Kay Petre
Kathleen Coad "Kay" Petre (born May 10, 1903 in Toronto , † August 10, 1994 in Camden ) was a Canadian racing driver and journalist.
Origin and family
Kay Petre was born Kathleen Coad Defries in Toronto and was very athletic as a child. She aspired to a career as a figure skater and came to Great Britain in the 1920s, where the sport was very important at the time. There she met the aviator Henry Petre, whom she married in 1929. The marriage remained childless. Henry Petre died in 1962.
She herself died in 1994 at the old age of 91 in Camden, London .
Motorsport
Kay Petre got into motorsport indirectly through her husband in the early 1930s. Henry Petre was a professional aviator for a postal service stationed at the airport in close proximity to the Brooklands racetrack . There his wife came into contact with the record drives on this racetrack and decided to become a racing driver herself. Her husband gave her her first racing car for her birthday; a red Wolseley Hornet Daytona Special. With this she started at some club races and exchanged the car for a 2-liter Bugatti in 1934 .
Record runs in Brooklands
The Canadian became known in Great Britain within a very short time. This was mainly due to her record driving on the Brooklands circuit, where she set several new class records with her Bugatti in early 1934. The duels with Gwenda Stewart , who also ran high-speed rides in Brooklands , were particularly interesting for the media . The most famous photo from this time shows the attractive and petite Kay Petre at the wheel of a 10.5-liter V12 - Grand Prix Delage from 1924. At a time when women were still a rarity at the wheel of vehicles a record driver a real sensation. On October 26, 1934, she set a new world record for a flying lap with an average speed of 129.580 mph. This record was only marginally improved by Stewart in 1935, before Petre broke the 130-mile barrier with 134.750 mph. This made her the first woman in the world to fly a flying lap at an average speed of over 130 miles. So that she could reach the pedals, wooden blocks had to be screwed onto them.
The record was improved by Stewart a little later on a Derby with a Miller engine and finally increased to 143 mph by John R. Cobb .
Sports car racing
In 1934 she competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and shared the wheel of a Riley Nine Ulster Imp with Dorothy Champney , who had also reported the car. The women's duo finished the race in 13th place in the overall standings. In 1935 she drove with Dudley Benjafield in the 500-mile race in Brooklands , but retired with a cylinder failure on the Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 . At Le Mans she was part of Riley's works team that year . Again her teammate was a woman. She competed in the race with Elsie Wisdom , the wife of Tommy Wisdom . The performance ended prematurely after an engine failure.
In 1936 she was registered as a partner of Prince Bira for the RAC Tourist Trophy , but could not drive because the Thai did not show up for the agreed pit stop.
In 1937 she took part in Grand Prix races for the first time. She traveled to South Africa and competed in a 1.5 liter Riley at the South African Grand Prix and the Rand Grand Prix ; she couldn't finish both races. In South Africa she met Bernd Rosemeyer know and thus came to a test drive with an Auto Union Type C . Rumors about an affair between her and Bernd Rosemeyer were violently denied years later by Elly Beinhorn .
In Le Mans , they drove a plant - Austin 7 and ended the 12-hour race at Donington in 16th overall.
Serious accident in Donington
Kay Petre's racing career ended while training for the Brooklands 500-mile race in 1937. During training, Petre collided with Reg Parnell's MG Magnete K3 in the banked bend . The Austin 7 was pushed down into a barrier, overturned and buried the Canadians under themselves. She was rescued with severe head injuries, was in a coma for a few days, but was able to recover. In 1938 she officially said goodbye to racing with a few acclaimed parade laps in Brooklands. However, as the co-driver of Anne-Cécile Rose-Itier, she still contested a few rally events , including the Monte Carlo Rally .
After World War II , she worked as a journalist and interior designer at Austin until she retired.
statistics
Le Mans results
| year | team | vehicle | Teammate | placement | Failure reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1934 |
 Miss Dorothy Champney
|
Riley Nine Ulster Imp |
Dorothy Champney
|
Rank 13 | |
| 1935 |
Riley Motor Company
|
Riley Nine MPH Six Racing |
Elsie Wisdom
|
failure | Engine failure |
| 1937 |
R. Marsh
|
Austin 7 |
George Manganese
|
failure | Engine failure |
literature
- Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Alain Bienvenu: 24 heures du Mans, 1923–1992. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909-413-06-3 .
- RM Clarke: Le Mans. The Bentley & Alfa Years 1923-1939. Brooklands Books, Cobham 1998, ISBN 1-85520-465-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ As a figure skater to Europe ( Memento from April 5, 2011 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ Kay Petre in the 1924 Grand Prix Delage
- ↑ The Delage 2011 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed
- ↑ Brooklands 500-Mile Race, 1935
- ^ RAC Tourist Trophy 1936
- ^ No affair with Bernd Rosemeyer
- ^ Donington 12 Hours 1937
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Petre, Kay |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Petre, Kathleen Coad |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Canadian racing car driver |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 10, 1903 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Toronto |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 10, 1994 |
| Place of death | Camden |