The BMW Entry
Car 86, Pan Aust. Unit Trust , Gt. Britain, BMW 2000, C.D. Forsythe
As competitors weaved through small villages on the 547 mile road to Sivas, they encountered a new and dangerous hazard - rock throwing children. Two drivers had windscreens shattered and two others reported being pelted with rocks.
Robbie Uniacke, driver of the BMW 2000 (car 86) said one rock narrowly missed missed him and his co-driver Colin Forsyth, ten miles from Ankara. "I was sleeping in the back of the car when I heard a report like a rifle shot," Uniacke said. "I looked up to see the side and rear windows completely shattered. Colin told me the rock had smashed straight through his side screen, whistled past his head and shattered the rear window. It must have been thrown from a slingshot. We punched out the rear window and continued, freezing cold, to Sivas."
John Smailes
It was at Kabul that tragedy and misfortune meant the end for the BMW 2000 (car 86). Learning his wife Sally, 30, had been killed in a car smash in England, Captain Robbie Uniacke immediately flew home. The car was withdrawn from the Marathon because of the rule stating that the crew which starts in the car must finish. Uniacke's crewmates, however, did drive on to Bombay.
In Bombay, Tommy Sopwith allowed the BMW 2000, car 86, to be loaded on to the Chusan - but not as a Marathon competitor. After Robbie Uniacke had flown back to Britain from Kabul, the two other drivers pushed on to Bombay and checked in. Owing to the tragic circumstances leading to the withdrawal, the Marathon organisers felt that the remaining members of the crew should go to Australia so they could be there for the finish, even though they were disqualified under the rules of the Marathon.
Alan Sawyer
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Leaving Crystal Palace at the start of the Marathon
Photo courtesy Ian Monastyrski
