Timing Record Attempts

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 5614, 31 March 1931, Page 2

Timing Record Attempts

One of the matters wihich was considered by the F.I.C.M. Congress, which was held in London recently, was that of the conditions under which world’s records were attempted. The need for unquestionable accuracy in the case of short-distance records can be gathered from the fact that, had J. S. Wright and Ernst Henne made their successful attempts on tho world’s maximum speed record at the same time, and crossed the starting line side by side, there would have been only a machine’s length between them at the end kilometre. Actually, Henne beat Wright’s mean time for the two directions of the kilometre course by 'four-hundredths of a second. But under the rules he would have captured the record if ho had bettered Wright’s time by only one-hun-dredth of a second, which at present speeds is equivalent to a mere couple of feet.

The feeling that such a tiny margin introduces possibilities of error unless the rules regarding the timing apparatus used arc so framed that there can be no possible doubt as to the accuracy of the second decimal place. At present there are reasonable grounds for doubt, for at one recent records meeting the timing strips by which the electric cronograph was started and stopped incorporated a thin thread thread stretched across the road. In one case the thread may have snapped iust as the front wheel crossed the lino, while in another the wheel may have been well over the line before the thread broke.