AN AMERICAN RACE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 78, 28 September 1907, Page 13

AN AMERICAN RACE.

CAR RITXS AMOK. ' j Americans generally are keen automobilists, and nowhere probably was the report of tho great ride- from Pckin to Paris,' read with greater interest than in Ncay York. This fact gives point to tho criticism the New York correspondent of the i London Daily Telegraph - heard of the j twenty-four hour endurance race. j The public were induced to tbrcng ■ the track by announcements that tho '•Most daredevil riders in the world .would risk Iheir necks" to win, and that anybody who "values nerve thrills" could not afford to bs absent. Tho result was a great attendance, many people sitting up all night in tho hope ' of , seeing something sensational. They- got whal» they came for, because at .three a.m. yesterday a car running at 45 miles an hour lost a wheel, left the course, smashed through the fence, and lan into' the spectators. Men auu boys were tossed aside lilt© ninepins, and the car cam© to a stop sixty feet away from tho track. Paying no attention to tho injured persons, tho driver and his mechanic bet to work to repair tho dar, but the injured were /not neglected. The management of the race had foreseen such accidents, and had propaisd an emergency field hospital, which was kept busy throughout the twenty-four hours. ' "There wpro several accidents, and several machines were smashed, but nobody was killed, and, fortunate ly, only a dozen were injured. It was tho announcement on the previous evening that a big car engaged in "tuning up" on the track for tho great race had run amok,- charged a fence, and mutilated two occupants' which first gave sensation-loving propie the idea that "tho groat AutoDerby," as ifc wa3 christened, "the world's greatest congress of untamed and untamoablo chauffeurs," might bo well worth seeing. Automobiling is a great national industry, and of growimportance, it is admitted, but sauo Americans are protesting against contfests which may become a3 degrading as bull-fights, and not nearly so picturesque.