Toni Babl

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Toni Babl (born December 4, 1906 in Miesbach ; † June 19, 1936 in Bonn ) was a German motorcycle racer and one of the most famous sidecar racers in Germany in the 1930s .

Career

Toni Babl was known as a mountain specialist in the early 1930s with his 600 cm³ sidecar machines and between 1927 and 1935 he won the mountain races in Ratisbona, on the Kesselberg , on the Gaisberg and four times the Freiburg mountain record on the Schauinsland . In 1935, Babl won the field hill climb in the Taunus on a Douglas self-made car ahead of Hans Kahrmann / Heinrich Eder on a DKW . In 1932 he was German mountain champion in the class up to 600 cm³ on a 600cc Victoria team. In 1935, the Bavarian on Douglas won the national mountain championship in both the 600 and 1000 class.

In 1936 Toni Babl became a works driver for the Zschopau manufacturer DKW, for whom he and “Lubricant” Julius Beer immediately took second place in the Hanoverian Eilenriederennen . A short time later, the two won the 600 cc team race for the Swiss Grand Prix in Bremgarten . This was followed by further victories in the Solitude race near Stuttgart and the Cologne city forest race .

Deadly accident

During the training drives for the International Eifel Race on the Nürburgring - Nordschleife , which were held from June 11th to 13th, 1936, Toni Babl / Julius Beer had a serious accident with their DKW team. The two were carried out of a right turn with their machine, fell over an embankment and rolled over several times.

Babl was taken to the hospital in Adenau , where a concussion and facial injuries were diagnosed. His condition deteriorated noticeably and the Bavarian lost consciousness, so that he was taken to the University Hospital in Bonn , where he did not wake up and died a few days after the accident at the age of 29.

Toni Babl was buried a little later in his Upper Bavarian hometown with great sympathy from his racing driver colleagues and the population. His co-driver Julius Beer survived the accident and became German champion in the sidecar class with Hans Schumann in 1937 .

The increasing number of serious sidecar accidents in 1936 and 1937 - in addition to Toni Babl, for example, Karl Braun , Albert Schneider , Hans Schneider and Josef Lohner had fatal accidents - prompted the National Socialist Motor Corps, as the highest motor sports authority in Germany, to ban all sidecar races in Germany for 1938. On some racetracks like the Solitude, the Schleizer Dreieck and on the Feldberg, racing was even completely stopped. Sidecar races were only allowed again after the Second World War .

Race wins

year class machine Co-driver run route
1936 Carriages (600 cm³) DKW Julius Beer Swiss Grand Prix Bremgarten

References

literature

  • Steffen Ottinger: DKW motorcycle sport 1920–1939 . From the first victories of the Zschopau two-stroke model at track races to the European championship successes. 1st edition. HB-Werbung und Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Chemnitz 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-028611-7 , p. 63-64, 69, 74-82, 91, 96, 114 .
  • Woldemar Lange, Jörg Buschmann: The great time of DKW motorcycle racing . 1920 to 1941 (Zschopau). 1st edition. Bildverlag Böttger GbR, Witzschdorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-937496-29-0 , p. 202 .

Web links

  • Toni Babl. www.motorsportmemorial.org, accessed on June 29, 2014 (English).
  • Klaus Nerger: Anton “Toni” Babl. knerger.de, accessed on May 9, 2015 .
  • Photo: Toni Babl. www.feldbergrennen.de, accessed on June 29, 2014 .