Mysterious Photo

This rare Acme Telephoto wire photo shows the Robson-Barringer accident from a unique perspective that shows the accident unfolded before the cars reached the third turn of the track.

The problem with investigating the Labor Day, 1946 crash at Lakewood is the distinct lack of materials.  Most newspapers got their stories about the race from the same news wires.  The photos generally are the same eight or so that circulated the wires.  It occurred in 1946, an era when many drivers lost their lives.  So trying to find any little piece of information that might differ from the norm proved to be difficult.

But then, while doing an internet newspaper search, I came across the report from the St. Petersburg Times newspaper on September 4, 1946.  The story was pretty much the same as we had seen before.

But the picture was a different story.

This photo, credited to the Acme Telephoto wire service, was from an angle on the track that I had never seen before.  Most shots showed the accident scene from behind, shooting towards turn three.

This photo was shot from near turn three, looking back up the straightaway.  It gave us a look at the severe damage done to Barringer’s car, but it also showed something else.

From this angle, the accident clearly was on the backstretch, not in the turn as had been previously reported.  You could clearly see the big hill that ran along the track just off of turn two, and you could see the smaller second hill just to the left of the cars.  That meant that the accident must have unfolded further up the backstretch, taking the turn out of the equation.

For years, it had been surmised that the accident must have happened because Robson came upon the slower moving car of DeVore in the turn, as both were running in the preferred lower groove.

But if the accident occurred on the straightaway, there were nearly three distinct grooves that the cars could have been running in.  If DeVore had indeed been running on the low side, what was Robson doing down low, and how had the accident actually unfolded?

I passed the photo around to several people, including Mike Bell and Eddie Samples.  It was a new shot to them, and they agreed that it appeared the accident could not have happened in the turn.

But to satisfy my own curiosity, I had to take a trip back to the track, and try to find the spot where Barringer and Robson lost their lives.