SPEED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 616, 19 March 1929, Page 7

SPEED

Costly Business But Increases Efficiency VALUE OF MOTOR RACING The tragic death of a motor racing driver during the past week and the immense cost of special cars for speed records is again turning the thoughts of many motorists to the question, "What good is all this speed?” The question is a natural one, and the answer simplicity itself. If it had | not been for racing there would be no such thing as the sort of car the average owner drives at anything like the j price he paid for it, and with any- | thing like such admirable qualities of j reliability, pace and economy. When the early light ears (as opposed to cycle-cars) were first introduced, they were largely scorned as unpractical, but the racing policy, which by that time makers of big cars had mostly dropped, soon brought them to the stage of reasonable perfection, since when they have become the essentially British type of car which every day is gaining more patronage in all parts of the world. Take racing from the tyre point of view. Those who “cannot see the sense” in motor racing might do worse than realise the 12,000 or 15,000 miles’ life which we now habitually get from a set of quite ordinary pneumatics is : purely and simply a result of racing, | for racing has forced tyre makers into improving their product far more j quickly than would otherwise have I been the case. From a technical point of view, as well, indeed, as from that 1 of public interest in racing as a spee- | tacle, the road event is superior to any j other, and it is only because it is j banned by the law that it has not come into prominence in Britain and America. On the Continent a spirit of greater enlightenment prevails, and the big road races in France, Italy, Belgium and Spain have thus commonly borne an international aspect. The expense of participating in these races, which means the building of special cars for the purpose, is considerable, and this fact, combined with the disturbance of production of ordinary models which | the “specials’"* imply, has tended to at- | tenuate the entry lists. It is frequently said that motor firms : race for the purpose of obtaining advertisement. Doubtless they are not unmindful of the value which belongs to a conspicuous victory—it is, after all, largely the quest of fame that makes people try to do better than has ever been before —but they would be foolish to regard advertisement as ! the main object. It is just as easy to destroy a reputation as to build it up. Racing may be a costly business, but l it enables experimental work that i would otherwise take years to be comj pressed into a few weeks, if not hours. I And, singularly enough, it is one of those things from which even more is j learned by failure than by success.

j Assurance is given by the Public j Works Department that every effort | will be made to complete the bitumen j surfacing of the Rangiriri deviation 1 before the winter. Recent work on ; the deviation has necessitated the use of the old notorious hill road. The i Public Works Department has now in- | creased the plant on the section, and arrangements have been made to work 1 the steam rollers in double shifts in 1 order to expedite the sealing before j wet. weather sets in.