MOTOR RACING

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 139, 26 May 1928, Page 14

MOTOR RACING

-ITS SERVICE TO MOTOR-DOM. MAJOR SEGRAVE’S BOOK—“THE LURE OF SPEED. The name of Segrave is known to motorists throughout the world as that of the world’s most famous driver and tho first man to achieve a speed of 200 m.p.h. on land. Amongst the experts of all nations Major H. O. D. Segrave is generally acknowledged to be one of the finest—if not the finest —drivers the world has produced. No man has had greater or more successful experience of racing in the post-war paaiod, and no one is better qualified to write about racing and speed from the drivers point of view. Motorists will be interested to learn that the famous driver has written of his wide and varied experiences in a book entitled “The Lure of Speed”; which is full of sound reasoning and careful thought. Major Segrave attributes much of the credit for our Modern speed achievements to the pioneer efforts of the early cyclists. He writes: “In particular, the early cyclist deserves the gratitude of those of us who live in an era of high speed and find it pleasant to do so. Had it not been -for his strenuous demands for something faster than the iron tyre, and then for something better than the solid rubber tread, we might have had' to wait a long time for Mr Dunlop’s revoluntionary invention. It. has in all probability made a bigger difference to the lives of the inhabitant of the earth than any other invention. with the possible exception of the compass, the steam engine and the electric telegraph.” Major Segrave has a very high opinion of the performances achieved by the old school of race drivers in the early years of the century: “Compared with what they did in those early days, the exploits of the post-war racing car drivers seem puny indeed.” He states that in his opinion Gabriel ’s performance in the iU-fated ParisMadrid race of 1903 “will rank as one of the greatest that has ever been done on road or track with a racing car.” Further on he points out that racing and the racing car to-day are very different from what they were in the early days, “Racing to-day is altogether a different problem. Whereas in the old days the strain was 90 per cent a physical one, today it is 90 per cent, a nervous one. Although the cars necessitate less physical effort, they are a great deal more dangerous, in my opinion, than their prototyes, because, owing to their extreme lightness and to the very high speeds which they are capable of attaining, it has become necessary for tho driver’s entire faculites to b a kept constantly alert.” In a chapter entitled “Why Firms Race,” Major Segrave reviews tho technical advances that have been made through this medium and discusses the immediate advantages to the concerns taking part in races. He writes: “In my opinion, those manufacturers who have persistently held to a racing policy have placed most of their rivals under a very deep debt of gratitude, for it is they who have blazed tho'trail which others have been able to follow.” He at tributes th e present state of development of such features as the “straight-eight” engine, the easily changed spare wheel, the modern economical and powerful small engine, weight reduction, the aluminium alloy piston, heat-resisting valves, the supercharger, front-wheel brakes and steadiness on the road to racing experience. Major Segrave has no very sanguine hopes for the future of /he racing car, and gives as his reasons the fact that “owing to the near state of perfection which the automobile has reached at the present day, the need for carrying out experiments along unorthodox lines has diminished. Therefore the need for constructing specialised racing cars will automatically diminish also.” “Thus. I think that, although there will, of course, always be motor racing, the type of car that our firms will race will gradually evolve itself into a “boosted” or ‘"‘hotted up” edition of its touring brother.”