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The 1955 Le Mans disaster occurred during the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race, when a crash caused large fragments of racing car debris to fly into the crowd. Eighty-three spectators and driver Pierre Levegh died and 120 more were injured in the most catastrophic accident in motorsport history. There was much debate over the apportioning of blame. To reach his pit-stop, Mike Hawthorn had had to cut in front of Lance Macklin, causing Macklin to swerve into the path of Levegh in his much faster Mercedes. The collision propelled Levegh’s car upwards and into a concrete stairwell, where he was killed, and the wreck exploded in flames. However the inquiry held none of the drivers responsible, and blamed the layout of the 30-year old track, which had not been designed for cars of this speed. ==Before the accident== Pierre Levegh, aged 49, had been hired by Mercedes-Benz as a factory driver that year. Part of his appeal to Mercedes was his determination shown in the 1952 race when he had driven for 23 straight hours, even though the team had a driver who could have replaced him. He failed to win only because of a missed gear change, due to exhaustion, with just 45 minutes remaining, resulting in a failed connecting rod in his Talbot-Lago. Mercedes-Benz had debuted its new 300 SLR sportscar in the 1955 World Sportscar Championship season, with some notable success, including a win at the Mille Miglia. The 300 SLR featured a body made of an ultralightweight magnesium alloy called Elektron with a specific gravity of 1.8 (in comparison, aluminium has a S.G. of 2.7 and steel 7.8). This new material reduced the weight of the car and thus improved its performance. However, the car lacked the more efficient state-of-the-art disc brakes featured on the rival Jaguar D-Type, employing instead the traditional drum brake system. The high power of the car forced Mercedes' engineers to incorporate a large air brake behind the driver that could be raised to increase drag and slow the car with sufficient rapidity for most conditions. Safety measures commonly in place today were relatively unknown in 1955. Aside from two layout changes to make the circuit shorter, the Le Mans circuit itself had remained largely unaltered since the inception of the race in 1923, when top speeds of cars were typically in the region of . By 1955 top speeds were in excess of .〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.worldcarfans.com/104102510099/the-slr-phenomenon---past-and-future )〕 The cars had no seatbelts, the drivers reasoning that it was preferable to be thrown clear in a collision rather than be either crushed beneath an overturned car or trapped in a burning car.〔 The 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans began on 11 June 1955, with Pierre Levegh behind the wheel of the #20 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR run by Daimler-Benz. American John Fitch was Levegh's assigned partner in the car, and he would take over driving duties later. Competition between Mercedes, Jaguar, Porsche, Ferrari, Aston Martin and Maserati was close, with all the marques fighting for the top positions early on. The race was extremely fast, with lap records being repeatedly broken.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1955 Le Mans disaster」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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