Monday, Sep. 12, 1938

Rodeo

At the tenth annual National Air Races in Cleveland last week end for prizes handsome enough to cover the cost of a racing plane and a decent burial, the speed-mad fringe of U. S. aviation whistled up a great sound and fury. When it was all over, the pockets of Cleveland Promoters Cliff and Phil Henderson were again lined, only one flier had been killed,/- and the whinny of ships racing against borrowed time had proved that aviation still has plenty of broncos.

Only event to prove much else was the Bendix transcontinental race--Los Angeles to Cleveland, then on to Bendix (N. J.) Airport. Pert, blonde Jacqueline Cochran, only woman entrant in the field of ten, flew in first and fastest to win $12,500 and demonstrate Designer Alexander de Seversky's 3,000-mile-range pursuit ship.

Wife of Financier Floyd Odium, Winner Cochran covets the mantle of the late Amelia Earhart more than she does prize money. But when told she had clinched the race and the $12,500, she cried: "Goody, goody!" But the race a Labor Day throng of 300,000 jammed the airport environs to watch was the Thompson Trophy free-for-all, 300 miles around pylons. Hottest shots in the field of eight were flashy Colonel Roscoe Turner, 1934 winner and unscathed veteran of six Thompson competitions; and his reckless young San Diego rival, towheaded Earl Ortman. At 100 miles they had lapped all the field but one. Then Ortman's motor sputtered, slowed him up, and Turner won with an average of 283 m. p. h. Happy over the prospect of $18,000 first money and a bonus of $4,000 for breaking the course record (264 m.p.h.), Turner attributed his good luck to the godspeed of two old ladies whose prayer book he had auto graphed before the race.

/-in a qualifying flight Los Angeles Racer Russell Chambers crashed in a vegetable garden, was fatally injured

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