ROCK'N' ROLL DEMO DERBY

Part 2

The most colorful and adventurous demo derby competitor was Jim Morrison. In his Mustang Shelby GT, the ghostly Blue Lady, he parked on the railroad tracks and played Chicken with locomotives. Otherwise, the Lizard King bailed out of speeding cars “for the experience,” he explained. 

From the ordinary mortal point view, this might have seemed like the Titanic looking for an iceberg. But Morrison and his ilk had a different perspective. Each seemed to believe that, since an early end was their fate, they – like Achilles, Crazy Horse, or Evel Kneivel -- were immortal before the clock struck twelve.

Lennon thought he was driving with karmic insurance, too, at least in the beginning. During the filming of HELP! in the Caribbean, he, Paul, George and Ringo, chased each other around at 100 plus miles per hour in rented Cadillacs. “It was a terrific feeling smashing up all those shiny limos,” recalled John. 

Returning home, George bought a Ferrari, and John -- – though almost legally blind – decided he had to have one, too. Pitting his Dino against his friend, Pete Shotton’s, Spitfire, he enjoyed what he called “the most fantastic kick I’ve had in ages!” Pete described the experience as “the most hair-raising experience of my life.” 

Riding shotgun with the Beatle was even worse. ”John was an appalling driver,” wrote Cynthia Lennon whom he gave a VW bug. “His passengers suffered a hideous rollercoaster ride… at breathtaking speed.” After shutting down Shotton, John took on Ringo in the drummer’s Facel Viga, but retired from Nascar after nearly crashing into another motorist at 150 mph. Finally, he traded the Ferrari in on a Rolls after his racing rival and fellow kamikaze, Tara Browne, ran a light and drove his Lotus through a lorry in Kensington. He blew his mind out in a car, sang John on Day in the Life for SGT. PEPPERS, he didn’t notice that the lights had changed.

But soon the Beatle nearly suffered the same fate. Driving his Austin Maxi with Yoko and their kids, he was grooving on the Scottish countryside when a ditch suddenly ambushed him.  “We’re alive!” he cried, scrambling out from under the upside down coupe with Yoko, her daughter, Kyoto, and his son Julian. 

He got seventeen stitches and a sculpture out of it. Yoko installed the wreckage on a pedestal outside the living room of their Tittenhurst mansion, calling it “A Tribute To Survival.” Lennon’s near fatal accident occurred on the same day that his friend, the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones, was drowned in his swimming pool.