Belgian Grand Prix Tragedy
Stacey was killed during the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix, at Spa-Francorchamps, when he crashed at 120 mph (190 km/h). after being hit in the face by a bird on lap 25, while lying sixth in his Lotus 18-Climax (the same type Lotus as Stirling Moss).
Stacey went off the road on the inside of fast, sweeping right hand Burnenville curve (the same corner where Moss crashed the previous day), climbed a waist-high embankment, penetrated ten feet of thick hedges, and fell into a field. He died within a few minutes of Chris Bristow, and within a few hundred feet of that wreck. In a mid-1980s edition of Road and Track Magazine, Stacey's friend and teammate Innes Ireland wrote a touching article about Stacey's death, in which he stated some spectators claimed a bird had flown into Stacey's face while he was approaching the curve, possibly knocking him unconscious, or even possibly killing him by breaking his neck, before the car crashed.
Read more about this topic: Alan Stacey
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