COBB'S TRIUMPH

Evening Star, Issue 23374, 18 September 1939, Page 15

COBB'S TRIUMPH

John Cobb, one of Britain’s greatest motoring sjiortsmen, has achieved his life ambition by breaking the world s land speed record, and being the first man to travel on land at a speed or six miles a minute. . After two attempts, one in which he missed bettering Captain George Evston’s record of 357-5 m.p.h. by the microscopic margin of one-eighth of a second, and the other after doing 369.23 m.p.h. one way, he could not adjust the carburettors in time to make the return run, and so failed to comply with the conditions which call for the run in the opposite direction being made within one hour. However, the following morning he made amends, and recorded the most amazing speed achievement in the annals of motoring by covering the mile at the amazing mean speed of 368.85 m.p.h., his mean time for the mile being 9.76 seconds. In one the snced was 370.75 m.p.h., and in the oilier 366.97. This remarkable performance was established on the hard salt flats at Bonneville (Utah, U.S.A.), the official electric timing being handled by the American Automobile Association. It will be remembered that last September Cobb held! the record for the short space of 24 hours, when he and Eyston wore at Bonneville, both intent on gaining the coveted record. Eyston put up 345.49 m.p.h., only to see Cobb lift the figure to 350.2 m.p.h. The next morning Eyston regained the record by registering the mean speed of 357.5 m.p.h. Cobb has now added 11.35 m.p.h. to that figure, an astounding feat for the man, machine, and tyres. Cobb’s machine is a unique one, for it is the most unconventional racing car ever conceived and built. It has uo chassis, the two 12-cylinder Napier aero engines—one driving the front wheels anal the other the rear—being set into the curved steel backbone. The front wheels are independently sprung, while the back wheels have a narrower track than the front wheels, giving the machine a crab track. The driver sits over the front axle in a completely covered cockpit in the nose of the beautifully streamlined turtle-shaped body

of the machine. The weight of -the Railton is about three tons, less than half that of Eyston’s Thunderbolt.. In building tyres capable of withstanding the terrific stresses incidental to recording such phenomenal speeds, the Dunlop people have scored another triumph. Before the late Sir Henry Segrave recorded 203.79 m.p.h. at Daytona Beach (U.S.A.) in 1927, doubts were expressed that any tyre manufacturer could build tyres capable of carrying a heavy car at 200 m.p.h. Now Cobb has proved that Dunlop can bold tyres capable of propelling a three-ton machine at a speed gettng close to the 400 m.p.h. mark. Cobb, the London fur broker, has certainly set a tough- task for future contenders for the world’s land speed blue riband. It is of interest to mention that Segrave was the first motorist to travel at three miles a minute, he recording the feat in 1927. Sir Malcolm Campbell was the first to attain four miles a minute in 1931, and in 1935 he reached a speed of five miles a minute. _ Now Cobb has reached six miles a minute. All these achievements are 100 per cnt. British.