The accident that resulted in the deaths of eight people, occurred at about 14h55, shortly after the start of the Circuit d'Aix-les-Bains, Formula Junior race held at Aix-les-Bains, in the Savoie department, Rhône-Alpes, France, on Sunday, 22 May 1960. The race was re-organized after six years of suspension since the previous edition held in 1954.
Twelve drivers started the first heat of the Formula Junior race. They had covered only three laps on the 2.414-kilometer street course, when Trevor Taylor who led the race in a works Lotus 18-Ford, and Lex Beels of the Netherlands, second in a Cooper T52-DKW flashed under the temporary wooden footbridge over the street track, jammed with auto-race fans. Suddenly the wooden structure buckled and plunged to the roadway in a burst of dust, blocking it just before the third racer hurtled into their midst.
It was the car driven by Britain's Chris Threlfall, 29-year-old, arriving at about 170 km/h (105 mi/h). His head was smashed against the dashboard as he attempted desperatly to brake and avoid hitting the timbers and people sprawled on the road. The unfortunate driver hit the remains of the supports of the collapsed bridge with his Elva 100-BMC Formula Junior #36, involving the spectators.
The other competitors behind Threlfall swerved and braked frantically, managing to stop in time, four of them plowed into the wreckage. Keith Ballisat in another Cooper T52-BMC entered by Ken Tyrrell, spun his car to a halt, avoiding the stricken spectators who had tumbled from the bridge.
Threlfall was killed instantly along with four spectators: A. M. Contier and his wife M.me Contier who lived in Conflans, Savoie; Nicole Lemame, a young girl from Paris who was dwelling at the Maison des Jeunes - a center for popular education - in Annecy; Henri Cochet, 30-year-old from Aix-les-Bains.
Two other injured spectators died in the Hôpital d'Aix-les-Bains shortly before midnight. They were Ali Akbar-Lari, an Iranian diplomat stationed in Genève, Switzerland, and Francesco Tosi, an Italian decorator who lived and worked at St. Jean de Maurienne, Savoie. A seventh spectator succumbed to his injuries two days later, on Tuesday, 24 May 1960, Olivier Eminent, from Groisy, department of Haute-Savoie. It is believed that all of them were killed by the oncoming car after the temporary bridge collapsed.
About fifty injured spectators required hospitalization, twenty of them in the Hôpital d'Aix-les-Bains, and others in the Clinique Herbert and in the Clinique Truchet. Amongst them, several people of Italian origins, including three members of the same family, René and Berta Frezza and their eight-year-old son Franck, from Marnaz, Rhône-Alpes; Aderio Benetton, 48, who sustained a fractured skull and Giovanni Bondissini, 60, both from Allevard-les-Bains, Rhône-Alpes; Lorenzo Ghisalberti, 32, of Les Granges de Montagnieu, Ain.
R.I.P
