John R. Cobb

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John Cobb

John Rhodes Cobb (born December 2, 1899 in Esher , Surrey, † September 29, 1952 on Loch Ness ) was a British racing driver .

Memorial stone for John Cobb

Known as "Honest John"

After training at Eton and Trinity Hall , the son of the London fur trader Rhodes H. Cobb entered his parents' business. Before the Second World War he was commissioned by the government of the Soviet Union to sell the annual stock of fur there. He became director of the fur brokerage firm Anning, Chadwick & Kiver Ltd. and Vice Managing Director of the Falkland Islands Company Ltd.

Cobb was a passionate motor sportsman and a talented test driver who registered all the peculiarities of a vehicle he drove , passed them on to the designer and was thus able to drive the perfection of the car. He was considered taciturn as someone who was more likely to let actions speak for themselves and was recognized because of his binding manners. It was said that the mirror-smooth surface of a lake with optimal conditions could not induce him to attempt a record with the racing boat if the noise had disturbed the residents during the Sunday rest. The British motor journalist "Sammy" Davis , author of a Cobb biography, said he could take Cobb out to dinner, it was good to talk to, but afterwards he hardly knew more about him than before.

Favorite Place Brooklands Race Track - "Outer Circuit"

When Cobb attempted to record, "The Queen Mother" might drop by to wish them success. There has never been a popularity with the masses like for example with his racing driver colleague Malcolm Campbell at Cobb. Both were linked by the Brooklands race track, which also caused differences of opinion on the occasion of their sale. Cobb drove a chain-driven 10-liter Fiat car and the Delage Type DH , which René Thomas had used at Arpajon in 1924 to set the world record. He explored the very uneven route very carefully and was able to avoid skidding and thus loss of time with compensatory driving maneuvers. On October 7, 1935, he presented at Brooklands with one of Reid Railton designed and (1895-1977) of Thomson & Taylor built Napier-Railton a lap record of 143.44 mph (230.84 km / h) on. After he won against Campbell on the Great Salt Flats , he held all automobile world records from one to 24 hours.

Duel in Bonneville with George Eyston

There was no trial of strength with Campbell in Utah , Campbell was satisfied that the record remained in British hands. But competition appeared in the person of George Eyston , with whom Cobb had a real friendship despite the rivalry - later he was also the manager of Cobb's racing boat project Crusader . In two runs, Eyston raised the bar a little higher with his eight-wheeled Thunderbolt : 345.58 mph could now be beaten. On his Railton Special , John Cobb broke the land speed record for the first time on September 15, 1938 on the Bonneville Salt Flats with 350.19 mph (563.58 km / h). There he improved the value to 367.91 mph (592.09 km / h) on August 23, 1939. The vehicle had two ice-water-cooled aircraft engines that sat under a beetle-shaped aluminum skin on an S-shaped curved frame and acted independently of each other on the front and rear axles. The wind tunnel of the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington had been used to test models of the body . The aluminum shell was so sensitive that when boarding, Cobb climbed over a cross-cut board into the driver's cab so as not to damage it. The only 0.5 mm thick fabric layer in particular placed high demands on the driver, as on the one hand the driver had to accelerate quickly and on the other hand the tires were not allowed to spin. In the absence of a flywheel and clutch, the engines stopped each time the gear was changed.

Shortly before the Second World War, the racing driver Hans Stuck was able to find supporters for his record ambitions. In 1938/39 the Mercedes-Benz T 80 was built, which should have been driven on a ten-kilometer stretch of motorway near Dessau; because of the outbreak of war it did not come to that. From 1939 to 1943 Cobb served in the Royal Air Force , and from 1943 to 1945 he was a cargo pilot with the British Air Transport Auxiliary . In 1947 he married Elizabeth Mitchell-Smith. After her death in 1948, he married Vera Victoria Henderson (1917–2007) in 1950.

He broke his own record in 1947 with 394.19 mph (634.39 km / h). The vehicle was now called Railton Mobil Special , had a device that kept the engines running when the three gears were changed, and completely newly developed tires came from Dunlop . The fact that Cobb did not tackle the 400-mile limit was due to heavy rains that soon set in; Even so, the record lasted longer than any other before. Then Mickey Thompson was faster for the first time on the salt slope , in 1960 on the Challenger I with 406 mph, but only in one direction - not a record. Craig Breedlove definitely succeeded in 1963, the land speed records have now been set by vehicles with jet engines . In 1965, Bob Summers took the title for wheel-drive vehicles with reciprocating engines from Cobb with the Goldenrod .

New challenge on the water

The success of the Railton Mobil Special depended on Napier Lion engines, a design from the First World War that was more than 30 years old at the time . In Cobb's newly chosen field of activity on the water, the propulsion system pointed to the future in a completely different way: a jet engine . If the American Stanley Sayres also held the record of 178.49 mph with the Slo-Mo-Shun IV , there was also the opportunity to surpass Malcolm Campbell, who in the last years of his life had been unsuccessful with his goblin-turbine- equipped Blubird boat would have. However, with a great deal of human and material commitment, John Cobb put himself under great pressure. When trying to Loch Ness the water speed record conceived with his by Reid Railton, Peter Du constructed Cane and Vosper & Company built Hydroplan Crusader set up, he crashed at a speed of about 200 mph (320 km / h). The boat equipped with a jet engine " de Havilland Ghost " had two outriggers with skids at the stern and a skid at the bow. It had already shown weaknesses during the tests: the sliding shoe attached to the front did not seem to have the necessary strength and deformed. Cobb therefore did not want to go beyond 190 mph and only just beat the existing record. Apparently, waves caused by the boat of the timekeeper were the reason for the accident.

Web links

Commons : John R. Cobb  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Cobb Dies as Boat Breaks Up at 200 MPH . In: The New York Times , September 30, 1952; on lesliefield.com
  2. speedace.info
  3. a b c d e f g David Tremayne: The Reluctant Hero - John Cobb . lesliefield.com
  4. ^ Scott AGM Crawford: Cobb, John Rhodes (1899-1952) . In: HCG Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Volume 12 . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, p. 262
  5. ^ SCH Davis: The John Cobb Story . GT Foulis & Co., London 1953
  6. a b c d Paul Clifton: The fastest men at the wheel. The history of the world speed records in automobiles , trans. by Günther Görtz. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1968, pp. 179–190 and 197–200 ( The fastest men on earth, New York 1964)
  7. Cobb Sets Record of 350.2 Miles; Awaits Auto Trial Today by Eyston, Whose Mark He Betters on Utah Salt Flats . In: The New York Times , September 16, 1938
  8. ^ Cobb's Speed ​​Car has Curved Spine; Ice Water to Cool Two Offset Engines . In: The New York Times , August 14, 1938
  9. Location of the driver's cab at the top of the car - photo on brooklandsarchives.co.uk
  10. ^ Paul Clifton: The fastest men at the wheel. Stuttgart 1968, p. 193 f.
  11. ^ A b Leo Villa, Kevin Desmond: John Cobb and the Crusader . lesliefield.com - Reprint from: The World Water Speed ​​Record , 1976
  12. Goliath is dead . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 1953 ( online ).