EATING UP DISTANCES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143980, 24 December 1912, Page 3

EATING UP DISTANCES.

One of the most uncomfortable and perilous sports is high-speed motoring. Exceptional nerve, a steady hand, and a cool brain aro among the first essentials/ Thefo is little fun in it, save for the excitement, which is intense. Such wore among tho . observations made by Mr. C; H. Smith, a brilliant breaker of records on the great Brooklands racing track, in an interview with a representative of the Auckland Herald. - The delights of speed have been expatiated on before, but Mr. Smith snows the other side of the picture. The discomforts are painfully evident, and those who enjoy a spin in an ordinary car can form no idea.of them. The racing car is very different from the ordinary vehicle, on the market. It is stripped of all trimmings, its scats are hard and small. The smoothest track in the world, when traversed, •at a high speed, produces jolts and bumps. At a hundred miles an hour, even on a beautiful concrete track like: that at BrooklandSj undulations which are imperceptible to the eye,’cause a machine to vibrate, leap and rebound, so that the driver, with feet braced on each side of his engine, hanging on to the steering wheel with, a fixed grip, doing all ho can to sif squarely, is yet jolted * and shaken about till his. back is; often a mass of bruises and abrasions. Mr. Smith has broken records on the Brocklahds. track for distances of 50, 100, 150; 20b> and' 300 miles, and for the times of one, two, and three hours. These records have been made on a oar of his Awn designing. In the construction, of a racing machine, Mr. Smith explains, shape, far more than weight, is. the designer’s concern. Wheels of disc form, with no exposed spokes, increase the speed by lour miles an hour at speeds over 90 miles an hour, while tho “stream-line body,” built so as to offer a minimum of resistance to tho air, lends an additional twenty miles an hour. The highest official speed on the Brooklands track was covered when this motorist covered liuTf-a-milo at the rate of 127.877 miles per hour. Mr. Smith,, who. has. himself done 50 miles at 91.32 miles an hour, 300 miles at 85.6 miles an hour, and other highspeed runs, does not think that these speeds will' ever be greatly exceeded in. cars driven by wheel friction, because' tyres cannot grip the track hardenough. The attaching of air propellers to cars may, he thinks, lead to the establishment of, even, .more, sensational high-speed records. >