The Monte Carlo Rally.

The Monte Carlo Rally.

SIR,—’.11;iy I be allowed to correct a false impression that may have been given in your report of the NIonte Carlo Rally ? Von state ” H. E. Symons ditched the Essex in trying to pas.s by Van der Heyden’s Studebaker, which had skidded off the road.”

The facts are these : —The Studebaker driver skidded when crossing a small stone bridge, turning round so that the front wheels were in the ditch and the back of the car blocked more than half the road. Mine was the first large car on the scene after this mishap and the Dutch driver implored me to lend him my blocks and tackle to extricate his car. I stopped to help him and my crew had already alighted when a large piece of the clay embankment under the offside front wheel slipped away, letting my car down gently on the axle and doing no damage. You also state that I retired with a broken axle shaft. In justice to the car, I must say that no such breakage occurred. When we skidded on the ice in Germany and hit a tree the end-blow on the axle shaft must have cracked a roller in the bearing behind the bevel pinion. This roller finally broke on the actual rally, chewing-up the cage and jamming the

final drive. Our ‘allure in the Rally was solely due 10 the atter-effects of our skid on the way out, and it is not fair to blame the car at all.

The hydraulic shock-absorbers fitted as standard to .the Essex Terraplane never gave a moment’s trouble, but the small pipes on the British shock-absorbers eracked as the result of roadshocks.

Finally, permit me to say that I have never been so luxuriously comfortable in any Rally car as I was this year in the Essex Terraplaue Eight. I am, yours etc., The Cutting, Givous Grove, Leatherhead,

Surrey. [The Rally notes dealing with the passage of competitors through Greece were written at Salonica and sent off before Mr. Symons arrived at the control. We are pleased now to publish_ these further

H. E. SYMONS.