£135,000 IN PRIZES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 64, 7 June 1927, Page 10

£135,000 IN PRIZES

U.S.A. SPEEDSTERS’ HARVEST

When it is known that racing drivers affiliated with the American Automobile Association won something like £90,000 in prizes on the speedways in 1926, and another £20,000 in accessory prizes, ’and that the dirt tracks furnished an additional £25,000, it can be realised just how wide are the ramifications of organised racing in America. By speedways is meant courses paved with either timber or brick. There are seven such tracks in U.S.A. that have made application for racing dates for this year. Six of these speed plants are timbered ovals or near ovals, surfaced with 2 x 4’s with the edge up. The planking is laid in the direction of travel. In order to permit of high speed the ends of the board track are banked up to 49 degrees. The ends of the board courses are so steep that a person cannot walk up them and a car has to attain a speed well over 100 miles an hour to ride the bartking. ROMANCE GOING For many years past, whenever the lifeboat at Boulmer, Northumberland, England, has been required, the women of the village have turned out and lent their strength in hauling the boat down to the water’s edge. Now the women can stand and watch, as a chain-track tractor does the work for which they were publicly honoured in London last year. The motor vehicle is gradually beating even tradition.

S-iit* nit; vvuuu. Hard Starting Even in these days it is a common thing to find that quite a number of people have considerable difficulty in starting up from cold. This trouble might be due to a variety of causes, and before condemning any particular component of the design of the engine, it is well first of all to see that the tappet clearances are correct, and that the ignition system and carburetter are in good condition. In particular investigation should be made as to whether there are any air leaks in the induction system, notably between the flange where the carburetter is attached to the induction pipe, and also the valve guides. If everything is found to be in order, then some other solution must be looked for, as the engine most probably is one of those which must be classified as an inherent bad starter. One of the chief causes of bad starting is the use of an unsuitable oil, which results in the gumming up of the pistons and rings, thus making the engine very difficult to turn, even by use of the handle, or frequently it can be traced to maladjustment of the carburetter. Starting difficulties also frequently occur when the engine is warm, which may be due to abuse of the strangler and the resultant flooding of the cylinders with pure petrol, which does not, unless properly mixed with a proportion of air, constitute an explosive mixture.

Unless with great caution, the leverage of spanners (at any rate, of spanners under gin.) should not be increased by the old trick of putting a bit of pipe over the handle end. The result may well be not to twist off the nut, but the head of the bolt, and the last state may be worse than the first. The leverage of fixed spanners of the smaller sizes is proportioned by the makers in a rough-and-ready way to a safety factor for a man of average strength; that is one reason why the small sizes are shorter than the largo. It is permissible to tap a fixed, not an adjustable, spanner with a hammer to start the nut, so long as it is tapping, and not hammering.