PRINCE EXPLAINS TRACK PRINCIPLE

Jack Prince, builder of the Des Moines Speedway, who by the way, has built practically every board track used for bicycles, motorcycle and auto racing, including the Madison Square, Long Island and Los Angeles tracks talked interestingly today of the Des Moines Speedway and some of the new ideas incorporated into its construction.

"Auto race enthusiasts who have not delved into the scientific end of track construction," he said, "do not understand why this track, only a mile around it, shows greater speed than the two-mile track at Indianapolis or the longer tracks at Omaha and Chicago. It is because they do not realize that certain scientific principles have been incorporated into the construction of this track that are not used in other tracks. The sustained speed at Indianapolis has never been greater than ninety miles for any considerable distance. Here it has exceeded 100 miles for lap after lap as demonstrated by Oldfield, Burman, O'Donnell and De Palma. Sixty-five miles has been done on this track at an average of better than 97 miles the hour.

"It is not due to the fact that automobiles have not been capable of this speed in the past, but because the tracks were not so constructed that they would hold the speed.

"On this track we have carried out the scientific principles of the triple radius and of the banked curve. In other words, instead of carrying out the two turns on a common half circle as has been done on other tracks and as is always done on dirt tracks, we have used three radius points in running out our curves. Leaving the stretch we have used for a little less than a third of the way through the curve, the segment of an arc that id continued, would make a common half cirlce. When we got to a certain point, however, we dropped this segment and going to another point we started another arc which carried the circle out and lengthened it and carried this through the second third of the circle. Here we again dropped the arc and went to still another point and started another and larger arc and carried this through to a point directly across from the point at which the first arc described left the tangent or stretch. In doing this we created a track diameter measured from point of curve to point of tangent about 212 feet longer than the diameter of a normal half circle.

"When you drive an auto around a corner at high speed, it skids. The shorter the course, the more the skid. That is why you try for a long turn in driving at high speed. We have applied this principle to our track construction in the building of the triple radius. By increasing and carrying out the curve by using three acres, we meet the tendency of the racing machine driving at high speed to skid and carry the machine out to meet this tendency."

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