Honks From The Motor Cycle

NZ Truth, Issue 1246, 17 October 1929, Page 19

Honks From The Motor Cycle

A LARGE beach meeting is planned for ■ Waikanae on November 24. Three clubs are combining for the day, with the intention of making a huge picnic and general sports meeting of it. The clubs concerned are the Wellington Motor-cycle and Sports Club, the Ixion Motor-cycle Club and the Manawatu Club. There will be everything from races to motor-cycle football. • » » NOVEMBER 9 is the opening date of the Wellington Speedways. As the track has had a more solid base laid, no difficulty should be experienced with bumps forming, as was the case last season. There are two dirt-tracks m Auckland, and they will open their season on Labor Day. * # * | NOWHERE m America is there a dirt- J track, which measures under half a i mile to the lap. The majority of thorn are half-mile and mile dirt trotting tracks. The surfaces of these tracks are kept as true as a billiard-table, and with the bends being less acute than on a smaller track, speeds are very high. # « » THIS yeai-, the A.M.A. (American Motorcycle Association) rules will not allow anything larger than a 350 c.c. "motor" on either the half-mile or mile dirttracks. Before this rule came into force, 500 c. c. engines were used on the halfmile tracks, and with these, speeds between 55 to 60 m.p.h. were obtained. But now, with the 350 c.c. engine, the speeds are still the same, the lesser weight of the 350 CC making it much safer and easier to handle on the turns. It is found on the mile tracks, that owing to this new rule, the speeds of the 350 machine is about half a second per lap slower, than the 750 machines used last year, which lapped the tracks between 70 and 80 m.p.h. • * * THE word "broadside" is a loose terra which covers two completely different types of slides, one being the power slide and the other the speed slide. The sharpness of the turns, and according to whether there is any banking on the corner or not, makes the difference between the one and the other.

THE type bf slide seen on a quartermile track is the "power slide." In this, the rider uses the power of his motor to get him round the. bend." The rear wheel, spinning round, refuses to grip the cinders as she slides, and acts after the fashion of a gyroscope and tends to bring the machine upright again. On these tracks the spin of the back wheel is absolutely essential, for this, coupled with the momentum gained down the straight, and the slide into the corner carries the machine around, the bend m one .continuous slide. On larger tracks, the bends are. taken m a speedier slide which is different from the power slide, though it has something of the same appearance. A "speed slide" is purely the natural result of turning a curve on a machine which is doing between 60 and 80 m.p.h. There is a slight wheelspin, the machines goes over at almost the same angle, but owing to the harder surface of the track, the rear wheel is kept spinning with full power, at just a little less 'angle than on a smaller track.