Camille Jenatzy
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Camille Jenatzy (1868, Schaerbeek – 8 December 1913, Habay la Neuve) 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 ("The Red Devil") after the colour of his beard.<ref>J.R. Holthusen, The Fastest Men on Earth, (Sutton Publishing, 1999), p. 6</ref>
Record setting
On 17 January 1899 at Achères, Yvelines near Paris, France, he reached the speed of Template:Convert over one kilometre, driving a CGA Dogcart. That same day, the record was broken by Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat, topped on 27 January 1899 when Jenatzy achieved Template:Convert. This record was again broken by Chasseloup-Laubat, who applied rudimentary streamlining to his Jeantaud.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Jenatzy replied with his third land speed record on 29 April 1899, reaching Template:Convert in the electric CITA Nº 25 La Jamais Contente, the first purpose-designed land speed racer,<ref>Northey, Tom. "Land Speed Record", in Northey, Tom, ed. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis, 1974), Vol 10, p. 1162.</ref> and the first record over Template:Convert. 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.<ref>eMercedesBenz, A Look Back At Camille Jenatzy And The 1903 Gordon Bennett Trophy (3 June 2008) Template:Webarchive at www.emercedesbenz.com</ref> 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. Alfred Madoux, director of the journal L'Etoile Belge,<ref>JENATZY SHOT DEAD.; Famous Belgian "Red Devil" Auto Racer Killed in Hunting Accident. – The New York Times</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He is buried at the Laeken Cemetery in Brussels.