Page 134 - They Also Served

win a Grand Prix in a British car. Soon after, he retired from racing to concentrate on speed records.
Segrave set his first land speed record on 16th March 1926, driving his Sunbeam Tiger ‘Ladybird’ to 152.33 mph on Southport Beach. The record lasted less than a month before it was raised to 170 mph by J G Parry-Thomas on Pendine Sands. However, British beaches were no longer suitable for the higher-speed cars being developed, so record-breaking attempts switched to the USA. On 29th March 1927, Segrave became the first man to drive at over 200 mph when he took his 1,000hp Sunbeam, nicknamed ‘The Slug’, to 203.79 mph on Daytona Beach. The following year, the record was broken by Segrave’s British rival, Malcolm Campbell, and again by the American Ray Keech.
In early 1929, Segrave returned to Daytona with a new car, Golden Arrow. One of the first streamlined cars, it was powered by an aero-engine and was a masterpiece of engineering for its day. The coolant passed through gigantic ice chests in the hull, and Segrave peered through a telescopic sight to keep him on course. On 11th March 1929, he duly raised the land speed record to 231.45 mph. Two days later, Segrave witnessed the American Lee Bible’s death in another record attempt and the Florida beaches were closed, preventing another run in Golden Arrow.
Knighted for his efforts, Segrave turned his attention to powerboat racing and then the water speed record. On 13th June 1930, Segrave drove his boat, Miss England II, again powered by an aero-engine, to a new world record of 98.76 mph. However, on the next run, the boat capsized at speed, killing one and injuring the other engineer. Pulled from the water barely alive, Segrave was told he had successfully broken the record and, after asking after the fate of ‘his men’, he died. Sir Henry Segrave was just 33, one of only 22 men to hold the land speed record from its inception in 1898 to the present day.
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