Los Angeles herald., 1909-11-21
HOW ALCO'S LAP
FAILED TO TALLY
IN BIG CUP RACE
SCORERS MISSED eleventh
TRIP AROUND COURSE
WONDERFUL WORK OF GRANT ON
STOCK MACHINE
Grants official Time Was 62.8 Miles
Per Hour, and Alec Was Running
Better in Last Laps of
the Course

Exactly how it was discovered that
the scorer of the Vanderbilt cup race
had failed to tally the eleventh lap for
Grant and the steps taken leading 10
the correction of the error has not as
yet been told, although the thousands
in the stand at the finish line clamOred
for the information; and the story IN
detail of what happened as told by
Arthur Jervis, advertising manager OF
the American Locomotive company
who made the fight for the correction
of the error, is highly interesting ana
throws some light on the conduct OF
the race The fifth Vanderbilt cup
race was the first one in which no an
nouncements whatever were made 10
the spectators in the grand stand. very
little information was ODtalnaDle uy /
those in the press stand, and there was
no announcement that an error IN the
scoring had been made, or OF cIal"
by the Alec people of such error. 1heIg,
fore those in the press stand as wen
as those in the grand stand were iSIe
in utter ignorance Of the true couEsS
of the race, and naturally were DUMP
founded to see Starter Wagner wave |
the checked flag in front of Grant, VINO |
had not been given the green nag m
dicating that he had one more zap 70
go, and when he was, according 10 az
the official scores az the END OF ms
twenty-frst lap. In fact, some Were
Indignant at what they thought was |
Injustice to Parker and the Fiat. The
consequent confusion resulted, II Is
claimed in the loss Of considerable OF
the glory that was properly Que Ihe
Alco car and Grant because in some of
the early accounts of the race IL was
made to appear that Grant had been
made a present Of an unearned lap.
The story of Arthur Jeryis, who was In
the pit in charge of the racing crew
during the race, is as follows;
I'VE were keeping our own score IN
the pit, of course, and at the end OF
each lap were holding up blackboard
for Grant to see, on which was written
the number of the lap he was then
completing and the time in minutes
that he was behind the leader. In the
adjoining pit, occupied by the repre-
sentatives of the American car, which
did not start were Willie Haupt and
his brother, j.. w. Haupt. They were
keeping an entirely independent score
and timing each car by the watch OF
e. w. Haupt, who has done this at all
the big road races of the season and IS
expert at it, His time was invariably
within a few seconds of the official
time, and [ was taking his figures and
using them in giving the signals to
Grant. The fact that the official score
board did not have Grants score ad-
vanced as far as Knippers and Park
ers did not raise any immediate sus-
picion in my mind. because these score
boards were notorlously in confusion
the race. The first intima-
ton | had that Grant had been over
looked on one round was when l heard
Peter Prunty, the announcer, giving
the time for Knippers fourteenth lap
and simultaneously Grants time for
the thirteenth lap. I at once called to
Prunty, asking for Grants time on the
lap. Prunty shook his head
indicating that he could not
give it to me. l then asked him on what
lap Grant then was. He replied the
fourteenth lap. We knew that he was
on the fifteenth lap. ! asked Prunty to
find out from the scorers on what lap
Grant was He asked them, and told
me again the fourteenth. l called to
some of the men in the press stand and
asked them on what lap Grant was
running. Most of them replied the four
teenth. but one man called out that
the official score said he was on the
fourteenth, while ne was really on the