BY Mason H. 0. D. SEGRAVE.
Moms racing is commonly regarded as either a sport, in which case _it appeals-- to the adventurous, or a form of advertisement, in which ease it, is certainly a weapon with two edges. If it were solely a question of advertisement, the object could be attained, probably more cheaply and certainly more effectively, by the ordinary methods of publicity. Finally, we-come to the real reason for motor racing—namely, to find out more about the technique of motor-car design and test new ideas so that previous standards of efficiency may be exceeded.
Any designer who conceives a new idea in engine design which he regards as suitable for touring cars will be wise if he takes immediate steps to test it on a racing car, since the stresses of racing work are far higher than those of touring. What racing does is to compress into a few hours of running the sum of all the difficulties and stresses which would come into an ordinary season of work at a touring pace. From this point of view racing is economically well worth while, for it enables information of the most valuable kind to be obtained quickly, and it is by this means that progress in design is accelerated.
There is an old saying that the racing car of to-day is the touring car of to-morrow. This is true enough, although it is often a year or two before lessons learnt in a paiticular race are translated into a car built for the public.
The writer's belief in the value of racing for the advance- ment of internal combustion engine design is based entirely upon results achieved from road racing. Track and road racing are poles apart. In order to win a track event, the two essentials are speed and reliability. There is no call for brakes, or gear-box transmission because they are never used. Also, from the driving point of view, very much less skill is required to drive on the track than to drive on the road. For instance, if you have two cars racing together on the track, the faster of the two, provided that no mechancial trouble is expe- rienced, will invariably win the race ; whereas if the same two cars are entered in a road race and the slower car has a more skilful driver, in nine cases out of ten it will beat the faster. In fact, to be successful in a long distance road race the driver has to have excellent judgment and be capable of changing speeds without losing a fraction of a second of time. He must also be capable of nursing his car should he experience mechanical trouble. One can easily see, therefore, that a long distance modern road race is a far greater test for the racing car than any track race.
The best-known motor race in the world is undoubtedly the French Grand Prix, which is always over - a distance of 500 miles and takes place in July of each year. It is an inter- national race and teams of cars and drivers from nearly every country compete. When the circuit for this race is chosen by the engineers of the French Automobile Club it is so arranged that various portions of the circuit test various portions of the car. For instance, there is always a long, straight stretch of at least two or three miles in order that the maximum speed of the car may be reached ; there are always corners which can be negotiated at high speeds to test the braking and road holding qualities of the chassis ; and finally there is always a hill in order to test acceleration.
More is certainly to be learnt from a mad race than from a track event, unless, as in the case of the" two hundred miles race at Brooklands, artificial hairpin corners are introduced which call for frequent gear-changing, any amount of use of the brakes, heavy stresses on the steering and all the other effects which one gets upon the road.
In the twenty-four hours' race for the Rudge-Whitworth Cup standard touring ears exclusively are used. This sort of racing is as useful as the other. It is the function of the one to try out a new idea, and that of the other to confirm the soundness of what has already been adopted.
The man in the street who owns a touring car of orthodox design often forgets—or perhaps does not realize—that the car which takes him to and from his office in comfort and with certainty owes its excellence to the pioneer firms who have gone in for an international racing policy. Take, for instance, the spare wheel. This can be traced direetly to the influence of racing ; it was designed because of the need for a wheel on a racing car which could be changed in the minimum number of seconds.
. The smaller the weight of the power plant in a vehicle, the greater the weight and space that can be devoted to the comfort of passengers. The light family touring car is the comfortable and economical thing that we know to-day because designers, through racing, have learnt how to save weight in mechanical parts. Every pound that they can save in the chassis means less need for power from the engine. This, in turn, means a smaller and lighter engine, and repaying the compliment the lighter engine imposes upon the chassis less stress, so that that too can belightened without loss of strength.
It is because saving of weight is the principal object aimed at that the racing car has developed the six-cylinder, the eight- cylinder, and, finally, the twelve-cylinder engine in order to reduce the weight of pistons, connecting rods and similar parts. The straight-eight is no better balanced than an ordinary six-cylinder, but having relatively less weight in the moving parts it gives a higher proportional output of horse- power, can be run safely up to higher revolutions, and conse- quently, from the touring point of view, more nearly ap- proaches the conditions of the engine that requires no gear-box at all.
It must not be forgotten that, just as acceleration is de- manded in the racing vehicle, so it is equally of importance in the touring machine, and is, indeed, one of the attributes which earns the keenest appreciation. The racing designer de- veloped the multi-cylinder for the purposes mentioned above, but also because it enabled him practically to dispense with a fly-wheel, and therefore to get acceleration of the most rapid order.
It is not many years ago that the suggestion of using alu- minium pistons in a standard touring car was regarded as
something akin to madness, and if in 1913 anyone had sug-
gested that a connecting rod might be made of an aluminium alloy, he would have been laughed to scorn. Yet these apparent miracles have been performed by the metallurgist because of the pressure which the racing car designer has con- sistently put upon him.
Perhaps the most easily recognized manner in which the racing car has reacted upon the touring vehicle is in connexion with the use of the four-wheel braking. The front wheel brake, incidentally a British invention, was first devised as an adjunct for touring cars. For various reasons it failed and fell into disrepute until the racing car designer got hold of it for his own purposes, eliminated all its weaknesses and faults, and made it sound and practical. To-day it is a standard fitting on practically every modern car, great and small, and its use enhances safety to a degree which it would be difficult to estimate.
Previous page
