Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-06
THE RUBBISH
CLASSIFICATION
OF AUTO DRIVERS
PLAIN, INDlSPUTABLE FACTS
CONCERNING FAST MEN
SPACE WRITER'S OF EAST FIGURE
RIDICULOUS STANDINGS
Pacific Coast but Coming from Sleep
lng Cemetery of Dead and Awak-
ening to Racing Game
as Business
RY ID. w. SENIPLE

the driving capacities of the young
men who have adapted themselves TO
the finer qualities of the automobile,
and who have adopted the racing car
as their profession in life, nothing can
be more amusing than the humbug
stuff sent broadcast over the land
from the pens of those who sit and
dole out automobile "dope" at SO much
per column.
some one of those wise gentlemen
who deal in space" rates took long
breath the other day way back east
and an additional yawn, wondering 1is
what he would tackle next, and lit
upon the classification of the racing
drivers of the United States. With
the wisdom OF a Solomon he did man
age to assemble the finest array OF
superheated atmosphere that has prob
ably ever been doled out to unsus-
pecting and unsophisticated news
papers which profess 10 zeal With\du-
tomobile news.
Automobile racing drivers, like other
experts In the world, are born. Prac-
tice. added to that fact, makes the ac-
plished handler of q wild ana tast
racing machine. II the man VINO sits
and guides his machine, though ne
possess all the knowledge in the world
OF cars and their parts, has not the
head on him-the brains which, with
exporience. gives him skill-he never
will be q racing driver this side OF
time, and 1t is the fairness of The Her
AIDS criticism that draws to 1t the re-
spect it is receiving, not only at home'
but Is being quoted in all OF the larg-
est papers of the country, Wnlch de
vote columns and pages to affairs OF
the automobile world. Sometimes this
criticism may be looked upon as Sc
we're. but the public is interested In
driving today as much as they ever
were in the racing of horses, with the
additional charm that there Is no
booIrnaking nor gambling on auto
mobile racing. The sport Is clean'
healthful skillful and brings out every
latent energy and brain power the
referring to the space writer's"
again, and The Herald takes Issue
fairly with them. 1t was oniy tfa Iase
week that Bert Dngley, California
product. too, by the way, was placed
at the head of all automobile drivers
of the country. iii,
of Bert Dingley than The Herald put
n man is measured by what ne ac-
con1nlishes not by his nativity, ana
the question naturally follows the in
ouisitive and watchful observer what
has Bert Dingley done that places nm
at the very top notch of automoplle
racing drivers?" The answer IS NOT
given. because he has accomplished
nothing that would even place MIN
near the top. He left the home hearth
40 seek wider fields-and in this he is
to he commended IL the opportunities
nresented themselves to him to bet
Ter his worldly affairs, but he went up
against an awful bunch OF AMBITIOUS
drivers when he tackled the east on
cars, too, that would not carry n.,,.'' nun W
success, even were ne the most shiiii III
man in the country. =.
In addition to this, Bert Dlngley leIt
California at a time when there was
practically no such thing as racing on
the Pacific coast True, there were
semi-occasional meets on country morse
tracks, half mile and mile at the farth-
est in size, and two OF three s,..ra lro
people went to look, because there were
no other places for them to go. But
tho east had been busy expendlng
thousands and hundreds OF thousands
of dollars making speedways; Win
well established roads for the longer
road races, while the roads OF call
fornie and the Pacific coast remained,
as many of them still are, the worst
In the country Only until very recent
ly the roads of Marin county one OF
the most attractive in the west, were a
disgrace to the board of supervisors
and the hostility of that board and the
people of Marin county led members
of the San Francisco automobile club
into a number of arrests, and the es-
tablishment of a legal department in
that club, to fight the unjust legisla-
tion of the fanatics who still hung to
"old Betsy" and the dog cart.
Dingley went to meet fast men. They
had cars under them to help them to
the victories they were gaining. The
Buick people for example established
racing team of the greatest racing
drivers the world has ever known, and
no race could be proposed whether
sixty feet or six thousand miles that
n string of white streaks were not
standing at the tape saying ready"
Many times they failed to win, but they
were there at the next event again
saying ready" and it has been this
everlasting readiness to go against the
biggest and best of all the cars of the
world that has led to the most prodig-
ious sales of automobiles the country
has ever known. Such men as Chew
rolet, Bobby Burman, Lytle, Strang,
Lewis Chevrolet, Jimmy Ryall, De Witt
came across the tape with their little
white cars of $50" md 40" horse
power against seventy to 100 horse pow
er machines with firsts, till it became
monotonous. Poor Bert Dingley trailed
in their dust times without number
therefore where does Dingley get at
the head of the class?
None of these famous drlVerS-and
there is host of others such as Rob
ertson, and those in his class, who have
by accomplishment far outclassed those
today placed in the front row by the
"space gentlemen"
And this brings us home to Cali
fornia. Who knows what our own To-
cal drivers could do with the oppor-
tunities the men of the east have had
with cars kept as thoroughly tuned up
all the time as a prima donna keeps
her voice? We have Free, Livingstone,
81 Hanshue, Siefert, Nick lJikrent and the
world lost a mighty good driver in G.
d. Smith when his company and en-
pioyers refused to let him go to the
track, because they had a mighty good
automobile salesman, in which the
Maxwell company of this city profited,
and the public and the track lost,
The local men are hot provided with
the cars as they are in the east. They
have not the tracks pom which to test
their cars to the utmost. There are
not sufficient opportunities to test their
own skill, because the racing part of
automobiles in the west has never been
as alive as it is today. In fact 1t Is
only within the past four months that
the dead have been awakened in Los
Angeles, from their cemetery of sleep,
md we have the word of so conserva-
i've an automobile dealer as j. S. Con-
we'll that he is grieved that the inquiries
from the publicity of just the Redlands