The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-07-23
LIKE A DIP OF DEATH
JUMP OF BIG ACME CAR NEAR
WINNEBAGO YESTERDAY.
Driver Henry Dale Tells the Thrilling
Story of the Plunge; Starter Fer
guson Was Thrown About Twenty
Feet and Badly Scratched on a
Barbed Wire Fence; Why They
Escaped Being Killed.

Dips of Death, as pulled off daily
to awe circus crowds, paled to insig-
nifcance in the jump of the big Acme
touring car in the Glidden tour near
Winnebago yesterday forenoon, as re-
lated exclusively in The Free Press last
night.
Henry Dale, of Cleveland, driver of
the car, is in Mankato now, waiting
for freight car big enough to hold
the huge automobie-w now looks
more like a pile of junk than any
thing else. Driver Dale escaped with
very slight injury to his left knee,
and has as much nerve as ever. He
will leave the later part of this week
to drive an Acme car in a road race
at Kansas City.
"We were bowling along at forty
five, yes, maybe fifty miles, an hour"
said Driver Dale this afternoon, when
suddenly L felt the steering rod drop.
You know, when we were driving from
Lacrosse to Minneapolis last Friday,
had to run the car into a ditch to
avoid running over little girl Well,
they overhauled it somewhat when we
got to Minneapolis and in putting in
the steering rod, neglected to lock
the locking device on the steering
knuckle and that caused the wreck
yesterday morning.
Tx,o~x n,,,nlr
''When you are going at the rate
we were, everything happens in small
fraction of second, so when | put
on the brakes, they were powerless.
The big car had left the road and
jumped exactly thirty-two feet. The
brakes did no good at all, for we were
riding in flying machine.
""All this happened on a little con-
crete culvert," continued the nervy
racing ear driver. "And when we went
off the side of the culvert, the fly
wheel and rear axle struck the side
of it, tearing out big chunk of con-
crete. This served to stop the engine
and also to lessen the momentum of
the big car. The jerk threw Starter
Ferguson out and he flew about TWEEN
ty feet, striking the fve-strand barbed
wire fence and rolled up like a rubber
ball. Had he missed the fence, / am
sure he would have gone sixty feet.
stuck behind the wheel until the car
hit the fence, and then l was thrown
out on the hood. | was conscious every
second of the time, and seeing the car
sliding down the fence and braking off
the posts, | tried to roll down behind
the big iron fender to escape wire cuts.
But this was unnecessary because the
car stopped just at that second.
Ferguson Badly Scratched.
STARTER Ferguson was pretty badly
scratched and bruised but no bones
were broken He had one badly la
cerated hand, though. We counted
forty cuts in it from the barbed wire.
We got a carriage and took him to
town, and he was able to leave on a
train for Fort Dodge.
at was all over SO quickly that a
fellow didn't have time to get scared,
and hardly time to know what was
happening" remarked Driver Dale.
He was asked if the accident would
have occurred had he been driving at
a slower pace, and answered: eve
would both have been killed, had we
been going slower. You see the car
would have gone down into the big
ditch, instead of jumping across it,
and would have turned turtle, pinning
us under it,"
An idea of the momentum with
which the car left the road may be
imagined when it is remembered that
lit weighs .29S0 pounds with it's huge
body and big six cylinder engines, and
was going at speed of not less than
forty five miles an hour.
Driver Dale is but little concerned
over the accident now, and is an
xious to get to Kansas City and in
the road race which will in all prob
ability mean new and greater hazards.
g . . - = 4 ~