Camille Jenatzy


Camille Jenatzy was a Belgian race car driver. He is known for breaking the land speed record three times and being the first man to break the 100 km/h barrier.
He was nicknamed Le Diable Rouge after the colour of his beard.

Record setting

On 17 January 1899 at Achères, Yvelines near Paris, France, he reached the speed of 66.66 km/h over the kilometer, driving a CGA Dogcart. That same day, the record was broken by Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat, topped on 27 January 1899 when Jenatzy achieved 80.35 km/h. This record was again broken by Chasseloup-Laubat, who applied rudimentary streamlining to his Jeantaud. Jenatzy replied with his third land speed record on 29 April 1899, reaching 105.88 km/h in the electric CITA Nº 25 La Jamais Contente, the first purpose-designed land speed racer, and the first record over 100 km/h. In 1902, he lost the land speed record to Léon Serpollet.
Jenatzy won the 1903 Gordon Bennet Cup in Athy, Ireland, at the wheel of a Mercedes. Auto racing was a deadly sport at the time and at some point Jenatzy predicted he would die in a Mercedes.

Death

Jenatzy died in 1913 in a hunting accident. He went behind a bush and made animal noises as a prank on his friends who were hunting with him. It worked too well. Alfred Madoux, director of the journal L'Etoile Belge,
fired, believing it was a wild animal. When they realised it was Jenatzy, they rushed him to hospital by car; he bled to death en route, fulfilling his own prophecy he would die in a Mercedes. He is buried at the Laeken Cemetery in Brussels.