CHAPTER XIX
MOTOR RACING
Harry Turns to Motor-racing—Successful Début at Brooklands—Why I Stayed at Home—The 250 h.p. Sunbeam Touring Car Takes Second Place—When the 450 h.p. Racer Comes on the Scene—Harry Drives the Largest Car in the World—A Terrible Crash—Without Serious Consequences—Back to the Air—The R.A.F. Tournament—Reunion of Pioneer Aviators—Eleventh-Hour Entry for the Aerial Derby—Second Place, but Disqualified—A Very Busy Month—Aeroplane Trials at Martlesham—British International Motor-boat Trophy at Cowes—More Motor-racing at Brooklands—His Aeroplane Enables Harry to be (nearly) in Three Places at Once—Harry “Brings Home” a £3,000 Prize for the Sopwith Company at Martlesham—I Decide that Motor-racing is Too Risky—And Fate Deprives Harry of a Race—Motor-boat Racing—Racing an A.C. Light Car—And a D.F.P.—The Gordon-Bennett Air Race of 1920—Bad Luck—The 450 h.p. Sunbeam Again.
CHAPTER XIX
During the winter of 1919-20 there was little to be done in the way of flying and the prospects of it recovering its pre-war popularity not very hopeful. Harry looked round for other fields of achievement to fill in the spare time he now had on his hands. Always keen on the possibilities of the racing car, it was with great enthusiasm that he accepted the offer from Mr. Coatalen to drive the new 6-cylinder racing car which Sunbeam’s had built for the meeting at Indianapolis and wished to put through its paces at the first post-war Brooklands meeting on Whit-Monday, 1920. Harry went down to Wolverhampton to see the car, and was amazed at the care with which the racing cars are produced, and to quote his own expression, “The Sunbeam people do the whole thing properly.” A day or so before the meeting the car was brought down by road from Wolverhampton, and the trial runs on the track proved more than satisfactory. The race-meeting itself was a record one, and the scene, even for Brooklands, a memorable one. “From the bottom of the Test Hill to the entrance to the course the track was lined on both sides with packed masses of cars, while the Hill was crowded with people breathlessly following the fortunes of their favourites as the burnished bonnets of the great cars glittered like shooting stars round the great track,” to quote from a current issue of the daily Press.
Judging by his reception and the notices which appeared on Tuesday, Harry was the popular figure of the day. In the first of the two races in which he was to drive the Sunbeam six, the Short Lightning Handicap, he won the race from scratch, overhauling his most formidable opponent, Mr. Kilburn’s Vauxhall, just as they were entering the finishing straight, when his average speed from start to finish was 98½ miles per hour. Harry’s victory in this, and again in his second race, the Long Lightning Handicap, where after an exciting race he was first home by about a length, brought him a tremendous reception from the delighted crowd. His best lap for the day was at the speed of 106·65 miles per hour.
It is interesting to note that in passing the Opel, another competitor in the first race, at a very bumpy part of the track the gear lever of the Sunbeam jumped out of gear, and in attempting to replace it Harry accidentally put it into second gear. The car continued to gain on the Opel, and before changing up into top while running at 100 miles per hour the revolution counter showed the extraordinary turnover of 5,700 revolutions per minute. Afterwards the motor was dismantled, but no damage of any description had been incurred by this exceptional achievement.
This was Harry’s début as a motor-racer, and it was the first day of complete success he had ever had. I well remember him saying that now he felt his luck had changed and he was finished with failures, glorious or otherwise.