MOTOR SPEED TESTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 11882, 19 January 1914, Page 4

MOTOR SPEED TESTS.

A cable message from London the other* I day Btatetl that Hornstod, in a Benz car, on the Brooklyn track, covered two miles at the rate of 122 miles per hour and five miles at the rate of 116 miles per hour. We suppose that the law of progress requires that these sort of tests should be made, nevertheless, we cannot help feeling that there is a certain amount of foolhardiness about them. It may be remembered that at the end of last October, Mr P. E. Lambert, the well-known racing motorist, and a director of the Talbot Motor Company, was fatally injured at Brooklyn when driving a car on the track there at a speed of about 1.10 miles an hour. In the previous February Mr Lambert had attained the distinction of being the first motorist actually to cover a distance of 100 miles in the hour. Many previous attempts had been made by various drivers with cars of all powers, big anc} small.. . Power is not the only factor of high speed work.' Absoluto reliability is of even greater importance

and, as the pneumatic tiro is the most vulnerable part of tho motor-car, the struggle a speed of about 90 miles an hour has been attained) lies between time, on the one hand, and the durability 1 of tires on tho other. Mr Lambert proved that a car of moderato weight, with a medium-sized engine capable of high crank-shaft speed, was the best vehicle for the purpose, but later on, as wo know, he lost his life, and at tho inquest the evidence went to show that tiro bursts are frequent at such high speeds. Ono may be permitted to doubt whether such high speeds aro really practicable with the present type of india-rubber tire.