Tom Pryce’s final race weekend got off to a good start, with the Shadow driver fastest in practice, even ahead of reigning Champion James Hunt. The rain eased off for raceday, and so did the competitiveness of the Shadow. On Lap 22, Zorzi pulled the sister car off to the side of the track with an engine failure. With flames at the back of the car, Zorzi was quickly out of the car, as marshals raced to attend to the scene. One of those marshals was 19 year old Jansen Van Vuuren, who ran across the track with a fire extinguisher.
The collision that ended Pryce’s life was shockingly violent. The pit straight at Kyalami rose to the crest of a hill, before descending down a straight into Turn 1. Zorzi’s car was pulled over just at the crest of the hill, and Tom Pryce, who was barrelling down the straight at full speed, crested that brow to find Jansen Van Vuuren running across the track. With nowhere to go, Pryce collided with the marshal, who was thrown to the side of the track, a mangled unrecognisable bloody mess.
Pryce might have survived the impact, if it hadn’t been for the fire extinguisher the marshal was carrying. The extinguisher struck his helmet with enough force to almost decapitate him, and that was the end of Tom Pryce. His car continued down the track, colliding with Jacques Laffite’s Ligier, before coming to a halt at Turn 1. The unrecognisable remains of the marshal were identified only once all the track marshals were assembled at race end, and a process of elimination determined the poor young man’s fate.
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