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The bus incident
For the Gothenburg 1000 in 1977 we rented a Ford Transit bus as we were more than 4 racers who wanted to go to the race. In Stockholm there were three proper 8 lane tracks and many racers at each of the tracks. They were located in Farsta, Jakobsberg and Sundbyberg.
The Gothenburg 1000 races was among the most popular ones in Sweden and always run at the first weekend of December annually, as it still is. 1000 Swedish kronor was the first price and was a lot for a young poor slotracer.
Already when we left Stockholm it was obvious that something was wrong with the bus. Bad tires or some problems with the rear suspension. As we approached Norrköping the weather got bad and an intense snowfall started. Those of you who have driven from Stockholm to Gothenburg know that there are some steep slopes/hillsides from Ödeshög down to Jönköping which is almost at sea level.
We were all very happy that we were on the way and we all looked forward to the races. Everyone was talking and the atmosphere in the bus was great, full of expectations as you could imagine.
The snowing was intense and it was about 10 to 15 cm of newly fallen snow on the road when approaching Jönköping, the speed was not more than maybe 60km/h and I was the driver.
Suddenly I felt that the rear wheels lost their traction and the bus started to slide when going down from Brahe Hus. It suddenly became very quiet and everyone realized what was about to happen. I shouted out loud to everyone "shit this is going to hurt badly".
To make the situation even worse, we had the lake of Vättern on the right hand side outside the motorway guard rail and a middle section angled in 45 degrees up to the other north going road. My first thought was, do not hit the guard rail and go in to the lake, because then we will all die at the bottom of the same lake. So instead I pointed the van to hit the middle angled section of the road. As the bus did hit the soft bank it came to an immediate stop and was thrown over its own axel front to rear and landed on the roof and finally turned on the side coming to a halt.
It was all very dramatic and as the van had doors in the back they opened when it hit the ground and three of us were thrown out on to the road. All windows except the front one came off and most of our slotracing boxes were also on the surface of the motorway. It all looked like a war zone. I shouted to Ander Lindholm to run back on the motorway to catch the attention of the cars approaching as there was almost no room to pass us, our stuff and the bus.
Under the circumstances it all went well and none of us got hurt. It cannot be called anything else than a miracle. All the nine of us could have been killed there and then.
But you all know a slotracer is a racer who never gives up. We turned the bus on to its four wheels and tried to start it up to enable us to continue our trip to the race. Of course it did not start so we had to hike to Jönköping were we rented another bus. Finally we got to Gothenburg but a few hours later than planned.
Later in the evening we were all struck by what could have happened to all of us and the race result was not so good needless to say.
In the bus were myself, Anders Lindholm, Lars Blomquist, Göran Bergman, Olle & Göran Söderholm, Rickard Lund and Kaj Johansson.
I nice story to tell almost 30 years later but our lives could have ended there and then.
I have a few other travelling to races stories involving snow, but they will be saved for another time.
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