SPEED

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6866, 22 March 1929, Page 10

SPEED

Costly Business But Increases Efficiency

VALUE OF’ MOTOR RACING

The tragic death of a motor racing driver during the past week and. the immense cost of special cars for the speed records is again turning the thoughts of many motorists to the question, “What good is all this speed?” The question is a natural one, and the answer simplicity itself. If it had not been for racing thero would be no such thing as tho sort of car the average owner drives at anything like the price he paid for it, and with anything like such admirable qualities of reliability, pace and economy. When the early light cars (as opposed to cycle-cars) were first introduced, they were largely scorned as unpractical, but the racing policy, which by that time makers of big cars had mostly dropppd, soon brought them to tho stage of reasonable perfection, since when they have become the essential British type of car which every day is gaining more patronage in all parts of the world. Take racing from the tyre point of view. Those who “cannot see the sense” in motor racing might do worse than realise tho 12,000 or 15,000 miles' life which we now habitually get from a set of quite ordinary pneumatics is purely and simply a result of racing, for racing has forced tyro makers into improving their product far moro quickly than would otherwise have been the case. From a technical point of view, as well, indeed, as from that of public interest in racing as a spectacle, the road event is superior to any other, and it is only because it is banned by the law that it has not come into prominence in Britain and America.

On the Continent a' spirit of greater enlightenment, prevails, and the big road races in France, Italy, Belgium and Spain have thus commonly borne an international aspect. The expense of participating in these races, which .means the building of specials cars for the purpose, is considerable, and this fact, combined with the disturbance of production of ordinary models which the “specials” imply, has tended to attenuate the entry lists. It is frequently said that motor firms race for the purpose of obtaining advertisement. Doubtless they arc not unmindful of the value which_ belongs to a conspicuous victory—it is, after all. largely the quest of famo that makes people try to do better than has over been before—but they would be foolish to regard advertisement as the main object. It is just as easy to destroy a reputation as to build it up. Facing may be a costly business, but it enables experimental work that ,could otherwise take years to be compressed into a few weeks, if not hours. And, singularly enough, it is ono of those things from which even more is learned by failure than by success.