MOTOR CAR HURDLE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144082, 29 April 1913, Page 5

MOTOR CAR HURDLE.

Of all tho ..courses on which motor cars have raced in America, there is none which boasts the weird and wonderful hazard of tho I mperial. Valley highway, whore Californians have just been ushering in the racing sensed of 1913. • Every foot of the 210-mile cpdrse, is below era-level.' 1 Participation by no 'moans implied’ submarining, however. On the c-ntrary, there was far, more hurdling and aeropjaning by the daredevils wno entered. . , • Always onee. sometimes tiyoor three times' in each mile, the otherwise (find .road crosses an irrigation: ditch on a cement culvert, eight feet wide l and from one to eight feet above the level of the highway. Some of the grades leading ■■ to these culverts are -(very abrupt.: i . , ‘ ;Wmai. with £]ooo in prize money waiting, two 120-horse power Fiats, a fttudobaker. two Nationals n : Cadillac, Euick ‘'4o,"' Napier “Six’! and a Fofd out loose at too irrigation culverts,: spectators behold ’the first motor car hurdle race in history.

A string-of cars would come lushing along at perhaps seventy miles an hour. Approaching a culvert theicading driver would throw out his clutch, apply all brakes, skid a bit perhaps, and slow down to about 35 miles. Jijst before tho, “take-off,” brakes would bo loosened and the car headed carefully for the middle of .tho culvert. Up the incline it would scoot and leap from the top, all four wheels off thq ground, and sometimes covering more than 50 feet before landing with a thump. One by one, like sheep jumping a fence, the other cars would follow', bystanders cheering madly. ■ ■■ ' Of course the strain was terrific. "Wrenched steering gear and broken springs were common. Car after car dropped out for repairs, the list including Teddy Tetzlaff and the Juggernaut in' which he set the world’s road record .last year at Santa Monica. Out of the .bunch with a, hpi>, skip and j min), came the' little Studebakcr racer, driven by Prank Good, and joined battle with Barney Oldfield, in the strife for first and second. . :

The strangely assorted pair raced together clear to the finish, with the rest of the field nowhere in sight. Oldfield managed to keep the lead, thereby winning his first" big road race, after many ‘trials. But the finish was so close that spectators say Barney came near tossing his mechanic into the Studebaker car ns they went over the last hurdle both in the air at .the same time.