Every-day Science: Volume 7. The Conquest of Time and Space

by Henry Smith Williams; Edward Huntington Williams

SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF AUTOMOBILE RACING

A mile in 34-1/5 seconds. That is the automobile record established at Ormonde Beach in January, 1905. The record mile was made by Mr. H. L. Bowden, of Boston, with a machine of peculiar construction. It consisted essentially of two four-cylinder motors adjusted to one machine, giving an engine of 120 horse-power. The machine weighed 2,650 pounds, exceeding thus by more than four hundred pounds the usually prescribed limits of weight. The record, therefore, stood as a performance in a class by itself. But that is something that interests only the specialist. For the general public it suffices that an automobile propelled by a gasoline engine covered a mile in 34-1/5 seconds, or at the rate of one hundred and five miles an hour.

This record was made on Wednesday, January 25, 1905. A little earlier on the same day the previous automobile record of a mile in thirty-nine seconds—made at Ormonde by Mr. William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., in 1904—had been twice broken; first by Mr. Louis Ross, who made the mile in his 40 horse-power steam auto of "freak" construction in thirty-eight seconds; and by Mr. Arthur McDonald, driving a 90 horse-power car belonging to Mr. S. F. Edge. Mr. McDonald's record was a mile in 34-2/5 seconds, and this stood for a time as the new record for cars of regulation weight.

It thus appears that Mr. Vanderbilt's record was reduced first by one second, then by 4-1/5 seconds, and finally by 4-2/5 seconds on the same day. Obviously the conditions were peculiarly favorable on that day, or else a very marked improvement in the construction of racing automobiles had taken place within a single year. The latter is doubtless the true explanation, since, according to all reports, the conditions at Ormonde Beach that year were not peculiarly favorable, but rather the reverse. The fact, too, that the five mile record was reduced to the low figure of three minutes seventeen seconds—this also by Mr. Arthur McDonald—on the day preceding that on which the mile record was so completely smashed, corroborates the idea of improved mechanism rather than improved conditions. In any event, the jump from 39 to 34-1/5 seconds is a notable one; as will be evident from a simple computation which shows that the record holders of 1905 would have run away from the champion of 1904 at the rate of no less than nineteen feet for each second of the mile.

Let us pass at once—omitting transition stages—from these records to the new mark set on March 16th, 1910, at Ormonde Beach by Mr. Barney Oldfield. Driving a Benz automobile of two hundred horse-power, he compassed the mile in 27.33 seconds. The new record has a peculiar interest, not merely because it is the fastest mile ever made by an automobile, but because it is in all probability the fastest mile ever travelled by a human being who lived to tell the tale. A few unfortunates, falling from balloons, or from mountain cliffs, may have passed through space at a yet more appalling speed; but they lost consciousness, never to regain it, long before the mile was compassed. The automobile driver retains his senses throughout his breakneck mile—they are keenly on the alert indeed—and comes away unscathed to tell the story of what must be a truly thrilling experience.

A RACING AUTOMOBILE.

In this 200-horse-power Benz car Barney Oldfield reduced the world's mile record to 27. 33 seconds—a speed of 131.72 miles an hour—and the two-mile record to 55.87 seconds. The mile record was made at Ormonde Beach, Florida, March 16, 1910; the two-mile record at the same place a few days later.

Nor is it merely in contrast with other human experiences that the new performance takes on "record" proportions. It is at least doubtful whether any member of the animal kingdom ever passed through a mile of space at such a speed as that attained by Mr. Oldfield. The fastest quadruped on the globe is almost unquestionably the thoroughbred horse. But the fastest mile ever compassed by a horse—Salvator's straightway dash in 1:35-1/2—is a snail's pace in comparison with Mr. Oldfield's speed. Salvator covered a little over fifty-five feet per second; the racing motor covered a trifle over 193 feet—thus gaining 138 feet in each second.

The trotting horse at its best—a mile in 1:58-1/2—is of course much slower still; Lou Dillon's record mile being made at the rate of 44-1/2 feet per second. Dan Patch, the swiftest pacer, in his mile in 1:56 made just one foot per second more than the trotter. Both pacer and trotter, it should be added, made their records with the aid of a wind-shield, without which their best performances are some seconds slower.

If we make comparisons with different varieties of man-made records, we find that the swiftest human runner covers his mile at the rate of about twenty-one feet per second; the skater brings this up to about thirty-four feet; and the bicyclist attains the acme of muscle-motor speed with his eighty feet per second. In the case of the bicyclist, the wind-shield pace-maker on the auto-cycle plays an important part. But even so the cyclist would be left behind one hundred and thirteen feet each second by the flying automobile.

All these types of record maker, therefore, are quite outclassed. If we could not find any real competition for the automobile in the animate world, we must seek it in bird-land. Here, it might be supposed, the space devourer would find a match. But it is not quite certain that such is the case. The old-time books on natural history tell us, to be sure, of flight speeds that make the new records seem slow. They credited the European swift, for example, with two hundred and fifty miles an hour. But more recent observers, made cautious by the scientific spirit of our age, are disposed to discredit such estimates, which confessedly are little better than guesses.

The only officially timed bird flights are the flights of homing pigeons; and here the record credits the homing bird with only one hundred miles an hour. This means 124 feet a second, as against the motor's 193. According to these figures, the automobile could give the pigeon a start of almost two thousand feet and yet sweep forward and overtake it in its flight, before it passed the mile-post. Perhaps the comparison is not quite fair, since no doubt the pigeon may perform some individual miles of its journey at more than the average speed; but it may well be doubted whether its maximum ever reaches the mile-rate of 27.33 seconds.

It is within the possibilities, however, that some other birds have even surpassed this speed. The falcon, for example, is probably a swifter bird than the pigeon, at least for short distances. Some one indeed has credited the hawks with a speed of one hundred and fifty miles an hour. But this, I feel sure, is a great exaggeration. I once saw a hen harrier pursue a prairie-chicken, without seeming to gain appreciably for a long distance; yet the prairie-chicken is by no means among the speediest of birds. Many of our ducks, for example, quite outclass it; indeed I should be disposed to admit that the teal or the canvasback at full speed might give the automobile a race.

There is, to be sure, one way in which the bird might get the better of a machine, thanks to its capacity to rise to a height. This would be by taking a sloping course downward. The little shore-lark often gives an exhibition of the possibilities open to the bird in this direction. After rising to a cloudlike height it soars about for a time singing, then suddenly sweeps downward, and, closing its wings, launches itself directly toward the earth, falling with meteoric speed till it almost reaches the surface, when it makes a parachute of its wings and swoops away in safety. During this performance the little lark is, I veritably believe, the swiftest-moving animate thing in all the world. But there is a reason why the bird could not increase its speed indefinitely by imitating the lark's feat in a modified form, and this is the obstacle of atmospheric pressure. Air moving at the rate of sixty feet a second constitutes a serious storm; at ninety feet it becomes a tornado, and at one hundred and fifty feet it is a tornado at its worst—a storm that tears up trees and overthrows houses, and against which no man can stand any more than that he could breast the current of Niagara. Now, of course, it is all one whether the air moves at this rate against you or whether you move at a corresponding rate against the air—action and reaction being equal. Therefore a very serious check is put upon the bird's flight; and it is this consideration which makes it seem doubtful whether any bird, except when aided by a strong wind, can attain such speeds as have been suggested.

Of course, atmospheric pressure affects the automobile no less than the bird. In record-breaking speed tests of the automobile, machine and driver are in effect subjected to the influence of a veritable tornado. Theoretically it seems almost incredible that any power could drive a ton of metal against the air at such a speed; practically we see the feat accomplished. But the automobilist has tales to tell of the power of the wind against his face that are easily credible. Even at ordinary speed in a touring-car, as most of us can testify, the wind blows a gale, veritably forcing tears from the eyes of the novice and blowing them back over his ears. To modify the antagonism of the wind, the constructors of racing motor cars adopt a model suggested originally by the body of a bird or of a fish, and long since made familiar by the shipbuilder.