Kieth O'dor (5 April 1962 – 10 September 1995) was a British racing driver, born in Salisbury, who competed primarily in touring cars before being killed during a race at the AVUS circuit in Berlin.[1]
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He raced under the surname O'dor or Odor (changing from one spelling to another from year to year) but the original family name is the Hungarian Ódor. Kieth's father, János Ódor (better known as Jan Odor of the Janspeed racing team) emigrated to the United Kingdom after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.
Kieth built his reputation in Britain with several seasons of racing in the BTCC with his father's Janspeed team, primarily with uncompetitive Nissan equipment; his results were generally good but not spectacular, although he took an excellent high-profile win at Silverstone in the BTCC support race at the 1993 British Grand Prix. Odor finished in the top six in the BTCC standings that year, but then endured a difficult 1994 season in an uncompetitive car before Nissan chose to (temporarily) end their involvement with touring car racing in Britain.
He moved to a works drive with the Nissan team in the ADAC Super-Tourenwagen-Cup (the German 2-litre touring car championship) in 1995.
Kieth won the first race of the double header meeting at AVUS (giving Nissan its first win in the series), defeating eventual champion Joachim Winkelhock's BMW. He was running third behind Winkelhock and Peter Kox in the second race when his Primera was pitched against the left wall by a front left suspension failure, which was probably triggered by the way he was riding the high kerbs of the chicanes installed in the temporary track. The Nissan spun twice and stopped sideways in the middle of the track, in the fast approach to Nordkurve. The close following Altfrid Heger and Hans-Joachim Stuck managed to avoid the stricken Nissan, Heger clipping the spinning Primera, but it was then hit square in the right-side door by Frank Biela's Audi.
Because of his British racing background, and unlike most other competitors in the German series, Kieth was racing a right hand drive (RHD) touring car, and so he suffered serious injuries when the door on that side of the car was struck. He was airlifted to a Berlin hospital, but died later that same day.