The Road from Farnham

Roaring around the tracks of the world in his flame red Ferrari, Racing Driver Mike Hawthorn, 29, was all that hero-hungry Britons could ask for. His big body hunched in cramped cockpits, his face set in a ferocious scowl, their Mike was a throwback to Battle of Britain fighter pilots -a carefree daredevil with unruly flaxen hair and polka-dot bowtie. In eight lusty years, lead-footed Mike punished cars, survived six serious accidents -and last October became the first world champion in British racing history. Two months later moody Mike abruptly retired from racing, said: "I can't properly explain all the reasons, even to myself."

Some of the reasons were plain. Ever since Mike drove in the 1955 Le Mans, where 83 were killed when a track mixup sent Pierre Levegh's Mercedes into the crowd, Grand Prix racing had not seemed quite the same. Last year came the fiery deaths of his Ferrari teammates, Italy's Luigi Musso and Britain's Peter Collins. At Musso's funeral, Mike grabbed Juan Fangio's hand and muttered: "We have to quit this." (Said Fangio: "That conversation finally decided me to retire.")

A pub-loving Englishman at heart, Mike settled down in Farnham, Surrey, to run a thriving garage with his mother. Nothing could have pleased her more. Four years ago Mike's father, a onetime racing driver himself, was killed while speeding home from a racing meet. Fortnight ago Mike did consent to stand in for Donald Campbell in his try next year at the world land-speed record, but only in the event of Campbell's death. But for Mike, the perilous routine of dicing with death was over. Invited to race in the 1959 Monte Carlo rally, he snorted: "Not likely, mate. It's too darned dangerous." He had an equally wary word for the speed-prone public: "The roads are getting proper death traps. If you ask me, the racetrack is safer than the road between Farnham and London."

On a cold, drizzly English country morning last week, Mike remembered that he had some urgent business appointments 40 miles away in London. Waving goodbye to his mother at the garage, he hopped into his souped-up green Jaguar and whooshed down the highway like a man without a minute to spare.

Sweeping down a long wet hill, Mike was doing about 100 m.p.h. when he hurtled past a Mercedes-driving friend (who denies that any race was involved). Ahead of him, the friend saw the Jaguar suddenly go into a long skid. "I thought: 'Good old Mike. He'll soon flick out of that one.' " But this time, Mike Hawthorn's practiced skill was not enough. The Jaguar whipped into the opposite lane, clipped an oncoming truck, rolled over twice, bounced off a tree, ended, a battered pile of junk, in a roadside hedge. It took firemen an hour to extricate Mike's body.

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