The daily sentinel., 1910-09-19
BREAKS
AUTO RECORDS
IN MAD DASH

The widest dash an auto ever
made in the Rocky mountains was
made in a Franklin, by E. w Jordan
and party, from Palisade on the
Grand river TO Meeker on the White
river Low and slim. like a lizard,
dust mantled, the machine coughed
its hectic way across more than 13O
miles OF plain and mountains and
foothills, breaking every record on
the road.
L. w. Jordan and Dan Reed and
their wives were the party who tast-
ed this hot SAVIOR OF speed and death
only quarter of an inch away The
car was a Franklin, d model a dark
blue machine, low. slim. with the
look of business in all its lines. The
ride was one of those things which
tell us that today has more romance
than yesterday, swifter action and
more opportunity to drink deeper of
dangers and delightful thrills.
At 1880 am. as the party finished
loading at the garage at Palisade.
the car trembled with its engines
respiratiOns, a steed of iron and steel
and blazing coils it waited as a liv-
ing thing waits impatiently. Mr..
Jordan moved suddenly, seized a lev
er. and the car shot forward. sweep
ing around Third and Main streets.
Pedestrians heard the beating roar
of its mechanism looked around and
saw II shooting by with the speed
that makes the blood leap. then stand
still. the speed that makes the air a
hurricane, the world a passing blue.
Speeding up through the canon to
Mesa, over the mountain to DeBeuue.
from DeBeque the long grade to
where mountains kiss the sky with
lips Of snow, the engines took it with
the stuObOrnuess of perfected and
well tested mechanism. Like thor
oughbred horses. they stood the long
climb up and on, up out of the forests
to the wild region of cliffs, and down
again, down a long road that wound
like a long snake, on one side banked
high with rocks, on the other to dizzy
| depths, they let her drop as fast as
they figured they could handle her
so fast that she just made the sharp
curves and left her outer tracks with
in two inches of the abyss
1t was almost noon when the car
reached Grand Valley for dinner. and
the car shot out of the little city as
suddenly as she dropped in The
country of the foothills met them
with rush, with the gray-green hills
OF sage. The road wound among
them like gray ribbon; the dust
was thick: it rose about the speed
4 ing machine and hung to it's sides
until the tonneau became like the
country-gray.
The party reached Rifle at 2:f5
pm. and waited for the D. & r. G..
No. l6, which was one hour late, to
take on more baggage.
| To Meeker the car shot, bullet-like.
1t broke the record between the two
towns, even as they had broken the
record from Palisade to Rifle. Jor-
dan drove 1t as only the trained en-
thusiast who loves speed better than
life. can drive. The long, slow grade
to the top of the divide, a weird, swift
light through a silent country; oc-
casional freighters drew aside on the
ditchward slope of the road to let
the speeder pass.
1t was | hour and so minutes from
the start when Meeker's lights
showed like cleaning map of pin
points, and in the warmness of the
dying day they pulled up at the
Meeker hotel just at $40 pm.
The party will be in the mountains
until after the hunting season
Meeker Review.