Brooklands legend, Kaye Don was a World Land Speed and Water Speed Record holder, an accomplished race car and speedboat driver.
His full name was Kaye Ernest Donsky, but everyone knew him as Kaye Don. He was born in Dublin, Ireland - then part of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - into a family of supposed Polish origins. When he was a young boy, his family moved to Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, England, where he attended the Wolverhampton Grammar School. His father Charles Frederick Donsky died when he was just seventeen, Kaye abandoned the high school he was attending and, at the age of 23, started working for the Avon Tyre Company. In that same year he made his racing debut as a motorcycle rider. At the outbreak of World War I, he served for the Royal Flying Corps as a pilot.
After the end of the war, Kaye Don came back to compete in a motorcycle races, before turning to four wheels in 1920. He regularly competed at Brooklands, first in a Wolseley Viper, then in three ex-works 6-cylinder Sunbeam sportscars which he had to his disposal, nicknamed as "Cub", "Tiger" and "Tigress". In 1928 he won the inaugural Ards Tourist Trophy race at the Belfast circuit in Northern Ireland, driving a Lea-Francis Meadows. On 22 September 1928 at Brooklands he drove his Sunbeam "Cub", formerly driven by Henry Segrave, setting an outer circuit lap flying start record of 131.76 mi/h (212.05 km/h), and one year later he increased this record to 134.24 mi/h (216.04 km/h). He won the British Motor Racing Championship title in 1928 and 1929. And within a few hours from his racing performances, he was back in his office at the Avon Tyre Company in which he worked.
His great disappointment was his failure to gain the World Land Speed Record at Daytona Beach, Florida, in March 1930. Driving his Sunbeam "Silver Bullet", he vainly tried 19 times before giving up. Kaye Don moved to high speed motor boat racing in 1931, holding several World Water Speed Records that he had set at Buenos Aires, 104 mi/h (167.3 km/h), then at the Garda Lake in Italy, 110 mi/h (177 km/h). That same year, Kaye Don was awarded an International Motor Yachting Union Medal.
In May of 1932 he took part to the "Settimana Motonautica" [Powerboat Speed Week], a series of races held near Gardone Riviera, on the Garda Lake in northern Italy. Sadly, a fatal accident marred the transport of his famous racing monohull hydroplane named "Miss England III" to the racing venue; the Italian Stefano Bertini, a worker of the tugboat company that was towing the racing boat, fell into the lake and drowned. Very upset, Kaye Don visited his widow in the following day and promised her that he would have set a new World Water Speed Record in Bertini's memory. Eventually it did not happen, due to mechanical problems. On Thursday, 26 May 1932, Don with his riding-mechanic Dick Garner made three fast runs on the lake traveling at maximum speed of 112 mi/h (180.2 km/h) between Salò and Fasano Gardone, before parking the boat which engine was burning.
Three months later, Kaye Don managed to set a new World Water Speed Record of 119 mi/h (191.47 km/h), piloting his "Miss England III" which was fitted with two Rolls-Royce R-type V-12 aero engines, at Loch Lomond, Scotland.
In the mid-1930s Kaye Don returned to car racing, driving a Riley, then an Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 and a 4.9-litre Bugatti T54, known as "Tiger 2". In May of 1934 he crashed hard while practicing for the 1934 Manning Beg at Douglas, Isle of Man. His MG Magnette overturned off the road and Frank Tayler, an MG employee who acted as his riding mechanic, lost his life. It took Kaye Don almost a year to recover from his injuries.
Don was sent for trial on a charge of manslaughter and served a four month jail sentence. He disappeared from racing until two years later, when he had a one-off drive in the 1936 Donington Grand Prix, sharing a 3.6-litre Delahaye 135S with Frenchman René Le Bègue.
Kaye Don quit racing and in the 1940s was Chairman and Managing Director of US Concessionaires Ltd. In 1947 he established the Ambassador Motorcycle Company, which produced many different lightweight motorcycles, powered with Villiers, JAP and Zundapp engines. Don retired in 1965, after his company was taken over by DMW, which stood for Dawson's Motorcycles Wolverhampton, a company founded by Leslie "Smokey" Dawson in 1940.
Kaye Don passed away at the age of 90, on Saturday, 29 August 1981, in Chobham, Surrey, England, where he lived with his second wife, Valerie Evelyn whom he had married in 1954. He had two sons and one daughter from his previous marriage with Eileen Martin of New York.
Photograph"" measures 7" X 5" approx, showing very light photographic ageing, small corner nick, deep crease damage though center of photograph (see scans) SUGGEST PHOTOSHOP REPAIR
Kaye Don claimed his second World Water Speed Record with the rebuilt Miss England II craft averaging 110.223mph on Lake Garda, Italy 1931