LAKE BED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 88, 4 December 1931, Page 7

LAKE BED

AMERICAN SPEED TESTS Some prominent United States motor manufacturers are now using for speed1 tests the bed of the Muroc Dry Lake, which lies 132 miles south of Los Angeles in California, and the claim is made by American speedsters that this natural speedway is faster than the Daytona Beach, which has become famed owing to many of the world's automobile speed records having been establisjjed there. It was at Daytona that Sir Malcohn Campbell created .the existing speed record of 245.7 m.p.h. The ^ trouble with Muroc Speedway is that the loeality in the Mojave Desert is subject to violent wind storms, which at short notice sweep down a valley and render any efforts at high speed useless. The dry bed of this old lake is 18 miles long and from 9 to 12 miles wide, the surface being made up of volcanic ash, sand, silt, and salt. On one occasion a few years back an attempt was made to drive 50,000 miles in 50,000 minutes on this lake. All went well until 22,905' miles had been covered, but then an unexpected snow storm swept down_ on the record" breakers. The drivers plugged along through the night hours. Next morning when the sun came out the weather was so hot that the snow on the surrounding hills m.elted, and it was not long before the entire bed of the old lake was covered by 6in. of water. That was the end of the attempt.