SPEED RECORDS

Evening Star, Issue 22138, 19 September 1935, Page 9

SPEED RECORDS

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS’ TEST DAZZLING PERFORMANCES Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS, Sept. 18. (Received September 19, at 1 a.m.) The world’s 24-hour automobile speed record was regained for England when Captain G. E. T. Eyston (Britain! completed a run at an average speed of more than 140 miles an hour, beating Jenkins’s record of 133.47 miles an hour.

The exact speeds have not yet been announced, but it is stated unofficially that Eyston established new records for 10 miles, 50 kilometres, 60 miles, 100 kilometres, 200 kilometres, 2,000 kilometres, 2,000 miles, 3,000 kilometres, 3,000 miles, 4,000 kilometres, 5,000 kilometres, one hour, 12 hours, and 24 hours. Some of those records were held by Cobb. Alternating with Eyston at the wheel were C. S. Staniland and Albert Benley. THE SALT LAKES IDEAL SPEED TRACK A cake of rock salt more than 200 square miles in area and averaging 3ft in thickness, lying glittering white in the torrid summer sun 100 miles west of Salt Lake City, in Utah, is a description of the scene of the new speed record. There is plenty of room on the salt flats and for most of the distance, including that all-important centre mile, the course is almost marble-smooth. No more than tiny ripples on the blinding white surface of the salt, like the marks left by gently receding waves on asand beach, mar the rest of the course, and these are carefully scraped away before records are attempted. The rains of last winter, in drying beneath the fierce rays of the early summer sun, levelled and smoothed the surface of the salt beyond any human accomplishment. It will lie like that until next winter’s rains cover it again. JUST ENOUGH MOISTURE. There is just enough moisture in the almost pure salt, automotive drivers say, to have a cooling effect on the tyres, which are heated to a high degree by the friction of the surface of most race tracks. While the salt may not provide as great traction as the sandy course at Daytona Beach, Florida, where Sir Malcolm attained his record of 276.816 miles an hour, these drivers said the straight stretch, unaffected by winds or tides, would enable him to reach high speeds much more readily. “ There is no limit but the mechanical possibilities of the car,” said John Cobb, British racing driver, after ho had completed a 24-hour run with two relief pilots recently, and had_ set 100 or so new records for varying distances.

Except for a low dyke that parallels the first two miles at_ a distance of 100yds, the course is straight across the heart of the vast salt plain. Its strength was tested by a truck weighing 10 tons, and at the middle point big racing cars could veer four or five miles in any direction without encountering an obstacle.

Water, like all other supplies, was to be trucked into that desert, where daytime summer temperatures range upward from lOOdeg until they are dissipated by the coolness that conies with the sinking of the sun behind the Toano Range across the Nevada line, which the Indians called “ Mountain of the Night.”