Newark evening star and Newark advertiser., 1912-06-08
TESTS
AT TACOMA
By FRANK e. ROBERTS.

TACOMA, Wash, June s.-with $25, 900
in actual gold coin raised to guarantee
expenses, $4,000 for purses and prizes
and a hve-mile road course prepared on
a great, gravelly prairie just outside the
southern city limits of Tacoma, the Ia.
coma Carnival Association and the Ta-
coma Automobile Club have completed
arrangements for the first automobile
speed contests of other than the unsat.
isfactory mile track variety ever held In
the Northwest.
The races will be held July and 6,
as a part of Tacoma's big summer fes-
tival the Montamara Festo, under Amer.
lean Automobile Association sanction
On July there will be three road
races Of 100, $50 and 200 miles each, com
bining in each respective event light
cars Of $50 cubic inches piston displace-
ment and under; medium cars of 300
cubic inches piston displacement and
under, and heavy cars under 45o and
more than 300 cubic inches displace-
men,
The big event of the meeting will come
July 6. This will be a 250-mile free-for.
all contest, In which the circuit of the
track will be made fifty times. In this
event the prizes total IS, 900, divided on
basis of 20 per cent to the winner, 20
per cent. to the second and 10 per cent
to the third, applying In all events. The
heavy car event of July 5 takes s., 500;
medium car contest, $500, and the light
car race $1,000.
County roads over a naturally hard,
gravelly prairie form the course Turns
of reasonable length and angle are be.
ing constructed. The surface will be
oiled to lay the dust and the plans call
for one of the finest speedways in the
country. The prairie is quite level, but
where 1t is inclined to be rolling the
roads have been cut down to avoid
grades.
As for speed. the Tacoma course prom.
ises 10 rival that at Santa Monica. Cal.
where the latest worlds record for road
racing was established and also the sn
yannah course, where wonderful and
seemingly impossible time was made last
year.
Work has been in progress on the Ia
coma course for a month past and an.
other month will find 1t ready for the
hum of the tires.
Accommodations will be provided for
more than $4,000 spectators and there
will be any amount of parking space
where automobiles may be stationed dur
Ing the races In these will be the first
road races ever held In the Pacific North
west and as trunk highways up and
down the coast are Just being opened
up and improved, offering special in
ducements for touring. runs will be
made to Tacoma for the contests from
cities all up and down the coast, In
British Columbia and east of the Cas-.
cade Mountains.
National guardsmen will guard the
course, Fred j., Wagner. Of New York.
| one of the most experienced men fol-
lowing automobile racing, has been en-
gagged as starter.
Teddy Tetzlaff, holder of the world g
road race record. and Caleb Bragg. his
second. were the first to enter in the
Tacoma lists. Representatives of the
governing body of the Tacoma club are
now casting about indianapolis for more
such entrants. In any event Tacoma
will break the ice for motor car speed
ers in the Northwest and will complete
circuit of road race courses that sur
rounds the United States.