THIRTY SECONDS' THRILL

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 47, 25 February 1933, Page 10

THIRTY SECONDS' THRILL

It is extremely difficult to get a mental picture of what a land speed of 272 miles an. Lour means. In this country we never see anything approaching that speed on land, and the average person would be thrilled to see a car travelling at a quarter of the rate. Even air speeds as we know them here are not more than half what Sir Malcolm Campbell achieved in the Bluebird. Two hundred and seventy-two miles an hour is over 4J miles, a minute. If Daytona Beach reached from Wellington to Petone the Bluebird would be there and back before a bus was clear of the traffic. An idea may be gained by considering the time the Bluebird was in sight of the spectators. At the timing stand the car was not seen until it was only a mile away owing to the poor visibility, and if it remained in sight for another mile the spectators had less than twenty-seven seconds' thrill. This was the performance when the beach was in such bad condition that Sir Malcolm Campbell could scarcely hold the car to its course, and at times could see no distance whatever ahead. The roughness of the course caused such excessive wheel-spin that an engine speed indication of 330 miles an, hour was reduced to 272 miles actual recorded speed. Between the tires and the ground almost a mile a minute was lost.. This is different from the experience of the everyday motorist who_is checked for speeding and protests indignantly that his speedometer shows much less than the traffic man's timing. Unfortunately 'Hire-slipping" works die wrong way to be pleaded in Court in mitigation of a speeding charge.