Bluebird Team Returns To Lake Eyre

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30487, 8 July 1964, Page 10

Bluebird Team Returns To Lake Eyre

(N.I. Pres* Association—CopyrlshO

LAKE EYRE, July 7.

Technicians and support groups for the Bluebird world landspeed record attempt returned to Muloorina station today to prepare for another attack on the record.

Bluebird's driver. Donald Campbell, is expected to arrive on Thursday. He will be accompanied by three technical experts now flying out from England. Bluebird, which has been stored under guard at Muloorina for three weeks, will be moved back out to the lake late today or early tomorrow. The speed car was brought off the lake and transported to Muloorina on June 10 when Campbell postponed the attempt pending more favourable conditions on the lake-bed.

Campbell’s attempts to set a record during May and June had been hampered by the softness of the damp salt surface of Lake Eyre. Cut Deep Ruts

During the trial runs. Bluebird repeatedly cut deep ruts in the salt crust. Efforts to fill and smooth the ruts met with only partial success, and finally Campbell and his advisers were forced

to postpone the attempt on the record in the hope that the yielding lake surface would dry out and harden with time.

Campbell's chief mechanic. Leo Villa, who has been with the car at Muloorina since it arrived back from the lake, said today that the lake surface had dried out in the last three weeks. But it was still not hard enough to provide ideal conditions for a record bid. Villa said. Villa, and Campbell's other two staff mechanics, Brian Koppock and Maurie Parfitt, worked on the car at Muloorina today checking its suspension preparatory to the journey back to the lake.