RECORD ENTRY FOR THE MONTE CARLO RALLY
FOR THE MONTE CARLO RALLY of 46, Lead the Field ; 129 Cars from 12 different Controls. RECORD ENTRY British Cars, with an Entry
M. OTORING sport has never been in a more flourishing
_A-. state than it is at present, and no finer proof of this can be furnished than the record entry for the 12th Monte Carlo Rally, which by the time this article appears in print will have been run and won.
It is encouraging to note that the greatest number of entries should emanate from Great Britain, with 46 cars, France being second with 42, the U.S.A. third with 26, followed by Germany 8, Italy 4, Austria 2 and Czecho-Slovakia 1. All over Europe cars have been travelling by easy stages to their respective starting points, thereby getting a taste of the weather conditions they could expect. And they are bad. The Tallinn road is very bad beyond Riga, degenerating to a mere cart-track, while there have been heavy falls of snow and the cold is intense. From this point, as reported elsewhere, Donald Healey, with the MOTOR SPORT representative, started in his Invicta, while other well known competitors using this control are m. Tasselle (Hotchkiss),
last year’s winner ; 0. de Lavalette (Peugeot), another previous winner; Jack Hobbs (Riley) ; Lord de Clifford, on the Gardner-DieselBentley ; and A. W. HuntleyWalker (Riley). Athens, the furthermost starting
point, is particularly inaccessible, and at least one crew, led by E. Fransioli, on a French Talbot, was unable to reach the Grecian capital.
The road from Nish to Sofia is very bad, being covered with deep snow, but from thence to Salonika the conditions were appalling, and competitors were in great doubt whether they would be able to average the required speed between Athens and
Salonika. The most famous competitors from this point were Jacques Bignan (Peugeot) the first driver ever to attempt this route ; Rupert Riley, on an Overseas Riley ; and H. Stoffel, the French racing driver on a V.8 Ford. A difficult task was set the competitors from Bucarest, for a heavy fall of snow makes the road to Jassy impassable. At the time of
going to press this road is so far clear. The second member of the Riley team, V. E. Leverett, on a Gamecock, started from Bucarest, as did H. E. Symons and PennHughes on a very well equipped Sunbeam Speed Model saloon, which has been very specially fitted out for the comfort of its occupants.
On the way to Umea competitors report that the road is covered for many hundreds of miles with deep snow, but so far this is of a constant consistency. Interesting starters were D. E. M. Douglas-Morris (Invicta) ; the third man of the official Riley team, G. F. Dennison ; and Norman Black in an Essex Terraplane.
From Stavanger a ladies’ team composed of Mrs. K. Petre and Miss J. Richmond started on a Riley, other English crews being J. Whalley (Ford), T. V. G. Selby (Ford) and F. S. Hutchens on his ‘ veteran ‘ E. W. Daytona Hornet Special which formed part of the winning team in the L.C.C. Relay Grand Prix and has since seen much trials work.
No fewer than 28 cars were due to start from John o’Groats, all English competitors, with a fairly easy task before them, but the 17 crews who chose Valencia as their control were probably not so lucky, for severe snow storms were encountered en route to the Spanish starting point between San Sebastian and Madrid.