The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-04-11
HOLCOMb WILL TRY TO
BREAK WORLDS RECORD
VIII Make Transcontinental Trip
in an Endeavor to Lower
the Time.
NOW BUILDING a CAR
Is Fitting Up a Racing Automobile
in San Francisco-Will
Start in June.
NOW BUILDING A CAR

SAN FRANCISCO. April 10-Bert Hol-
comb. foremost among automobile long
distance road drivers. is preparing to lower
the transoontinental record in June. Hol-
comb is now fitting out a car which he will
drive from San Francisco 10 New York in
an attempt to beat the performance of Tom
Fetch and DR.. Jackson. Since it is well
known that trips of this kind are q lite as
much tests OF man endurance as of mechan-
ical excellence and perfection in motor car
construction. no little interest attaches to
the man who will fly across the country,
over mountains. through sage brush and
swollen prairie streams and over trails and
roads. good, bad and Indifferent
According TO present plans, Holcomh will
drive from San Francisco TO Chicago in day
runs. and from Chicago TO New York he
Will attempt, with Laurence Duffie, TO beat
the record for continuous running made in
September last. when the LIZ miles which
separate the two cities was covered in
seventy-six hours of total elapsed time and
hfty-four hours of actual running. Hol-
comb thinks that in duplicating this run,
being familiar with the road. he can save
much time. Il can make the run from
Chicago to New York in fifty hours, he
has said
To make this run Holcomb is having
slight changes made In a Columbian 10uI-
cylinder 3O-35 horsepower car Wheels a
couple OF inches higher in diameter TO
clear mountain road obstruction, ana d
set of high and low sproekets Will viii be be n nd
probably, as far west as Omaha. Inc car
will not be fitted with tonneau, but Will
carry tool box and camping outht OF
about the same weight
Holcomb is to-day, probably the most
daring road negotiator in the country. NO
chance is too great for Holcomb TO take
and night running means no more 10 MIN
than with the sun shining brightly. In
fact, HOlcomb believes he can make raster
time on the road nights than days, II the
highway is much travelled, for teams are
met with less frequently. Runs OF 80 10
500 miles he makes two or three times d
week, until he has become used TO the
force of the wind created by the nigh speed
and the changes attitudes make in the
temperature, which come with sudden
shocks hills are surmounted and de-
scended, and the unevenness OF the Nigh
way.
The stamina possessed by Holcomb-
shpwn in his Chicago-New York run and
again in the Pittsburg endurance run
burg-is remarkable. Picking up the car
in the last control of the Chicago record
run al Binghamton, he ran through TO New
York. with nine hours lost IN a tog ana
repairing a puncture, twenty hours in all,
with his energy sustained by single cup
of coffee at Kingston. Except to get out
and load gasoline aboard and attend 10
tire troubles, Holcomb never left the Wheel
in those twenty hours of Adirondack cold
and Jersey fiat fog. HOlcomb knew moth
ing of the French disease known as auto
mobilitis, the result of high speed, which
is said to create longing for more high
speed until the desire is as deep rooted as
the drink or drug habit. Holcomb gets on
a machine in his normal condition, without
feeling any i'll effects from long distance
and high-speed driving.
A bundle of nerves might describe him.
for Holcomb is not athletic, nor yet Is he
by any means weak. Fear is not known to
him, and there is no task he would not
undertake with confidence in his ability TO
perform it, That he will break all trans
continental records he confidently expects.
Every little flight of fancy of a gas en-
ciate they are heir to many-Holcomh
knows. The intonations of exhausts, the
singing of the spark the swish of the oil
bath and the signing of the water circula-
ony of the ensemble be disturbed and Hol-
combs trained realizes something is
wrong and locates it as a conductor would
| when any of the integral factors or a big
orchestra jange out of tune. That he is
| foremost among road drivers of high-pow-
cred cars is conceded.
George Sykes. a young millionaire motor
| list, who halls from Rockville is to follow
| the Boston motorist, Bostwick. who was the
| first to export an automobile abroad fol
| pleasure purposes. Sykes has purchased
a Columbia touring car of able proportions
| and is shortly to ship IL to Southampton
| He will tour England in the car, and will
| then cross the channel 10 the continent
| 1t is the idea of Sykes to repeat the trir
| and follow the itinerary so beautifully told
| in the charming story of European automo-
| bile travel, The Lightning Conductor"
| Whether Sykes will meet another such
| romance as the duke and place his Co
the duke did his Napier, time alone holds
| answer.