Automobiles

An automobile race is about as exciting to watch as a game of checkers. There is in both sports the same repetition of mechanical maneuvers, the same low importance of what is known as "the human equation"; a long routine performance precedes, and a routine finish follows the one moment of decision or the shift of luck that will decide the result. But to drive in an automobile race is another matter, a sensation that many capable writers have described, never adequately--a sensation which is admittedly superior to that of jumping three kings in the double row; and as Driver Harry Hartz, at the wheel of a Miller car, swept round and round a new wooden bowl near Atlantic City, N. J., last week, he doubtless experienced that sensation to the full. The nerves, the stamina, the judgment of Mr. Hartz were no more important in that race than the eyesight of a checker-player. They were merely perfect; so were the judgment nerves, stamina of Peter de Paolo, of Robert McDonough, of Devore. But these drivers, each of whom held the lead at various times, dropped back because of a tire, a piece of melted soldering, a broken ignition wire. De Paolo, the champion, got engine trouble with only five laps to go; Mr. Hartz swept past him; the checkered flag went down. By driving 300 miles in 2 hr., 14 min., 14.18 sec., he had broken the world record by five minutes.

In Pendine, Carmarthenshire, England, J. G. Parry, Welsh driver, set out to break the world record for a single mile. The metal-colored machine, very low, amazingly light and narrow, leaped forward; almost at once it was apparent that something had gone wrong. "Parry is drunk," said one mechanic coolly; other spectators, not so cool, averted their eyes. For the car, going at an incredible speed, was veering, zigzagging. Not until it slowed up at the end of its course did the onlookers learn that the lubricating system had failed--that Driver Thomas has pumped oil with one hand, steered with the other, while he traveled a mile at a speed of 172 miles an hour--17 miles an hour faster than any other man has traveled on land before.