3 68 



RECREATION 



will start, and that more American makers will be 

 interested than ever have been in the past. 



At the last winning the cup went to France, and, 

 as racing goes, should have been contested for in 

 France this year. The French people have 

 returned it to Mr. Vanderbilt, however, because 

 they have withdrawn from roadracing. It is 

 asserted by French builders of cars that they have 

 learned all that is possible from sport of that kind 

 and that it is inadvisable for them to continue. It 

 is the private opinion of many builders of cars, and 

 many owners of cars, that the French makers, 

 having been successful for a long time, would far 

 rather retire on their laurels than continue with a 

 possibility that some day they will lose and thereby 

 forfeit a certain prestige which has attached to 

 their cars by reason of their past successes. 



But no matter what action the French makers 

 may have taken, the news of another race has been 

 received with a great deal of delight on this side of 

 the ocean, and there are reasons to believe that it 

 has strengthened the purpose of more than one 

 maker to continue developing his cars along lines 

 which he thinks will ultimately make them the 

 equals, or superiors, of all other cars which are 

 manufactured in the world. 



It has never been a trait of the American char- 

 acter to cease struggling to attain perfection in 

 whatever is mechanical. No matter how good a 

 foreign machine of any kind may have been, the 

 American builder has continued to perfect his own 

 until he has attained the foreign standard or sur- 

 passed it. This was in evidence in the bicycle, 

 once the greatest medium of sport throughout the 

 United States, and so far as determination is con- 

 cerned is as much in evidence in the construction 

 of motor cars. 



The Chicago automobile show, following closely 

 upon the double exhibition which took place in 

 New York, was another flattering success. Al- 

 though New York had been surfeited with auto- 

 mobile talk for a month, much of it being repro- 

 duced in Chicago through press despatches, the 

 people in that city were just as anxious to learn all 

 about the models of 1906 and the improvements 

 which had been made as were the people of the 

 Eastern metropolis. 



The result was an attendance which was far in 

 excess of what had been predicted three months 

 ago, and a general boom in everything which per- 

 tains to motor cars. 



A Western car builder, who has always been 

 prominent in the advancement of the interests of 

 the new vehicle, once asesrted that in his opinion 

 the motor car some day would be the salvation of 

 the West. " I am aware," said he, "that there was 

 a great deal of opposition to it in some quarters in 

 the first place, but it was the opposition which is 

 produced by innovations, not always fully under- 

 stood. Since the people of our section have become 

 acquainted with the automobile, and know many 

 of its possibilities, they are beginning to understand 

 that they are finally possessed of something which 

 shall enable them to make the long distances, 

 which we have to face day after day, with less 

 uncertainty than is the case with the horse, and 

 with more regularity than is the case with the 



steam railroad, because we lack so much of that 

 arrangement of suburban transportation which is 

 prevalent in the East. 



"We are not possessed, as a rule, of as good 

 roads as are to be found in the East. The intro- 

 duction of the motor car has shown our people the 

 necessity of good roads. Let automobiles become 

 more common, and the quagmires which have 

 been excuses for highways for so long in our sec- 

 tion of the land will be supplanted by firm turn- 

 pikes which will be of hard bottom and fair surface 

 the year around. That, of itself, would be worth 

 more to the West than almost any improvement 

 which could be suggested. If the automobile is the 

 prophet of better roads, then we shall all follow the 

 banner of the prophet gladly." 



Perhaps in connection with this conversation it 

 is of interest to say that automobile organizations 

 throughout the West are being tested as to their 

 willingness to co-operate in some feasible plan for 

 the improvement of the highways, and it may be 

 added that none has even intimated a possibility of 

 refusing. 



Much enthusiasm has developed for the motor 

 car in the Northwest, a territory in which the 

 advance of the automobile has not progressed so 

 rapidly as it has in some other sections of the 

 country, and yet one where the population would 

 benefit immensely. Think of being able to cover 

 some of those long stretches from ranch to ranch 

 in a machine capable of speed, instead of being 

 compelled to adhere to the slower-going horse, 

 which must be rested now and then unless his 

 owner is without heart. 



If there were good roads connecting the outlying 

 sections of Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wyoming and 

 Montana, that part of the United States would be 

 put in touch with civilization a day sooner were 

 there motor cars to carry people one way and the 

 other. 



Prefessional chauffeurs, who engage in track 

 competition, are very hard to discourage. Barney 

 Oldneld has had almost as many mishaps as any 

 driver who has been daring enough to enter com- 

 petitive races. Yet the other day he said: "lam 

 confident the public likes to witness contests of 

 that kind, and I am far from believing that the 

 sport is dead. There is an element of uncertainty 

 in it, added to the novelty of the thing, which is 

 very attractive to the spectator. It is my opinion 

 that there will be more track racing in years 

 to come. Perhaps special tracks will be built 

 for automobile racing. It would only be on 

 a par with the old chariot racing of Rome, 

 except the contests would be infinitely more inter- 

 esting, because of the added speed. So far as I am 

 concerned, I am ready to engage any time in the 

 sport and I have talked with other chauffeurs who 

 feel as I do." 



There must be some fascination to such drivers 

 as Oldneld and others, in contests of this character, 

 for Earl Kiser, who lost a leg in a track race last 

 year, expresses much the same opinion, and 

 admits that he would not only like to race again, 

 but sees no reason why he should not operate a car 

 as successfully as he ever did. 



The matter of track racing brings up the Florida 



