SPEED RECORD DANGERS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20539, 14 February 1935, Page 1

SPEED RECORD DANGERS.

Sir Malcolm Campbell Hopes for 300 m.p.h. British Official Wireless. RUGBY, February 12. The forthcoming attempt of Sir Malcolm Campbell to reach a speed of 300 miles an hour in his car the Blue Bird is awaited with exceptional interest in Great Britain and elsewhere, although so far visibility and the condition of the ten-mile stretch of mud flat at Daytona have prevented any tests. To achieve his ambition Sir Malcolm Campbell must cover a mile both ways in a mean time of 12sec. When two years ago he established the existing record of 272.11 m.p.h. his mean time was 13.235ec. Sir Malcolm has travelled thousands of miles, is spending thousands of pounds and is risking his life to knock I.23secs. off his previous record. His 2500-horsepower Napier engine has been tested on the beach. It can unquestionably fulfill his requirements, and specially constructed tyres have also been tried under the requisite stresses. As heavy tyres could not withstand the centrifugal forces at 300 m.p.h., the tyres to be used are so light that one of the main dangers will be contact with sharp shells on the beach, which might hole them, with disastrous consequences. The design of the car is largely dominated by the fact that wind resistance increases at the square of the speed, so that it is nine times as great at 300 m.p.h. as at 100 m.p.h., the bulk of the energy of the great engine being spent in overcoming this pressure. As Sir Malcolm hopes to travel at nearly 150 yards a second, the least deviation would send him and his car into the sea. While the 10-mile stretch on which the attempt is being made is hardly adequate to allow the machine to reach its maximum, it is. however, the most suitable site for the enterprise on the world’s surface.