SPEED RACES

Hokitika Guardian, 10 September 1931, Page 3

SPEED RACES

KAYE DON TRICKED. DETROIT, September 8. Gar Wood, to-day, admitted that he deliberately tricked Kaye Don into a premature start. Prior to the race, Wood had requested forty-five minutes postponement, to repair a. newly-discovered gasoline tank leak. Don refused, explaining that it would necessitate taking bis boat back to the boat- well, empty its oil tanks and reheating the lubricant. He said that if Wood had but one boat, lie would gladly have agreed, but with two boats against him, he felt the race should start on time. “When they told me I couldn’t have it,” Wood said, “I made up .my mind I would show Don a trick or two. We soldered up the spot hurriedly, but one of my mechanics was hauled out of the hull unconscious in doing so. I planned the start. I said I would be over that line first, if I were a minute ahead of,the gun, and if Don wanted to follow me, that was his business. Everything went off just as I planned.” Don didn’t discuss the start. His American manager, William Sturm, however, commented that Gar Wood evidently knows lots of tricks in rac-

Th c work of raising Miss England the Second, sunk in twenty feet of water, two miles from the premature start, was started to-day. Don did not learn of his disqualification until two hours after lie and the mechanics, Dick Garner and Roy Plaford, had been removed from the Detroit Riven Describing the sinking, Don said: When we hit Gar’s wash, I don’t know bow many times the boat turned over, or whether it pitched forward or dived or settled hack and sank stern first, but I do remembered two separate sensations. The first time I felt I was terribly fair under the water, and lliat I was going further down. T thought of my life jacket, and said to myself, hut I’ll be coming up and up in a moment. I wonder whether I’m still in the boat.’ That must have lieen when we first foiled over. The second time I went down, of course, must have been when the boat sank stern first. Again I felt myself goiilg down, and down and I remember the thought went through my head that I’d soon be coming up. When my head broke through the water there was the boat fifty feet ahead. The propel lor was still turning but it soon passed'out of sight, as she was sinking fast. At the time of the accident, Wood was leading. Don had made slight alterations to the engine, and had ]t wide open. GAR WOOD’S PROTEST. DETROIT, . September 8. Tiie committee’s decision “no match” moans that Wooers name will not be inscribed as the 1931 winner of the trophy, although he still holds it. He protested to-day, against the committee’s decision stating that his boat finished third on Sunday, and first on Monday and nothing in the Harmswortli rules prevented a third heat ,by “Miss America the Eighth” cjlone, the boat to 'he declared the winner, of the trophy. Wood said lie would like to run at five p.m. on Tuesday if the protest were allowed and his name were to be inscribed on the trophy. Don received a telegram to-day from Lord Wakefield, who financed “Miss' England the Second,” expressing satisfaction that no one was hurt adding, “nothing else matters.”