CORRESPONDENCE

To the E(Iii,,i. DEAR SIR,

Some months ago you had an Editorial urging the institution of a car T.T. race in the Isle of Man. The fiasco of the R.A.C. Grand Prix Race recently is another occasion pointing to the lack of road racing in England. The sandbanks and artificial turns do not present anything approaching actual road conditions, as the surface of the track, and the great distance travelled after negotiating the turns before reaching them again, is quite unlike the conditions of a normal road race.

While the Road Races Bill seems to have been lost or forgotten, it is time to start a car race over thc motor cyclists T.T. course in the Isle of Man. Surely this course cannot be objected to upon any grounds at all.

If motorcycles can average 68 m.p.h. for the whole race, it presents an excellent fast course for cars. Perhaps after a year or two’s practise in real road races, we shall be able to put a team into the field capable of beating the best continental drivers in World’s Championship events. Yours, etc., ROAD RACE FAN. DEAR SIR, Another Olympia Motor Cycle Show is in the near future, and judging by the advance details of 1928

designs, we are to be served up with layouts pandering to fashion again, as was the case in 1927.

There appears to be a decree of Fashion in motor cycles as in ladies’ clothes. The thing nowadays seems to be a twin port engine, a straight tube from steering head to rear hub, and Brooklands silencer.

Every lad of the village wants to appear astride a thing that looks like a record breaker ; and quite old established and common sensed factories are about to provide him with this.

Just putting another pipe on an engine won’t make the engine any faster, and the straight tube frame with a low saddle well in front of the rear wheel is a mockery, a delusion, and a snare. I have ridden some of these frames at high speeds, and the feeling when one applies the rear brakes is simply horrible. The weight having been all slumped forward, the back wheel simply bounces up and down on the road in a frenzied manner. There is only one frame of this lay-out that is really a genuine design, that is the Cotton,

May I plead therefore for a greater experimental stage in the new designs about to be placed in the hands of raw youths. But I suppose it is now too late. Yours faithfully,

TRIANGLE.