During practice for the 1974 Guia Race, the 53-lap touring-car race incorporated into the main Macau Grand Prix weekend, renowned German driver Dieter Glemser at the wheel of a Zakspeed Ford Escort RS 1600 lost control of the car, when a tyre burst. The car hit a sea wall, spun across the rain-soaked track and ploughed into the almost totally unprotected crowd. Several young spectators were struck, one of them, an eight or nine-year-old boy, subsequently died of his injuries. Five other children aged between 6 and 10 received treatment at Macau hospital.
The deceased boy's name was Tang Jinyu. According to different sources, the victim was a girl and two (or more) other children lost their lives in consequence of the crash; this information has not yet been confirmed.
On race day, Japan's Nobuhide Tachi won the 1974 Guia Race in his 1.6-litre Toyota Celica GT.
Following the tragedy in which he was involved, a few months later Dieter Glemser announced his retirement from active racing. The Ford Köln works driver who was the current German national touring-car Champion, had already won the Guia Race in 1971 driving a works Ford Capri RS. A successful sportscar and touring-car driver, he won the European Touring Car Championship - Division 3 in 1971, two times the DARM-German Sportscar Championship, in 1973 and 1974 for Ford, to whom he has been contracted since 1970. Thirty-five-year-old, Glemser had driven for Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and BMW before joining Ford Köln as a works driver. For Mercedes-Benz he rallied as well as raced, scoring impressive results, including outright wins in the Rally of Poland and Rally of Germany and class wins in the Acropolis, Argentine and Portuguese rallies. At the Nürburgring Dieter Glemser had his best successes, winning the 6 Hours race in 1964 with Eugen Böhringer in a Mercedes-Benz 300SL, and the Marathon de la Route - 84 Hours in 1968 with Willi Kauhsen and Herbert Linge in a Porsche 911E.
R.I.P
