KAYE DON FAILS TO MAKE RECORD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19035, 2 April 1930, Page 1

KAYE DON FAILS TO MAKE RECORD.

GREATEST SPEED IS 45 MILES BELOW SEGRAVE’S.

(United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received April 2, 10.30 a.m.) NEW YORK, April 1. At Daytona Beach, Kaye Don made three round trips of the nine-mile course, attaining a top speed of 186.046 miles an hour for a record mile on one run, which is the best official time he has made so far, but it is some 45 miles an hour short of Sir Henry Segrave’s record. The engine behaved poorly. Fie hopes to run again to-morrow. “ GRAVE RISKS.” Writing on January 24, a London motoring expert said : Kaye Don’s chances of success or failure are being eagerly discussed. _ I heard yesterday that one racing driver had offered odds of 3 to 1 on the car crashing. This, in my opinion, is rather bad form. This particular record is naturally attended by very grave risks. But they should not be a betting matter. In any case the driver knows all about them and is quite happy. His only fear is that a mishap may prevent him from taking the chance. He has given up ice skating for fear that he might break a limb. But most of all he is taking unusual precautions against catching cold. Fie has almost given up drink and smoking. Every morning he is doing physical exercises designed to quicken eye and brain. Kaye Don is in fact “ mollycoddling” in order to be able to take the greatest risk of his career.

I was with a party of noted racing drivers the other day, and the question was being discussed whether driving skill counted to any great extent in this kind of venture. One man argued that it was merely a question of putting your foot down on the accelerator and hoping for the best. He suggested that any chauffeur could do the job provided that he was prepared to risk his life. He based his opinion on the view that if anything went wrong with a car doing, say, 240 miles an hour, not even the greatest driver in the world could do.any thing to correct matters.

At 240 miles an hour the car, he pointed out, would actually travel nearly 120 yards in one second. A skid at this speed would be faster than thought, and a disaster would occur before the eye could convey a message to the brain.

Kaye Don hopes to do considerably more than 240 m.p.h. Personally I do not think that the above argument is sound. 1 do not know the speed at which thought travels, but I am sure that instinct travels at a far greater speed. Kaye Don’s chief handicap is the fact that this is his first attempt on the world’s land speed record. He will have to travel at a speed far greater than that to which he has hitherto been accustomed even in his long career of high speed motoring. I do not suppose that he has ever travelled before at a greater speed than 160 miles an hour. It is a considerable jump to 260 m.p.h., or even to 232 m.p.h., which would give him the world’s record. Segrave and Campbell worked up gradually to the higher speeds. On the other hand, he has had a long experience of high speed on Brooklands’ track, where driving skill is tested to the limit. He is accepted as the finest track driver in the world.