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The First Auto Race Track

Posted by Lissie | Posted on 10-10-2009

When automobiles races first began, they took place over public roads. The first course designed and built specifically for this sport was Brooklands in England. It was a combination motor racing track and airfield constructed near Weybridge in Surrey, England. The circuit was 3.25 miles or 5.23 kilometers in length. It featured oval banking and was bisected by an approximately one half mile long finishing straight. At some points, the banking attained a height of almost thirty feet or nine meters. It was one hundred feet or thirty meters wide.

It had been constructed of uncoated concrete, which was an unfortunate choice as over the course of the years differential settlement set in. This resulted in a bumpy ride for the driver. However, covering the banking with tar macadam and laying asphalt was prohibitive cost wise. A dotted black line was painted along the center. This was referred to as the fifty-foot line. Supposedly a driver,
who was driving over the line, could round the banked corners without using his steering wheel. Three hundred red railway lamps were employed to provide lighting at night and flares were used to identify the upper boundaries. The facility could accommodate 287,000 spectators.

Brooklands was the creative dream of Sir Hugh Fortescue Locke-King. He had attended the Targa Florio in Italy and the French Grand Prix and observed that these races were conducted over public roads with the blessings of the governments involved. Yet British law imposed a strict twenty-mile per hour speed limit on all of their roads.
Locke-King envisioned providing British drivers a venue where they could safely test their vehicles at high speeds without running afoul of the law. He was also heavily encouraged in his project by Selwyn Edge. Edge was an automotive dealer handling Napier cars. However, he was also an experienced and daring race driver, as much at home on a track as in his office. Edge publicly challenged himself to drive the course solo for twenty-four hours at sixty miles per hour without stopping to rest.

Brooklands officially opened on June 17, 1907 and eleven days later, Edge made good on his promise. And it was eighteen years before anyone broke his record. However, his feat greatly aggravated the neighboring residents and instigated a racing innovation known as the Double Twelve. The twenty-four hour event would be conducted in two segments. They would drive from 8AM to 8PM on one day. The cars would be locked in overnight to ensure that no attempt was made to perform maintenance and the race would finish from 8AM to 8PM the following day.

Other records were also set at Brooklands. On February 15,1913 Percy Lambert set a world record as the first driver to cover one hundred miles per hour when he achieved 103 miles per hour. However, some time later he crashed and was killed while trying to beat his own time. There are those who say his ghost still walks the track attired in full racing gear. Racing at Brooklands ended in 1939, as the facility became part of the British war effort. It never resumed following World War II.

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Motor Sports Worst Accident

Posted by Lissie | Posted on 10-10-2009

Category : whatevurr

The 24 Hour LeMans is one of the largest and most famous endurance sports car races in the world. It is also one of the oldest that is still operating. The idea of an around the clock drive was conceived as a test of the reliability and endurance of man and machine to maintain a continuous high speed for twenty-four hours over a challenging course. It is an annual event held near LeMans in France. While accidents are common at motor races, none have equalled the horrific incident that occurred at the 1955 event. Two factors are of primary importance in an auto race – the skill of the driver and the quality of the car.

The 1955 race would soon become a duel between the British Jaguar Type D and the Mercedes 300SLR. Germany had spent considerable time and effort in preparing its entry however the car had one weakness. It was equipped with drum brakes while the British machine had disc brakes giving it a quick braking advantage. After about two hours into the competition, the British driver, Mike Hawthorn decided to make a pit stop, slowing down and braking his car. Lance Macklin, driving in back of Hawthorn, slammed his brakes and pulled to the left. Pierre Levegh, who was following Macklin, raised his arm to signal Juan Fangio to slow down. Levegh’s car, unable to brake quickly, then struck Macklin’s and careened off the side, landing on an embankment. It then somersaulted along the embankment as the magnesium body ignited and flames spread everywhere.

As the car disintegrated, parts flew into the crowd. One row of spectators was decapitated by the flying hood. Some were killed by flying parts and others were burned to death. Figures do not agree on the number of people killed and injured but seventy-seven to eighty three were reported killed and at least seventy-six injured. Macklin’s car spun around in the track and hit the pit killing a mechanic. Macklin was able to walk away from the crash. Fangio later expressed his gratitude for Levegh’s signal, crediting the signal with saving his life.
It is somewhat prophetic that Levegh had stated just prior to the race, “We have to get some sort of signal system working; our cars are too fast.”

The organizers decided to continue the race, as they were afraid that if they stopped it, the crowd of people departing from the stands would create traffic that would interfere with the work of the ambulances and fire trucks. When word of the accident reached Germany, the authorities withdrew their other teams out of respect for Levegh. Hawthorn eventually won the competition. However, there were many who blamed his braking for initiating the chain of events that caused the carnage. But the official investigation that took place following the accident cleared him of blame and called it “a racing incident.’

Nevertheless, the incident had a profound effect on racing. Some European countries implemented bans on the sport. France spent over $600,000 to improve the course. New regulations defining limitations on engine size, limiting the time a driver could be behind the wheel, and specifying the number of drivers on a team were all implemented prior to the 1956 race.

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The Sport of Endurance Racing

Posted by Lissie | Posted on 10-10-2009

Category : whatevurr

Automotive racing began, as a speed competition to see which make of car was the fastest. It was a powerful marketing tool for automotive manufacturers as the one with a winning car could expect dramatic increases in sales. Later, however, another form of motor sport developed, the endurance race. It differed from earlier events in that it was designed to test not just speed, but also the dependability of the machine. This competition would determine many factors about a car. Could it hold together when driven continuously at high speeds? Could it do this over public roads? And could it do this in both nighttime and daytime? The one important difference between endurance racing and other motor sports is the requirement for driving at night.

The first endurance competition was held in England as the first event on the newly completed closed circuit track, Brooklands. The race was sparked by Selwyn Edge, a British Napier dealer, who publicly announced that he and his team would drive continuously around the track for twenty-four hours at sixty miles per hour without a rest stop.
Edge was able to accomplish this. However, his achievement aroused the anger of the residents living near the court. The result was the innovation of The Double Twelve. In this event, drivers would race on one day from eight in the morning until eight at night. The cars would then be locked in for the night to be sure there would be no attempts at maintenance. They would race the following day, again from eight until eight.

In 1923, the Automobile Club of Sarthe in France established the first 24 hours of LeMans. It began on May 26, 1923 at four in the afternoon and ended at the same time on the following day. This competition differed from Brooklands in that part of the race was on public roads. Supposedly the desire to establish the dependability of headlights played a leading part in the organization of the event. While headlights, like many other accessories are taken for granted today, they were in their babyhood back then. With the exception of the World War II years and 1936, this is now an annual event. However, when LeMans was the scene of one of motor sports’ worst accidents in 1955, some regulations were changed and new ones implemented to improve safety.

The United States also organized endurance races, notably the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring. Over the years, these two races together with the 24 Hours of LeMans have come to be recognized as the most challenging of all and have earned the designation of ‘The Triple Crown.’ A Porsche 962 was the last car to win it in 1986. However, in 2003, Daytona made significant changes in the regulations and it is now impossible, because of the new car rules, for one racing car to claim the Crown. However, a driver can still win all three events and the first one to do this was the famous American racer, A. J. Foyt.

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