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You need to remember that organisers often did not give specific information about the course for legal reasons.
It isn't quite right to say"when a similar event at Box Hill, Tring ended in near tragedy, and Parliament outlawed events on public roads".
There was no change of law. What happened was that the RAC stopped issuing Licences for such events. The problem was, and still is, that neither the Local Authority or the Police have the powers to suspend the Road Traffic Act. So a competitor could be liable for proscecution for speeding (in the '20s there was a blank 20 mph limit) and could be liable for civil damages if they injured someone. The RAC feared that they too could be included in a damages case as the had Licenced the event.
In the early days the risks were small as cars chugged up the hills but by the 1920s speeds had risen significantly and with them the dangers as evidenced by the accident at Kop (not Box) Hill.
Anyway, you can see why organisers might be vague or misleading so that a zealous Policeman couldn't calculate the winner's average speed..
As regards heights - have you studied the O.S maps -that what they would have had at the time. I imagine calcuations were made from contour lines.
RAP
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