'm positive about the documentary too; concerning the ONS cars Henri mentioned, as I wrote in another thread, Zandvoort was not the only one to blame that the deal did not work out - there were some difficulties with the ONS. As you may guess, at the next international meeting (the August Zandvoort Trophy) 5 ONS safety cars were hired...

[mat1]

Originally posted by Henri Greuter

The sad part of it was the for a stunning low amount of money the German ONS rescue cars could have been hiere and stationed on the track, Stewart even recommanded them to the race organizers.

How was it elsewhere? The claim was: Zandvoort was no exception, if it had happened somewhere else, the same would have happened. To what extent is this true?

mat1

[WACKO]

Originally posted by mat1


How was it elsewhere? The claim was: Zandvoort was no exception, if it had happened somewhere else, the same would have happened. To what extent is this true?

mat1

It depended strongly on the circuit, but most European tracks compared. Remember that circuits like the Nordschleiffe, the nowadays Nurburgring, was so long (22km) that it was impossible to have a safe system. That situation would stand until Lauda's accident in '76. The same for Monza and Spa, which weren't as safe either. However the bad thing for Zandvoort was, that it had just completed some track renewal and had explicitly confirmed it safe.

[Henri Greuter]

Perhaps off topic but think about this for the sponsors of Williamson: STP
This also relates with to what Huisman said about safety cars heading against the traffic.


Two months before at Indianapolis (Now, talk about the most disastrous Indy 500 ever and many will pick '73) one of the STP Pattrick drivers crashed and was heavily injured (Swede Savage) only to die a few weeks later. (Savage is reported to have been saying `Holy Christ what a mess' while crashing)
In the aftermath of the crash a firetruck located at the end of the pittlane rushed to the scene of the accident, the near entry of the pittlane, driving in the opposite direction! (For those who saw the documentary: Remember Huisman's worda about such an occurrance)
One mechanic was hit by the fire truck, needless to say, an STP Pattrick mechanic. Hie died afterwards...
The race itself, redflagged on several occasions already because of accidents and rain and already on the third day of trying was 133 laps old when it rained again and was redflagged again but also stopped from then on: Gordon Johncock, the surviving Pattrick STP driver declared the winner.

If my memory is correct, Savage had just about died at the time of Zandvoort.
With all this Indy misery, then the Williamson tragedy, near miraculous that STP remained in racing for such a long period of time!


Henri Greuter

[WACKO]

It would have been insane to drive in the opposite direction as the traffic. If you really wanted to mess up, that's what they should have done. But it wouldn't have been necessary had they just stopped the race. But they lacked completely on communication. The race director didn't even know what was going on on the other side of the track. No television, bad, primitive and scarse phone arrangements.

[Svend]

Originally posted by Frank de Jong
I'm positive about the documentary too; concerning the ONS cars Henri mentioned, as I wrote in another thread, Zandvoort was not the only one to blame that the deal did not work out - there were some difficulties with the ONS.

Could you maybe elaborate a bit more on this. As far as I know the ONS did send a proposal to the Zandvoort circuit and was quite persistant that they should come over.


> Wacko

In case of a Red Flag all cars would immediately pull into the pits ot be stopped at the start finish straight. This would have cleared the track within a minute, which is considerably shorter than the reported 4 minutes it took the other fire truck to get there.

If only, if only.. too much went wrong that day. I mean, no tv screen in the control tower, come on. What I'm also wondering about are the claims that most people thought it was Purley (or simply the driver) who was trying to save his chassis. How does that relate to the undamaged, abandoned car which was in the grass some 50 metres before the wreck. It could even be seen on tv. There must ring a bell somewhere..

[QdfV]

Svend; Gijs van Lennep was shown when he came out of his car. He was told about the accident and very clearly and honestly stated that he thought the driver was standing next to the car, I do not recall his exact wording, but it was obvious he was really thinking so. He was also interviewed now, 30 years later, and he explained that the drivers where passing that area within a few seconds and just could not really see what was happening, with all the smoke and such. I guess the abandoned car 50 meters earlier does not really automatically relate to a driver next to the burning car. That excuse is probably only really valid for the other drivers though.

[Racer.Demon]

Originally posted by mat1
How was it elsewhere? The claim was: Zandvoort was no exception, if it had happened somewhere else, the same would have happened. To what extent is this true?

I think it's fair to say that's true. Earlier that year it needed Mike Hailwood to save Clay Regazzoni - the marshals didn't have any fire-proof clothing there either, as far as I know. And didn't Jo Siffert die in a similar way at Brands two years earlier?

The Williamson tragedy caused such as uproar because it was aired live for millions to see - they all watched the agonizing minutes (that seemed like hours) in which the drama unfolded and which painfully highlighted the obvious ineptitude of the organizers and the marshals' lack of equipment and communication means. The uncut truth was just too much for many to stomach.

[mat1]

Originally posted by Racer.Demon


I think it's fair to say that's true. Earlier that year it needed Mike Hailwood to save Clay Regazzoni - the marshals didn't have any fire-proof clothing there either, as far as I know. And didn't Jo Siffert die in a similar way at Brands two years earlier?

yes, that is right. Ans of course Courage at Zandvoort in 1970. But the availability of the ONS suggests it could be better.

In retrospect it is difficult to understand why more firefighting capabilities were not standard, because this kind of disaster was rather common (Schlesser, Courage, Siffert, Regazzoni, and that is only F1). And it is difficult to understand why they not as standard procedure stop the race in this kind of situation, exactly because it was difficult to know what was happening. But "better safe than sorry" was not the approach in those days.

Originally posted by Racer.Demon



The Williamson tragedy caused such as uproar because it was aired live for millions to see - they all watched the agonizing minutes (that seemed like hours) in which the drama unfolded and which painfully highlighted the obvious ineptitude of the organizers and the marshals' lack of equipment and communication means. The uncut truth was just too much for many to stomach.

Yes. It was too much for me, back then.

mat1

[dolomite]

I thought there were supposed to have been moves to improve firefighting facilities after the Bandini accident at Monaco in 1967 which was also widely shown on TV.

[Marcel Visbeen]

Originally posted by Henri Greuter
About the comments of Gijs van Lennep after the race,

I am not sure but I got the feeling that this was not transmitted right after the race. Since they alos did a brief fragment of Gijs' wife with Ruud ter Wijden (and he was with the program (Avro's Sportpanorama") I think that the after race comments were also within a separate program, aired by the AVRO while the GP itself was with NOS (or was it still NTS at that time?)

You are completely correct, just incidentally Ruud ter Weijden was filming Gijs van Lennep for a portrait that was aired five days later in AVRO's Sportpanorama. The shots of Gijs' wife and the shots of Gijs getting out of the car where taken from that portrait.

[Frank de Jong]

Originally posted by Svend

Could you maybe elaborate a bit more on this. As far as I know the ONS did send a proposal to the Zandvoort circuit and was quite persistant that they should come over.

Sport-Auto (Germany) 9/73 said in his ETCC report of Zandvoort: "Die bewährte Staffel kam mit 5 fahrzeugen. Sie wären auch zum GP für 2500 DM gekommen, aber da lief einiges schief woran auch der veranstalter nicht alle schuld trug."
In english something like "the ONS came with 5 cars. They would have come for 2500 DM (1250 Euro) to the GP, but a few things went wrong which was not only the fault of the organiser".

[No27]

For those, like me, who missed it; the programm can be watched with RealPlayer, in broadband and smallband.

If these links don't work, check out the programm's website and find out yourself.

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by No27
If these links don't work, check out the programm's website and find out yourself.

Also on the website: that quite extensive and very good article in Dutch (from the 'Formule 1' magazine) by Nando Boers: http://www.vpro.nl/geschiedenis/anderetijd...557030+16660430
Bit too long to translate.....

[Arjan de Roos]

Maybe a little late with my reaction on this documentary (which I found quite clarifying after seeing only the hectic shots through the years). However I was still wondering on some things.

Like about a thing Huisman (clerk of the course) said. After the race he went inside Graham Hill caravan and after sitting down, Hill looked at Ben and said: "Not so good Ben, not so good." Now this can be interpreted in many ways. Huisman took it as a point of criticism on the race organiser, but it might also have been that Hill meant it was not so good in general and the sport in particular. Of course Hill had experienced more of such bad situations.

Being a good documentary I found something was omitted: the fact that at least one driver had been gesticulating to the clerks of the course to stop the race, especially Hulme (then the president of GPDA). Possibly only due to the fact that visability was low on the track (as many drivers had seen a driver around the wreck and thought all was OK). Why wasnt there a response to that?

The interview with Purley was quite a revelation. On the day after the race (possibly the next morning looking at Purley freshly coombed hairs) and on the site where it happened. In some writing it was said that Purley suffered from a nervous break down. He looked better than that and in a way (may I say) somewhat relieved. Which might confirm also that Purley wasn't a close friend to Williamson as stated in so many cases.

The documentary said little about the cause of the accident. However being it a puncture or a suspension failure, the impact was violent (200 kmph at 45 degrees into the barriers). The car was catapulted in the air and hit the track upside down. This makes me to believe that the statement that Purley could talk with Williamson not very likely. Maybe it should be said that Purley could hear Williamson if he was concious at all.

I think the memorial errected at Donington is a true piece of art.

[Svend]

According to R.D (I don't know his exact source) Roger was unhurt, apart from the inuries sustained from the fire. I'm pretty sure I read several acounts that Williamson was consious and screaming for help.

[Racer.Demon]

My source is the Dutch Panorama magazine which had an interview with David Purley in 1980. Sitting behind the desk of his Lec office, he recounted the following (roughly translated) :

"I'm still haunted by the sound of Roger screaming while he burnt alive. I can see him now, desperately trying to unbuckle his belt and push himself out of the warped cockpit that was keeping him prisoner."

[SEdward]

I've just watched the documentary. I speak German, but I don't speak Dutch. I was able to pick up some of what was said, but far from all.

I think that, like most accidents, Williamson's death was due to a collection of circumstances (poorly secured armco, inadequately equipped marshalls, lack of communications between race control and the field, insufficient fire marshalling, and so on). I cannot recall many races being stopped at that time. Maybe this one shoud have been.

What, however, is not acceptable, is that the lessons had not been learned from previous accidents, Bandini's being the most famous (also broadcast live in Globovision).

I remain sceptical about Purley's claim to have spoken with, or at least heard, Roger. He spent very little time close to the car. The ambient noise must have been loud, with cars passing by just a few yards away. He was wearing a helmet and so was Roger.

Edward.

[Nanni Dietrich]

Originally posted by Mischa Bijenhof
As many other drivers, Van Lennep thought that Purley was the driver who had managed to get out of the burning wreckage. When told that it was Williamson and that he was dead, he reacted "Echt? Dat is echt kloten" (Really? Now that really sucks)
I guess I missed the tongue-in-cheek-tone in which the item was finalised.

Sorry, can you help me to translate well the words of Van Lennep? I don't understand if he said an idiomatic phrase: was he irreverent? or inappropriate? was he superficial or simply he didn't understand the importance of the fact?
Thanks.

I was at Imola circuit in 1989 when Gerhard was saved from flames in twenty seconds by "CEA Lyons". They arrived immediately from their place near the boxes to the Tamburello wall in two fast fire-cars (if I remember well an Alfa Romeo and a Maserati!!!). Probably if they had to go in the opposite direction of the race they spent more and more time...

[Racer.Demon]

Mischa's translation is the best you'll get. 'Kloten' means balls (you'll know which ones) and it is an irreverent but heartfelt term to express disappointment and disillusion. The more appropriate wording would be 'Really? That's really terrible'.

[Nanni Dietrich]

Ok R.D., thanks!