A NEW SPEED RECORD.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21254, 7 February 1931, Page 10

A NEW SPEED RECORD.

Many people will wonder, when they read this morning the news that Captain Malcolm Campbell has established a new land speed record for the world, whether the risk involved ip an achievement of such a nature is justified. They will find themselves unable to resist, nevertheless, a thrill of pride and satisfaction in the knowledge that a Briton and a British vehicle havegiven added emphasis to the superiority- of the Homeland in that department of mechanical science relating to speed. Great Britain holds the records for the fastest rate of speed achieved on land, on water, and in the air. This implies a tribute,to the sterling work that is put into the production of British engines: it implies a tribute, too, to the skill of the engineers and designers and drivers of the velocipedes —there is no more appropriate name —in which these records have been attained. There is the pleasant thought, also, in Captain Campbell’s triumph in the respect that he has reached a goal for which he has been long and earnestly striving. His rather dismal failure in South Africa, to lower the record which Sir Henry Segrave had established of 231 miles an hour, earned for him the sympathy and good wishes of those who are interested in motor racing and its kindred pursuits. It is perhaps a matter for some regret that Sir Henry Segrave’s accomplishment has been bettered so soon after the death of that notable driver, and it may be regretted also that Captain Campbell’s victory is not of a more useful nature. The knowledge that the world possesses, as a result of the exploit, that a motor vehicle can be propelled along a beach at a rate of four miles a minute derives its chief value from the proof it affords of the capacity of a well-made vehicle to hold together on the track when it might be supposed that it would take to the air or fall to pieces. The people of Great Britain, however, as the recent controversy respecting the Schneider Cup contest has shown, place the greatest importance upon the continued assertion of the ability of daring Britons to travel faster than the machine-age adventurers of any other nation. It is a very human and not an ignoble form of conceit that inspires this anxiety, and it is difficult of condemnation by any who take pride in the engineering achievements of the Empire.