Racing car

“ In less time than it takes to write we saw that it was an enormous racing automobile, probably undergoing a test of speed. We were running at our own highest pace, perhaps forty-five miles an hour; the thing approaching us was coming at seventy or more. You may imagine the rush of air as we passed each other. One glimpse we had of a masked automobilist like a figure of death in an Albert Dürer cartoon, or the familiar of a Vehmgericht, and then we were gasping in the vortex of air caused by the speed of the gigantic car. ”

“ Since the days of Roman chariot racing the records of man describe nothing that parallels automobile racing, and, so far as we have any knowledge, chariot racing, save for the plaudits of vast throngs of spectators, was tame and uneventful compared with the frightful pace of sixty and eighty miles an hour in a throbbing, bounding, careering road locomotive, over roads practically unknown, passing persons, teams, vehicles, cattle, obstacles, and obstructions of all kinds, with a thousand hair-breadth escapes from wreck and destruction. ”

“ In the hands of experts, the foreign racing-cars are the most perfect road locomotives yet devised; for touring over American roads in the hands of the amateur they are worse than useless; and even experts have great difficulty in running week in and week out without serious breaks and delays. To use a slang phrase, "They will not stand the racket." However "stunning" they look on asphalt and macadam with their low, rakish bodies, resplendent in red and polished brass, on country roads they are very frequently failures. ”

“ But in the beginning there was hardly any one who sensed that the automobile could be a large factor in industry. The most optimistic hoped only for a development akin to that of the bicycle. When it was found that an automobile really could go and several makers started to put out cars, the immediate query was as to which would go fastest. It was a curious but natural development—that racing idea. I never thought anything of racing, but the public refused to consider the automobile in any light other than as a fast toy. ”

“ Ditn't you beat oudt a Limidet Egspress Drain mit a modorcycle? Und hain't you peen racing pubbles efer since ve left Ash Fork?"
"All that hasn't given me a racing record. When a manufacturer puts a twenty-thousand-dollar racing-car in the field, he wants to be more than sure that his driver has plenty of nerve and skill. About the only way he can be sure of that is by looking back over his record and seeing what he has done."
"Vell, let dem look pack so far as dey blease ofer your recordt. Dey vill findt some surbrises, you bed you."
"The race for the Borden cup is only two weeks off, Carl. ”

“ This is me, and my new racing car—the one I'm going to race with at home
don't tell Dad until the day of the race as I want to surprise him.—Bob.
This is me
over
"Are you sure my son is going to drive that car?"
"Of course—it's the same car that was on display last night in the park."
"God! That car will never finish the race—"
The A-1-⁠HANK ARMSTRONG⁠LIVERY
"So—even you—you failed me—"
While the rest of Maple City slumbered one man walked in a trance——crushed by the thought he had killed his own son. ”

“ And suddenly, as the racing engine of an automobile caught his ear, he broke into a run, and dashed around the corner after them—in time to see them jump into a car, and the car speed off along the street! ”

“ Even with the aid of racing, however, the development of the motor-car has been a matter of slow growth, and by many new recruits to the pastime it may be learned with surprise that a competition was held in France so long ago as 1894, from Paris to Rouen, when the cars of Panhard et Levassor and Peugeot Freres shared the leading honours, with motors of 31/2 h.-p. The times are not recorded. It was not until June 1895, however, that the foundation of a series of classic events was laid by a race from Paris to Bordeaux and back, 732 miles, when a 31/2-h.-p. ”

“ There have been many meets since Rheims, some international, some of local importance; indeed almost every citizen of a civilised country has had a chance to attend some one of them without too great a journey, but what I have said of one meet is true to some degree of all: that racing and contests in general, especially between different makes of machines, is of the greatest use to the development of the aeroplane, just as competition among automobile manufacturers, in putting out racing machines, helped the development of that vehicle. ”

“ The modern race-horse is merely a racing machine, a racing machine very much as a Herreshoff yacht is. The contrast between this racing machine and a Denmark, a Morgan, or even an ordinary trotter is too great, and good results from the crossing of the strains is hardly to be expected; but the tendency is all towards greater speed for shorter journeys, and it will doubtless continue until the men who encourage and insist on the new style of racing bring racing under the ban of the law. ”

“ Under the conditions that obtained in the old days the competitive element entered into it in the rivalry of the various manufacturers, for they entered in the hope that they could beat their rivals, but the purpose of the race was to prove to the general public that a motor car would go, and was capable of covering long distances in a speedy and reliable manner ”

“ Many were present because of a direct interest in the contests in one way or another and would remain until all was over. Racing drivers and the builders of their cars, automobile salesmen, tire men, newspaper men from many cities—motoring enthusiasts of a score of sorts and a hundred degrees of significance, from the young fellow who expected to own a runabout some day to the engineer who designed and would drive the most popular machine in the heavy car race—they were on the streets, in the hotels, thronging everywhere. ”

“ Two of the requirements for entering the race were that the car had to be made in the school shops and that it must have a certain kind of a wheel, which in this case was one condemned by a local factory, thus making the wheels and wheel base of all cars alike. Two boys to a car constituted a racing team, and during the race they could exchange positions at their pleasure. The necessity of "nursing" their cars down the steep grades and around difficult corners developed into an important factor. ”

“ Dozens of the racers owned their own cars, and others raced at their own expense. New cars were built for every race, each new car making a big advance over former cars. Cars were not ready until the very last minute before the race, and in consequence none was particularly handicapped. In each event were lines of untried cars formed up to test their capabilities over hundreds of miles of unknown road. ”

“ There is no doubt but that in flying the higher faculties are called into play. No such elaborate preparation is necessary for learning to drive an automobile, but some instruction is usually found necessary when learning how to balance a bicycle for the first time and until confidence is secured, as is also the case in learning to swim. A good chauffeur does not necessarily make a good aviator even though he have exceptional ability as a driver of racing automobiles, although I think that an aviator might make a good driver of a racing automobile. ”

“ In France, where the possibilities—commercial and practical—of the small car were first foreseen, the great motor race of the year, the Grand Prix of the Automobile Club de France, is now preceded by a Grand Prix des Voiturettes, and the result of the 1908 contest is a striking illustration of the speed and reliability of which some of these little vehicles are capable. ”

“ A boulder now and then or rough ledge cropping across the road would tilt the old lady at an uncomfortable angle. Heights and climbs over dangerous switchbacks had become commonplaces of travel by now, and we had gained confidence from learning the tremendous flexibility of which a motor car is capable. We were willing, without taking credit for extraordinary courage, to undertake almost any road wide enough for our tracks. People who confine their driving to perfect boulevards and city roads have no idea of the exhilarating game motoring really is. ”

“ Under the new rules the winner will really be able to boast that he has been running the best car. All the roads have been carefully prepared and tarred, and sharp corners have, as far as possible, been rounded off. No portion of the route having been neutralized, it seems certain the the present race will give the most rapid speed records of any that have been run. Already in the trial trips most of the cars have covered the circuit in about and hour in spite of the encumbrances on the road. ”

“ The sport may not be pretty and graceful; it lacks the sanction of convention, the halo of tradition. It does not admit of smart gowns and gay trappings; it is the last product of a mechanical age, the triumph of mechanical ingenuity, the harnessing of mechanical forces for pleasure instead of profit,—the automobile is the mechanical horse, and, while not as graceful, is infinitely more powerful, capricious, and dangerous than the ancient beast. ”

“ Altogether the motorcar must revolutionise our social life in the country, and let us hope before long will lead to the bettering of our cross-country roads. The horse, poor beast, has never been able to tell us what he endures from bad roads, and the pace of a horsedrawn vehicle has been too slow for even the springs to suffer much; but if you get into a motor-car going five-and-twenty miles an hour over a road which you have hitherto deemed good, the engine and car will very soon tell you the difference between what the road surveyor's work has been and what it ought to be. ”

“ The car, he saw with the experienced eye of a connoisseur, was a recent model of one of the most expensive and popular foreign makes: built on lines that promised a deal in the way of speed, and furnished with engines that were pregnant with multiplied horse-power: all in all not the style of car one would expect to find controlled by a solitary woman, especially after ten of a summer's night. ”

“ What if your engine is barely capable of forty miles an hour, that miraculously fast stretch magically carries you at the easiest fifty. If you have a big powerful engine, you forget that ordinarily you dislike whizzing across the surface of the earth, and for just this once—even though you think of it more in terror than in joy—you are approaching the raceway of America, and you, too, are going to race!
“We must be sure that everything is in perfect running order,” you exclaim excitedly as you picture your car leaping out of Omaha and shooting to Denver while scarcely turning over its engine. ”

“ The Automobile Club of France, for which we have selected the abbreviation 'A. C. F.,' resolved to organise a race from Paris to Marseilles and back for September 24, 1896. This course, 1,061 miles in length, could certainly have been covered in a single trip by machines with relays of men; but the incontestable danger which a night run at full speed involves, led the committee to adopt the principle, which has since been followed, of a test by stages, so regulated that vehicles shall not be obliged to run by night save in cases of long delays due to breakdowns on the road. ”

“ The driver of the motor should then talk soothingly to the horse, and the groom should also encourage it as much as possible. The horse will follow with his eyes the movements of the car, and, as a rule, in a little while will allow it to be driven close by without any further signs of fear. The horse should then be harnessed and taken out on the road, the motor-car driven out to meet it, and sent a number of times past it until the animal takes little or no notice. ”

“ Next to the engine itself the construction of the transmission gear is the most important thing about an autocar; for as this portion of the machine is the medium through which the power is conveyed from the engine to the wheels, it does not require an intimate knowledge of mechanics to perceive that bad design and undue friction here may make a very material difference in the running and speed of the car. ”

“ On level surfaces the engine rests on the large wheels, which revolve in contact with the rails of the ordinary track, and it then runs with great speed, while the auxiliary wheels revolve to no purpose. On reaching an ascent, on the contrary, the engine meets with an elevated track external or internal to the ordinary one, and which engages with the auxiliary wheels. The large wheels are then lifted off the ordinary track and revolve to no purpose. In both cases, the engine is placed under conditions as advantageous as are those that are built especially for the two types of roads. ”

“ Whereas in the under-powered car the temptation to rush down-hill came on one as a relief from the monotony of grinding and groaning up-hill, and consequently up-hills were dreaded and down-hills welcomed, with the high-powered modern car one pines for up-hills on account of the pleasure of annihilating them, and having arrived at the top the car is allowed to meander leisurely down the other side. Horses, bicycles, railway trains go slowly on up-grades. The modern motor appears to disregard the laws of gravity and to fly up-hill. ”

“ To classify as a special interest car it should be distinguished either by unusual body style, an engineering innovation or some other marked difference from the routine production of its day. A few of the special interest cars to be found in the PIONEER AUTO MUSEUM are shown here.
ROONEY RACER
The Mickey Rooney Racer was built especially for use in the movie “The Big Wheel.” It is powered by a motorcycle engine mounted in the rear. The car, bought in California, traveled cross country in its own tailor-made car top carrier. ”