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Frank appeared calm as he posed for photos that sunny April day in front of the Sheraton 

Plaza Hotel on Daytona.  The beach was smooth and hard.  Lockhart began warm-ups, seeing 

a time of 198.29 mph, a class record, on his final practice.  Frank got on the brakes a little at 

the end of the run, skidding 100 feet.  He lined up for the first record attempt.  Observers 

saw him coming estimated at over 220 mph approaching the measured mile and still accelerating.

Suddenly, there was a roostertail of sand from a rear tire, a flash of metal, a ‘pop’ heard by some. 

 The car skidded, Frank fighting; it seemed for a moment he would pull it out.  Then the Black 

Hawk skidded even more radically and literally leapt into the air.  Coming down sharply, the car 

buried its nose, and Lockhart was thrown down the beach, mortally injured. 

When officials examined the course and the marks the car made, they found a clam shell in the

 skid left at the end of his last practice, evidence the shell had sliced the tire. 

The editorial staff of the New York Herald said, as others did, that Frank was “… the latest 

sacrifice on the altar of speed’, but Frank had achieved his goal, even if it wasn’t official, that last run.