repaired. The race started as it was being refuelled, but then the car refused to start. So the starting field was only 17 – the smallest in the Le Mans race history.> Race Start As a change from recent years, the race-day was sunny and hot. Caracciola, at the head of the line, was away first. On lap 2, his first flying lap, he broke the lap record (with a 6m52s) and then turned off the supercharger. This allowed the hard-charging Birkin in his Blower Bentley to close in. W.O. Bentley preferred to let the privateer do the chasing, telling his drivers to look after their cars and wave him through. On the fourth lap, Birkin was on Caracciola's tail at the Pontlieue curves. Reaching 195 kp/h he got past the Mercedes as they braked heavily for the Mulsanne corner. Birkin did a 6m48s to set a new lap record, but on the next lap the tread came off a rear tyre and he had to pit. It took only half a minute to change the wheel, and then in only five laps Birkin was right behind the Mercedes. Just as he again overtook Caracciola on the Mulsanne Straight the tread on the other tyre let go. Although he dropped two wheels off the road, Birkin was able to complete the pass until the tyre blew at Arnage forcing him to pit yet again. Meanwhile, further back, de Rothschild had gone into the tight Arnage corner too fast and ploughed into the earth bank at speed. Able to reverse back out, he made it to pits where the crew verified the damage was not severe. The other Stutz had also had problems, with Brisson handling a misfiring engine at the start and then Rigal running off the road a couple of times, dislodging the exhaust pipe. The Lea-Francis lost time when it came to a stop about a kilometre from the pits. It took half an hour, but once Peacock cleaned the spark-plugs he was away again without further bother. Caracciola's next challenger was Sammy Davis in his works Bentley. Despite a stone thrown up and smashing his goggles he stayed on the German's tail to the first pitstops after 20 laps. Bloodied, he handed over to Clive Dunfee who only managed a half-lap when he buried it in a sandbank at Pontlieue. With no shovel on hand it took