MOTOR CAR HURDLE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 97, 1 May 1913, Page 3

MOTOR CAR HURDLE.

Of all the courses on which motor years have raced in America,'there is none Which boasts the weird and wonderful hazard of the Imperial Valley highway, where Californians have just been ushering in the racing season of 1913.

• Every foot of the 210-mile course is below sea-level. Participation by no means implied submarining, however. On the contrary, there was far more hurdling and aeroplanillg by the daredevils who. entered. Always once, sometimes two or three times in each mile, 1 the otherwise fine road crosses an irrigation ditch on a cement culvert, eight feet wide ahd from one to eight feet above the level of the highway. Some of the grades leading to these culverts are very abrupt. When, with £IOOO in prize money watting, two 120-horse power Fiats, a Studebaker, two Nationals, a Cadillac, Buick “40,” Napier “Six” and a Ford cut loose at the irrigation culverts, .spectators beheld the first motor car hurdle race in history.

A string of cars would come rushing along at perhaps seventy miles an hour. Approaching a culvert the leading driver would throw out bis clutch, apply all brakes, skid a bid perhaps, and slow-down to !: about 35 miles. Just before the “take-off,” brakes would bo loosened and the car headed carefully for tho midde of the culvert. Up the incline, it would scoot and leap from, the top, all four wheels off the ground, and sometimes covering more than oO feet before landing with a thump. One by one, like sheep jumping a fence, the other cars would follow, by-standers cheering madly.

Of course the,strain, was terrific. Wrenched steering gear and broken springs were common. 1 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. Ono of the bunch with a hop, skip and jump, came tho little Studebaker racer, driven by Frank Good, and joined battle with Barney Oldfield, in the strife for first and second.

The strangely assorted pair raced together clear to tbp 'finish, with the rest of tho field nowhere in sight. Oldfield managed to -keep' the lead, thereby winning his first big. road race, after ■ many trials. ' iiit the finish was so close'that spectators say Barney came near tdssfng'his mechanic into the Studebaker car as they went over;the' last hurdle 1 both in the,air at thoi'sdme time. 1 -is '