RECORD-SMASHING SPRINTS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 28 August 1926, Page 15

RECORD-SMASHING SPRINTS.

THOMAS BEATS 170 MILES AN HOUR.

The finest achievement in the History of motoring! Without am beating about the bush, that is the main thing to be said, about the record-smashing sprints of J. G. P. Thomas at Pendine Sands. Brooklands enthusiasts have regarded Thomas as the greatest exponent of speed driving for some time. The manner in which lie laps the great track, streaks past other competitors who are doiiijr a gentle crawl -at a mere ICK ■ iniles an hour, and swishes over the line at something over two miles a minute is an amazing spectacle. The popular conception of motorracing is- a wrong one (writes Laurence H. Cade in an English paper). It is generally assumed that the racing car roars round the track, making a noise like bottled thunder, but Thomas’s track-racing car is a whispering ghost. From the paddock it cannot be heard. It has beautiful lines and is painted white. Its silence amplifies rather than detracts from its ostentatiousness. But 120 miles at Brooklands is nothing nowadays. Thomas has put up a performance on the sands which has left his rivals among the recordr-breakers standing. There is nobody to touch him. To have beaten 170 miles an hour is little short of a miracle, and there is no doubt his terrific speed was intended to “beat them to ft.” Major Segrave had announced that if Thomas beat his world’s record he would take his record-smasher to a sandy stretch which he had discovered in Belgium, and would lower the Thomas flag there. That statement has most eloquently been answered. Thomas has added something like seventeen miles an hour to the record, and it is extremely doubtful whether Segrave can get anywhere near to that stupendous figure of speed which is recorded in the international records book to the credit of “J.G.P.” It is customary with record-breakers to lop the merest fraction off the existing time, so that it can be broken again a little later, but Thomas has done the whole trick. In one fell swoop he lias disarmed Segrave, and Campbell, and such others who may have had ambitions in the matter of speed. “No doubt we shall hear of something wonderful from America in the near future, but records are only records when the figures have been accepted by the International Federation, and, this being so, I think it will be a long time before Thomas’s name is erased from the official book,” says the writer. “In one of his little speed bursts Thomas found that his oil pressure was weak, and it became necessary for him to remove one hand from the wheel. The audacity! Ido not think there is another man who would have dared to have done so. It is easv to appreciate how much more facile is the control of t'he, wheel which is held by two hands than one which is grasped in one fist. Normally I should have said that it was impossible, and should have discredited the story. Not having been present I sought confirmation of the fact from Thomas himself, and it appears that'he had a. special steering device installed. This system is employed on a number of high-grade cars, and it renders the steering much lighter, and absolutely positive. That it should have permitted a man to do something which would have been suicidal without such a ‘gadget’ stamps it as a verv efficient unit.”