Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-04-09
DE ROSTER HURRlES
TO MEET CHALLENGE
LAUGHS AT DERKUM'S IDEA OF
WINNING
Covers Hundred Dollar Bet for Match
Race at Coliseum Saucer Track
Sunday Afternoon and
is Confident

If Paul Derkum believes that he is
going to take Jake De Rosters meas
lure Sunday afternoon and win a hun
bred dollars of Jakes money, Jake
himself thinks entirely differently. He
has shown no hesitancy in covering
Derkums money, or at least should
have had his money down last night
If he carried out his plans. This mat
ter will be attended to by today at
the outside. So far as his losing his
money goes, he laughs at the idea, as
was to be expected, or that Derkum or
any one else riding at the Coliseum
saucer or on any other track IN the
country can beat him.
If there is one thing that De Roster
believes can't be done, it is that no
one can beat him in a match motor
cycle race, both men starting at
scratch. OF all the men he has ever
met he will reluctantly admit that
Derkum has given him as hard and as
fierce a battle as any man he has ever
raced in any portion of the country.
and he doubtless has come to realize
before this that the Pacific coast cham
pion will be one of the most dangerous
men whom he will ever have to go up
against in defending his title as worlds
champion. But he has so abiding a
faith in his own ability and in the ma
chine that he rides that he has con-
sistently risked the good opinion of
the local motorcycle riders by stead
lastly asserting that he is the class
of any motorcycle race that he goes
into.
What Derkum is basing his belief
upon-that he can defeat De Roster in
the match race of Sunday-has not
been revealed to his closest friends,
even to men in whom he ordinarily
i k1z,N L. tow
cannot remain long a doubt in any
ones mind if one will listen to Derkum
for five minutes while he tells it. Der
KUN is not given to foolhardiness and
has come pretty close to delivering the
goods every time that he has said that
he would, while the streak of yellow
that his enemies predicted of him when
the saucer track opened has never
shown by the faintest zephyr from the
crack of the first pistol that sent Der
KUN against De Roster. De Roster has
been his one objective. and he has re-
peatedly said that he would be able to
beat the Frenchman He has never Of
fered to wager a penny on himself or
induce any one else to do so until the
present time, and his sudden reversal
of policy by the issuance of a chal-
lenge to De Roster makes 1t look sus-
piciously like Derkum's having some
thing UP his sleeve that Jake knows
nothing about.
It has been known that two Reading
Standard racing machines were being
hurried to completion at the factory
and that they might be here by the
middle of this month. 1t is barely pos
sibe that these machines in fact have
arrived, or will be here by Sunday, and
that it is on this fact that Derkum is
pinning his faith.
Whatever Derkum has up his sleeve
it must be taken for granted that he
has something there, and the race will
undoubtedly prove to be the most ex-
citing by large odds of any event yet
seen at the Coliseum.
Derkum's friends will be out in force,
and that means a small army in itself,
to cheer him on to victory, and If he
succeeds in beating De Roster nothing
in Los Angeles will be good enough for
the local champion.