Pendine Sands

Pendine Sands is an eleven-kilometre beach on Carmarthen Bay in south Wales. It stretches between Gilman Point in the west and Laugharne Sands in the east. The village of Pendine sits near the western end of the beach. The sands are wide, flat and straight, making them ideal for record-breaking runs. In the early 1900s the beach hosted car and motorcycle races, including the annual Welsh TT. Motor Cycle magazine once called the surface the finest natural speedway imaginable. The sands became a stage for world land speed records in the 1920s. Malcolm Campbell set his first record here in 1924 at 146.16 mph in Blue Bird. J. G. Parry-Thomas raised the mark to 171.02 mph in 1926 and then to 174.22 mph in 1927. Parry-Thomas died in a crash on the sands in March 1927 while attempting to reclaim the record. In 2019 a modified Porsche 911 reached 210.332 mph, the fastest wheel-powered run ever recorded here. Today the beach still hosts speed events and film shoots. The Museum of Speed once displayed Parry-Thomas’s restored car Babs during summer months. In 2013 the Pendine Land Speed Racing Club revived land speed racing on the sands. A Channel 4 series filmed Guy Martin setting a 112.9 mph bicycle record here in 2013. The beach also appears in BBC productions such as Top Gear and Keeping Faith.