Given,
The speed of the family car, S1=50 miles/h
The speed of the sports car, S2=70 miles/h.
The family car left the starting position t=2 hours earlier.
So, the distance between the family car and the sports car when the sports car starts is,
[tex]\begin{gathered} D=S1\times t \\ =50\times2 \\ =100\text{ miles} \end{gathered}[/tex]The sports car has to overcome this 100 mile distance to overtake the family car.
The relative speed of sports car with respect to the family car is,
[tex]\begin{gathered} S_{rel}=S2-S1 \\ =70-50 \\ =20\text{ miles/h} \end{gathered}[/tex]So, the time taken by the sports car to overcome the family car is,
[tex]\begin{gathered} t=\frac{D}{S_{rel}} \\ t=\frac{100\text{ }}{20} \\ t=5\text{ h} \end{gathered}[/tex]Therefoe, the sports car takes 5h to overcome the family car.