New Record at Le Mans

The loudspeaker droned out the final seconds, ". . . trois ... deux ... un .. ." The flag dropped, and 60 helmeted drivers dashed across the road to their glistening cars. With a sputter, a roar, a clash of gears, they were off, tearing down the road in one of auto racing's top events: the Le Mans 24-hour race, a telling test of driver endurance* and engine durability.

As expected, the speedy Italian entries took the early lead. Italy's World Champion Alberto Ascari, driving a 4.5-liter Ferrari, whirled one lap (about 8 1/2 miles) at a record 111.5 m.p.h. American Johnny Fitch, in a Briggs Cunningham Special, set a kilometer record at 155 m.p.h. But the race was not to the early swift.

Under the Le Mans rules, each car must carry its own spare parts, tools, tires. Pit stops for fuel, oil. water and brake fluid are allowed no oftener than every 28 laps. Under those stringent limitations, the three Italian Alfa Romeo entries were forced out within the first twelve hours.

At the end of 20 hours, only 28 entries remained, and the fast Ferraris were out of the running. By that time, a huge Sunday crowd of 200,000 people lined the course. Some of them saw what they came to see when Driver Tommy Cole, taking the Maison Blanche curve at 100 m.p.h. in his Ferrari, spun out, was thrown to the road and killed.

But the race went on. The winning car: a British Jaguar driven by Tony Rolt and C. Duncan Hamilton, which set a Le Mans distance record of 2,535 miles. The Jaguar's average speed: 106 m.p.h., cracking the old record of 96.7 set last year by a German Mercedes Benz. Jaguars also placed second and fourth, with Fitch and his relief driver, Phil Walters, third in their Cunningham.

* This year, in the interests of safety, no driver was allowed to be at the wheel for longer than 80 laps (about 700 miles) or 18 hours in all.

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