Jinx Race

In November 1902 Barney Oldfield was a brisk young sport who had made a fair reputation as a bicycle racer and just got a job with Henry Ford. When Ford perfected the automobile named 999, which he thought might become the first in history to go a mile a minute, he set about to select a driver for a five-mile race. Barney Oldfield had never driven a car, only ridden in one twice, but he asked for a chance to drive it. After learning to drive in the morning, he won the race in the afternoon, covered a mile in 60 seconds. For the next 16 years his round, good-humored face, invariably accented by a cigar which he smoked at the angle of a steering-gear shaft, was a symbol for fast driving in an era when auto-racing rivalled baseball as the U. S. national sport. By the time he retired from racing in 1918, Barney Oldfield had held every dirt track record for distances up to 50 miles.

Fifty-five, fat, still recognizable by his cigar, Barney Oldfield last week engaged in his first race in 16 years, an absurd "Jinx Derby" to advertise the Chrysler exhibit at Chicago's Century of Progress, where Oldfield heads a staff of 20 exhibition drivers. Oldest car in the race was an 1896 Tallyho made by the Chicago Vehicle Co., which had not been moved for 34 years. Others in the field of 13 were an 1897 Stanley Steamer, a chain-drive International, a 1904 one-cylinder Cadillac, a rope-drive 1902 Holsman, a 1902 Lincoln truck-roadster, a 1907 Staver roadster with hard tires on its buggy wheels, a 1906 Model N Ford, a 1908 Maxwell driven to the Fair by its owner. The cars had been lent by the Fair pageant Wings of a Century. The race was run on Friday the 13th. Driving a 1904 Maxwell carrying No. 13, Barney Oldfield, whose real name (Berna Oldfield) has 13 letters, won by chugging seven times around a 1,300-ft. course at an average speed of 13 m.p.h.

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