The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1909-06-06
The Peculiar Eagle-Like Face of
Joseph Tracy
BY WILLIAM ALLEN JOHNSTON.
Has an automobile a personality

Joe tracy says 1t has; and racing automobile has
something more, something finer. he says You may
view 1T II you wish as delicate mechanism wonder.
fully strong, finely attuned; but it's more than a
mechanism. When YOU build il so fine Won mt some.
thing else into it and you feel that something und
grow to know it when You sit in its plungiug seat
and pound its nose down the racing course
1t has all the spirit Of the thoroughbred cerness
Hightlness. courage; and it has also the thorough
breds whimscalies, eccentricites fits OF depression
What is II after all but thing with highly strung,
human, nervous system? ''Two racing cars wers
never alike says Tracy, ''in temperament and char
acter. They differ just as humans differ. And why7
Because different made them.
Show racing car. give me look at it's en-
Gine, and Ill tell You the kind of who built it.
Because he put himself into it, that s why
Take the car drove in the 1906 Vanderbilt race
I "a Locomohe, 110 horsepower. Every bit of steel
and metal that went into her ! got to know |
know myself. ] saw her building bit by bit day by
day; tested measured placed every part with my
own hands. When she finished and the spark Of
life was put INTO her and got grip the steering
wheel why, could feel my muscles in her There
was the same sympathetic, intimate relationship be-
tween that between a Jockey and the thorough.
bred he brings in winner.
''The steering wheel is the pulse of your car You
feel her breathe, feel her gather for leap feel
her strain and worry and exut The exhaust is the
mouthpiece-purriug, talking barking, screaming.
Listen We cumming along a silent moon
IT, highway and Tracy bent forward with a smile
9 Hear her TALK She's going up an incline now and
she s telling us all about it. ! on don't notice the
grade, it 5 too slight to be But she feels it and
she bresthes a little harder. Just YOU would
sharp, sputteriug protest interrupted the regular
breathing and Tracy made quick movement with
his fingers, Hear her scold then? Know what she
said' Well, she 5 talking straight at me now
g Give me bit Of gas, old chap she says. and
give it quickly can breathe without it--I'm pant.
inG-thcre, thanks! All right now - And the even
breathing continued.
Very Human View.
'She feels iust as YOU do, explained Tracy So
rcusly, when YOU running and your wind is
shut of. Why after all her lungs are lust like ours
They need oxygen. That S their spark of life too -
man of medium stature is Tracy, quiet. spoken
imperturbable, methodical in action. lie gives Won
at first the impression of the student the Office man
till you notice his heavy, strong hands. his quick
way of saying 'Yes Ycs,i'-and till YOU see
his face a-light and study it.
It is the face of racing automobilist You could
pick Tracy out of crowd of one hundred men stand
ing about car and know in flash that he and only
he is the man who will pilot it through the deadly
terrific whirlwind Of an automobile race.
1T is new type of face. II pleases TO think
that this demoniac speed has given it its remarkable
aud unusual lines of character Just those heavy
hands have been peculiarly developed. They show the
strain Of the wheel, the face the tension OF that pro
jccte-like drive.
Proiectile, That's the word A man s face takes
on the character of his calling. the if that
calling is almost demonac in spirit So there s
thing OF the projectile about Tracv's face.
The stands out straight and prominent and
rugged but fierce. And conrariwise the lines of
mouth downward and back TO the square jaws There
grimness there and grit, determination, not rugged
but fierce And contrariwise, the lines Of the
clned upward just little, but enough to give you
that proiecte conception Of the entire face with that
prominent central feature.
The eyes7 Well Kipling tells of that kind bav
ing 'the broodng sheathed glance of eagles and aero
nauts,' and again. "that fathomless abstraction Of
eyes habituay turned through naked space There
is nothing left TO say that YOU read in them
the power Of instantaneous decision, They eyes
which. looking straight ahead into dozen chances
of death would pick the right out though
a desperate one quickly the fash of electric
spark.
You may not be interested in Tracy personally but
il you want real conception of Just what automobile
rncing is you must study bis face 1t gives you the
effect The best thing is to have bit of the real
experience.
ttYou'd better try it, said Tracy day ''You
can u Judge Of it otherwise So motored over TO
Long Island in big red ninety horsepower Italia aud