The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1908-11-27
TERRIFIC PACE
SET BY AUTOS
WHlzzERs RUN e5.s MILES AN
HOUR FOR 4o2 MILES.
THROUGH sun AND FOG
Race the Most Sensational and Darinu
That Has Ever Been Attempted in
United states-Desperate Efforts Of
the Drivers 20 Gain First Place.

SAVANNAH, Ga. Nov. 26.-A Fiat
car sent through changing fog and
sunshine over 402 miles Of roadway
by the experienced hand Of Louis
Wagner, today won the most spectac.
ular, the longest and fastest 1nterna-
tional automobile race ever held in
this country. Fate played a game of
hide and seek with three grim and
grimy hooded figures that sat behind
steering wheels and throttles and
fought with skill and daring for an
advantage of seconds at the finish of
the more than six-hours of driving,
through the sitting fumes Of burning
oil, into storms Of sand, and gravel at
risk of life and limb, for the hon
Or of a trophy cup and a purse of
gold. gt
The three drivers who chung to-
gether from the very start were shut
fed about like SO many cards as the
flying laps were reeled away. For a
time there was a fourth figure in the
leading column, but when little more
than a minute separated the first from
the last of the cars in the whfrring
quartette, a caprice of fortune sent
one pitching from the road. Out Of
the mass Of wreckage Fritz Erie, who
had been driving the German Benz
No. 10, was taken with a broken nose
and a broken jaw. Still the struggle
continued and it was not until the last
minute Of the last lap, that the tide
Of victory turned toward Wagner.
Wagner drove a remarkably steady
C He stopped several times for
supplies and once seemed to he in Sc
rious trouble right in front Of the
grand stand. Something was wrong
beneath the car and down under the
maze of cranks and wheels the me-
chanician plunged. In a jify he was
through. Wagner meantime had been
pouring gasoline into one tank with
his right hand and ulbricating oil into
another with his left. 1t was this de-
lay that took Wagner out OF the lead
in twelve Of the 16 laps Of the race
and gave it to Navarro, whose trou-
bles came later. The fact that a car
of his wi team won the race, was
little comfort to Nazzaro.
In winning this first grand prize
race Of the automobile club Of Amer
lea. Wagner set a new record for rae
ing in this country. George Robert
son, in the Vanderbilt cup race Of z58
miles last month, set the mark at 64.3
miles an hour. Today in the longer
distance Of 4O2 miles, Wagner raised
it to 65.5. He averaged % minutes to
each of the 16 laps that measured
25.13 miles.
The best opinion of the racing ex.
perts last night agreed that the race
would lie between Wagner, Emery
and Navarro but this trio of daring
drivers had to look sharply to their
laurels, for after the winner and
placed men had been hailed, a new
hero sprang forward. Rene Henriot,
had raced into fourth place when his
team mate was disabled in the acct.
dent on White Bluff road, but after
the leading trio had finished and the
usual lapse of time should have
brought his white car humming into
view, Henriot was not there to be
Suddenly without blast of trum.
pet or wave of flag he was discovered
in Benz No. Is gliding noiselessly
down the roadway not a hundred
yards from the finish tape. The fuel
in the tanks had all been burned part
way up the stretch and the engine
silent and dead. Henriot and
his mechanician with waving hands
and forward jerking of their bodies
were working desperately to sustain
the dying impetus Of the car long
enough to reach the judges stand. Oc-
c%asionally the mechanician would
reach down and give the heavy tires a
push Of two.
Within 20 yards of the line it seem
ed that the battle was lost, but in the
last expiring gap Of the exhausted
machine, the rear wheels cleared the
tape and fourth place had been won
for Germany.
Harvest sent his Clement Bayard
car into fifth place. Louis strang,
the young American, was sixth with
his Renault No. 16. Rigal Of the Glenn
ent team, finished seventh, Depalma
Of the Fiat No. 8, eighth and Fourier
of the italian ninth. When these cars
had crossed the line the race was off
cially declared at an end.