Speed Match

On the bed of a prehistoric lake in Utah last week, two 200-lb. Englishmen wrestled for a world title. One was bespectacled George Edward Thomas Eyston, 41-year-old retired British Army captain, the defending champion. The other was moon-faced John Cobb, 37-year-old London fur broker, the challenger. Over Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, considered the most satisfactory auto-racing strip in the world,* the two Englishmen, with no more fanfare than two moppets sliding down a hill to see who could go farther, took turns to see who could come closer to traveling six miles a minute--and incidentally break the world's land-speed record of 311 miles an hour, set last year by Captain Eyston.

The defending champion had his inning first. Three weeks ago he drove his seven-ton, eight-wheeled Thunderbolt over the measured mile of glistening salt at an average speed of 345 m.p.h., 34 m.p.h. faster than man had ever traveled on earth. Last week, after a fortnight of unfavorable weather, Challenger Cobb had his inning. Sitting in the nose of his tear-shaped, front-and-rear-engined Railton/- (only half the weight of Thunderbolt}, with his head accommodated in an aluminum cupola with a speak-easy window, Driver Cobb streaked over the measured mile in a little over ten seconds, averaged 350 m.p.h. (for a north and south run), became the new king of speed.

For only 24 hours did King Cobb reign. Next morning, Captain Eyston took his second turn. With his Thunderbolt revamped (tail fin removed and square nose streamlined) he regained his crown with a speed of 357 m.p.h., only 83 m.p.h. less than the fastest man has flown. He reached a velocity of 525 feet a second (the muzzle velocity of a high calibre revolver bullet is 700 feet a second). Oldsters along the course sighed as they remembered the turn-of-the-Century astonishment when Henry Ford's 999 traveled at the incredible speed of a mile a minute. Scientists agreed that the Englishmen could not travel much faster and live to tell about it (present rubber tires can take just so much friction). King-for-a-day Cobb, who had originally intended to continue the contest as long as weather permitted, blinked his eyes, decided to call it quits for this year.

* Because the marble-smooth salt in the early morning is marble cold, cools friction-heated tires, lessens a driver's greatest fear: blowouts. Meteorologists also claim that a greater speed can be attained in the rare air of Bonneville (4,300 feet above sea level). A speed of 345 m.p.h. at Bonneville would be only 293 m.p.h. at sea level.

/-Named after its British designer, Reid Railton, who also designed Sir Malcolm Campbell's Bluebird, first car ever to travel 300 m.p.h. and holder of the world's record before Captain Eyston's Thunderbolt. Last week Sir Malcolm broke his own world's record for speed on water by driving his motorboat Bluebird 130 m.p.h. on Lake Hallwil, Switzerland.

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