AUTOMOBILE RACING

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3711, 21 December 1912, Page 10

AUTOMOBILE RACING

THE AMERICAN FEVER. America is badly smitten by the automobile racing fever at present, and the sport has attained something of the importance and popularity which characterised cycle-racing in the ‘boom” days. The races take place cn country roads, a district being selected where the reads are so arranged as to form an eight or tenmile loop. The roads comprising the loop are, of course, barred from traffic during the progress of a race, a precaution very necessary in view of the fact that speeds of eighty or ninety -miles an hour are frequently registered. At some suitable part of the road circuit the repair pit is situated, and during the progress of a big race the repair pit is probably the busiest place en the whole busy continent. The big racing cars come to the pit for gasoline, for oil, for water, and for tyre changes Almost as much depends upon the celerity with which those in the pit perform their task as upon the skill and dating of tho drivers themselves. Gasoline is absolutely hurled into the tanks by the bucketful, splashing over every part of the car. Neither is there time to take care of tyres. The cars draw lip at the pit with rear-brakes hard oil', and the back wheels locked and sliding along the ground. The extra wear and tear matters very little, as the rear tyres seldom last mere than a few laps at top speed. The right rear tyre nndeigres tremendous strain and phenomenal friction at every corner, and nine times out of ten the right rear tyre is the cause of a stoppage at the pits. The tyres burn and melt with the friction, and are ripped into shreds on the road. Replacing a tyre, however,' is merely a matter of seconds. Thirty seconds is good time. Forty-five seconds is slow. Another prolific source of trouble is a failure in engine lubrication. Cars come to the pits with engines smoking like bonfires, and the delay in such cases may lie lengthy. No car gets through a race of any length wlhout stopping at the pits, and the races may he won or lost through the smartness or the bungling of the men who keep vigil there.