From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: The Great Race (was: Now-famous actors in roles before ...)
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 09:04:21 GMT

> But: I saw Peter Falk the other night in _The Great Race_, wherein Tony
> Curtis plays a Tom Slick-type race car driver in an around the world car
> race against some evil guy who tries out lots of tricks to win ...

I don't think this is really the sort of thing that was meant.  Falk's
part as Max is hardly a tiny one, and even if he'd only played bit parts
before [I don't know whether that's the case or not], he must have garnered
some attention for it.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say was that The Great Race was inspired
by an *actual* car race from New York to Paris, which was held in 1908.
Naturally, the movie's story bears little relation to the actual race,
but it *is* true that there were six cars entered.  Oh, and someone
did try to use carrier pigeons to send back messages -- but when
he tried releasing one, it was eaten.

If you'd like to read the story of what really happened in 1908, then
look for Dermot Cole's 1991 book about it, "Hard Driving" (Paragon,
New York, ISBN 1-55778-360-8).

If you just want to know the results, read on.

The official winner was a Thomas Flyer made in Buffalo and driven
primarily by George Schuster (1873-1972).  The car is now on display
in Harrah's auto museum in Reno, together with the trophy.

The race started from New York on February 12, 1908, and the original
plan was that the contestants would drive to San Francisco, then put
their cars on a boat for Valdez and continue across the frozen ground
to Nome.  The Thomas Flyer team reached Valdez but reported back that
the plan was utterly impracticable, and returned to the south.
It was decided that the race would instead continue from Vladivostok,
and that 15 days would be subtracted from the Flyer's time because
of the side trip.  They actually reached Paris on July 30, and thus
notionally on July 15.

Arriving in Paris first on July 26 was a Protos, from Germany;
this car is now on exhibit at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
The car broke down several times in Utah and its crew finally
decided to have it shipped by train to Seattle, for which they
were not disqualified but only penalized 15 days; thus their
notional arrival date was August 10.  This was still good enough
for second place, and in Germany it was treated as the winner.

In third place was a Zust, from Italy, arriving on September 18.
The other three entrants, all French, failed to finish.  The
De Dion was withdrawn by its owner on arrival at Vladivostok;
the Motobloc was shipped by train from Denver to San Francisco
after breaking down, and was disqualified for this; and the
Sizaire-Naudin broke down and withdrew just 96 miles from the
start.

There was also an unofficial 7th entrant, a Werner, which left
New York on February 11 and arrived in Seattle 2 months later.
The crew managed to keep it secret for a few days that they'd
shipped the car by train from Ohio to Oregon...
-- 
Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto		"Push the button, Max!"
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com	

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