NEWS FORM THE U.S.A

NEWS FROM THE U.S.A.

By our American Correspondent

T. MERIWETHER-SMITH.

The Elgin and Weidenhoff Races. “

p”RED ” SHAFER and Fred Frame shared the victory honours at the revival of the famed Elgin Trophy Road Races in Elgin, Illinois, on August 26th, the first strictly road racing event held in the United States in 13 years. An enthusiastic crowd of 29,000 cheered the return of this popular form of motor racing, assuring the annual running of this event, once an outstanding feature of the national racing calendar. The Elgin Trophy was held in the afternoon of August 26th, and brought together a field of 14 machines, featuring six strictly race cars, five semi-stock cars, and three wholly stock entries. The Elgin

course is 8 miles, 2,499 feet, and the dis-. tance of the race was slashed to 203 miles, or 24 laps, a few days before the event. The course has three types of surfaces : concrete, tar paving and dirt. It is replete with hills and curves, and four very difficult hair-pin bends. As the fourteen cars started the race, Dave Evans in one of the factory team Studebakers quickly forged into the lead, and had a slight margin over Fred Frame’s Miller-Duesenberg at the end of the first lap. Evans gradually increased his lead until the 50-mile point, with an average speed of 90.04 m.p.h. Shafer, in his Buick-motored machine, began a deter

mined bid for first place shortly after, and flashed into the lead when Evans’ car spun on the Udina curve, and stalled. Frame moved into second position, with Gene Haustein in fourth, in a Hudsonmotored job. The fastest time registered during the first 100 miles was accredited to Fred Frame in a measured quarter-mile distance past the grandstands. His sleek racing machine touched 135.4 m.p.h. Shafer showed a speed of 133.4, while Evans’s

Studebaker was docked at 135-even.

Shafer continued to lead the way, and at 150-miles was averaging 89.41 m.p.h., with Frame hanging tenaciously on about three miles back. Frame brought the spectators cheering to their feet with only five laps to go when he suddenly threw caution to the winds, in an effort to overtake the flying Shafer. On the hairpin curve at the south-east end of the course, Frame drew even with Shafer, but lost control of his car, smashing into the bales of hay at the edge of the course, and losing several seconds in working the machine out again. The rear of the car was badly smashed, but Frame

immediately returned to the race at a faster clip. Shafer also spun off the course at the same time, but was back on the road in an instant.

Frame, over-eager in his desire to catch Shafer, skidded on the curve at Udina two laps later, and crashed into a light wood fence without damage. The move almost cost him second position in the race, as Rose was closing fast in his Studebakermotored Russell Special.

Shafer’s final average was 88.34 m.p.h. and the fastest lap in the race was turned by Shafer, also, at 93.20, smashing both the race and lap records established by Ralph DePalma in 1920 in a Ballot Special.

ELGIN TROPHY RACE STATISTICS.

Fred Frame won the stock-car Weidenhoff Trophy race of 205 miles, leading at the start, but giving way to Jack Petticord for a short distance. Both were driving Ford V-8 machines. Frame made only one stop, that for refueling, and drove a race that was considered near perfect by experts in attendance. Lou Moore rated to second honours in another Ford V-8, with the next five cars crossing the finishing tape being Ford V-8’s, also. Bill Cummings was 8th in a Plymouth.

This race was won at an average of 80.22 m.p.h., and Frame showed the fastest lap at 81.80 miles per hour, a remarkable tribute to the speed and stamina of the Ford cars.

There were no serious accidents in either race.

WEIDENHOFF TROPHY RACE STATISTICS. Driver Time Ave. Car

Forced out : Dave Evans (Ford V-8) ; H. M. Lewis (Dodge 6) ; Ralph De Palma (Ford V-$) ; Wilbur Shaw (Ford V-8) ; Ted Chamberlain (Chevrolet 6) & and Sam Palmer (Chevrolet 6).