Where are Pendine Sands?
The village of Pendine is in South Wales and is on the southern coastline
below the hills, and you look south over the Bristol Channel as it flows
into the Atlantic Ocean.
Pendine had a beach that was seven miles long in the twenty's and thirty's,
which made it a great place to run fast cars. Not the only one as
Southport and Saltburn were used for record attempts and Filey and others
for racing.
For British land speed racers it was the Daytona Beach of its day and
whilst not easy to reach did not involve crossing the Atlantic
The outright Land Speed record was set on the sands five times between 1924
and 1927. Speeds from 146.16 to 174.883 mph for the mile average over two
runs (yes .... FIA runs). Its outright use stopped after the '27 Segrave
record at 203.792 mph set on Daytona (Ormond) Beach. The drivers of the
day would wait for weeks sometimes for the right conditions, although
Malcolm Campbell is pictured in many books running across a very wet
surface wiping the aero screen as he went.
The Beach Hotel was the headquarters of all attempts and nearby today there
is a small Museum of Speed, which hosts a display of the Parry Thomas Car
Babs - restored after the driver died on Pendine sands and the team buried
the car in the dunes above high water mark.
Because of coastal changes and the use of the eastern end as a firing pit,
to test guns and mortars and other military ordnance, the beach now only
affords about 3 3/4 miles and there are some steel ranging posts that can
get in the way. An underground stream can soften a large area too. But
the beach has been used for UK attempts up to a few years ago - Don Wales,
grandson of Sir Malcolm Campbell set many of his electric UK records there.
Richard Brown had thought that he could set the Outright World Record for
motorcycles on the sand, until he discovered how inconsistent in strength
the surface can be and we had to look to the USA.
In the same area is the village of Laugharne where the Welsh writer Dylan
Thomas lived and worked. The holiday resort of Tenby is a little further
west around the coast. Leave London on the M4 motorway (freeway) and after
2 1/2 hours driving west you will get there.
Malcolm Pittwood, derby, England.
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