THE SPORT
Although motor races, trials, hill-climbs, speed trials, rallies, record attempts, high speed tests and the rest are grouped together under the heading of ” The Sport,” it is worth-while to remember that motoring sport is by way of being a most important commercial stimulant to a very far-reaching industry. Sport, in the eyes of many, is never of any great moment, in spite of the achievements credited to the playing fields of Eton, and when their countly is involved in war the opinion is that sport should cease forthwith. Fortunately we do not all take this I, iew, arid, following momentary panic, this country is now returning to something like normal so far as many sports and amusements are concerned, in spite of the continuance of this “strangest of wars.” If ordinary sporting activities are to be encouraged, how important and logical that motoring sport should
not be entirely disregarded. For remember that the motor industry is our third largest industry in peacetime, employing hundreds of thousands of people on the production side and providing one tenth of the national revenue in taxation. For over forty years manufacturers and engineer ing concerns have recognised racing and organised competition as an essential means both of ” improving the breed ” and of gaining public recognition of the worth of their products. Consequently, motoring sport in its various forms must be recognised as a most essential adjunct to the motor industry. For this reason MOTOR SPORT, which has been the leading sporting motor paper for over fifteen years, has carried the advertising of some of our greatest engineering and productive concerns, as yell as those announcements of smaller, specialist firms which, as in other sporting spheres, cater expressly for the sportsmen’s needs. ” For the duration ” it is our intention to keep an important section of the public enthusiastic for the Sport—which the more rabid amongst us regard as thegreatest interest of all— for to-day motoring competition plays a very great part in ,stimulating the motor-mindedness of the com
munity. No longer is the sports-car a specialised production used only by a hyper-keen driver. High performance and safe control is of ever increasing importance to the motoring public in general, from the ntility-car owner upwards. Business men, travellers, doctors, engineers, find their travel facilities improved by the employment of Modern fast cars, which motorracing, and the production and development of earlier, less convenient sports-cars, have made possible. Such improved travel facilities cannot fail to reflect benefits on the community at large, which also benefits obviously and materially by the sales of cars, fuel, accessories and components which can be laid at the door of tLe Sport in its many ,functions. Under conditions of war motoring sport is more seriously affected than most, due to fuel rationing and the difficulties which its need for considerable organising now present. For these reasons races and trials have ceased to be. Yet, even in these abnormal times, the motoring sportsman is likely to play a major part in assisting both the industry, and his country in general. A very large number of cars are going to be laid up after December 31st, thanks to the stranglehold of a 25/per h.p. tax, fuel at 1/9-id. per gallon, a rationed mileage of 200 per month, and the hazards
of black-out driving. But we seriously hope that, motorists will continue to motor in 1940, thereby contributing a little more to the National revenue, and, far more important to some minds, helping what in peacetime is our third biggest industry.
