The San Francisco call., 1910-07-03
THE CALL SETS
new PACE FOR
NEWSPAPERS
AutOists, in Night Drive Over
Sierra Nevadas, Break Rec
Ords to Reno
People Warned by Telephone
Wait Passing of Car in
Its Wild Race

the speeders pass. It was two hours
and 20 minutes from the start when
Stockton's lights showed like a gleam-
ing map OF pin points in the wanness
OF the dying night At this unusual
hour. crowd Of more than a thousand
people were on the streets. The word
had arrived that The Call car was to
pass through the town on this record
beating trip. The jam Of men and
women in the street cheered the paper
as they heard the engines thudding and
saw the two blazing eyes appear.
STOPPED By SHERIFF
-. From Stockton to Placerville the road
Jay through q foothill country of grades
: and turns. The brothers crammed her
up the slopes and let her shoot over the
: Level stretches. At intervals. passing
*lfttJe villages, they threw off papers.
1len out in the early morning saw them
fash by and telephoned on ahead. At
Placerville the sheriff was waiting with
3 posse. They lined UP across the road
stopped the car. and. hearing of The
Calls purpose, let it pass. The auto
shot through the old storied camp at a
speed Of 75 miles an hour.
Then the long, slow grades up to
where the timbered Sierras kiss the sky
with lips OF snow. A heavy task, a
climb whose sternness tests even the
endurance of perfect, hawless steel. The
engine took it wit hthe stubbornness
~ -,e-eec4ad e,5 nell 4o~+o5 ,,,oo,,o 49,.
Like a thoroughbred horse it stood that
. long climb. Up and on~up; out of the
forests into the wild region of the cliffs
and boulders. and up to where the
scared brown crags show fields of
summer snow. And then across a mea-
dowed pass and down again.
AT RISK OF LIFE
Down a road that wound like
snake, on one side banked high with
rock and on the other dropping away
10 dizzy heights, they let her drop as
fast as they figured they could handle
her, so fast that she Just made the
sharper curves and left her outer
tracks within two inches of the abyss.
The country Of the foothills met them
with rush-the gray-green hills of
sage The road wound among them
like a gray ribbon. The dust was
thick; IL rose about the speeding ma
chine and hung 20 its sides until the
.tOnneau become like the country-dry
=. Full speed here, and the rocks were
thick and the curves were sudden.
Near RivertOn they came to one sharper
than the others. At as miles an hour
. the auto charged at it-iurched. slipped
sjdewise IN the heavy sand. Ard as
they cleared the turn one of the broth
ers, glancing over his shoulder. saw
little pebbles falling from beside their
wheel tracks down over the 500 foot
.biuT
through Carson City, and as The Calls
flew from 1T like huge birds men ran
out from the sidewalks TO pick them up
MAKES NEW RECORDS
To Reno the car shot bullet like. 1t
broke the record between the two
towns even as IL had broken the record
from Oakland 10 Stockton.
And on the last lap of that hurting
Journey, as il WAS lurching along diz-
zily six miles out OF Reno. a pilot car
swept into the road before it, Z. E
Elliott drove this other Mitchell. He
drove It only as the trained enthusiast,
who loved speed better than life, can
drive.
Within. six minutes of that meeting
the two vehicles whirled round the
towns busiest corner into Virginia
street. The crowd before the Hotel
Golden for the once stopped their talk
of lighting. And as they stopped the
cars came to a halt The local agent
OF the paper fell upon the canvass
sacks. The papers few forth The
waiting neWsboys seized them, and in
voices of brass proclaimed The San
Fra uofEpO Call