Edwin Balmer

“ OTHER cars leaped out from the woods down in the other direction, caromed up from the road in their bursts of dust and burnt-oil haze. But those girls glanced toward them only if they seemed to be gaining; each time the man with the megaphone raised his great horn to his lips to announce the time of a lap, the cause of a car stopping or a disaster, both looked again to the point at which No. 8 had vanished, or, if it was nearly time for the car to be around again, they stared to the opening in the trees on the other side where the car would first appear. ”

“ Give him oil, gas, and water!" I heard the frantic reminder from the girl on my right to the men screwing on three tires at once. "Give him oil and gas so he won't have to stop again, and get him away!" Car No. 6, which he had passed by wearing it down second by second in each lap, spun by Hinman in the pits and dashed triumphantly on. "Let him get away and—after them!"
"Oh, don't let him start again now! It's almost over and he's too far behind. He'll kill himself if he tries to catch them now!" ”

“ He had run without a stop, and there were but two laps left as No. 8 burst from the trees and crossed the timing mark for his fastest lap.
"Drive carefully! Oh, you can save yourself, and you're second now! You can't catch the other! You'll only kill yourself!" I heard the protest from my left first this time; but then I got the other's admonition. "Go on now! Go on and you can beat him! He hasn't stopped yet, so he'll have to! For oil anyway. Now's when he'll have to stop! Go on, and you can beat him!"
Hinman was around the turn away from us. ”