New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1912-10-06
CALEB BRAGG WINS
GRAND PRIZE RACE
BaIuh de Palma Seriously Hurt
When Car 0verturnS in
Road Race.
WINNERS AVERAGE IS LOW
Fourth Contest for Gold Cup
Proves Exciting - Minor
Honors Go to Bergdon
and Anderson.

Ol1O N@ANNNN
Uauwatosa Race Course, Wis. Oct. .
Driving his own high powered Fiat
ar with the utmost skill and showing
strength that few believed him to pos
sass. caleb Bragg to-day won the
,orrth running Of the Grand Prize race
!, was a contest marked by sensational
accidents and accidents almost from
the start. What may result in fatal
i,v occurred in the final lap, when
pslnh de Palma, who had been driving
with desperate energy TO overtake
Rragg was overturned in his Mercedes
car, with which he won the Vanderbilt
Cup race on Wednesday.
Tonight De Palma and his mechanic,
tom" Alley, are lying in Trinity Hos
pjtal The physicians say that De
Palma is suffering from broken limbs
end internal injuries and that his con-
dition Is serious. Alley suffered a
broken shoulder and severe contusions.
The Mercedes car, one of the most ex-
nensiye racing machines ever brought
~ the United States, is a wreck in the
ditch alongside the narrow stretch
where the runner-up was trying 10 take
The lead. The car is the property of
z ]. Schroeder, a wealthy sportsman
Of Jersey City.
Reports from the hospital late to-
night are that De Palma is not in I'M
mediate danger. 1t viii take some days
70 determine whether he will recover,
the fear being that peritonitis will de-
yelop
There is some question as to the eX-
act cause Of the accident 10 De Palma's
racer. In the early part of the last half
Of the race Bragg held a good lead,
being practically lap and half ahead
of the Mercedes. In the last fifty miles
De Palma started a hurricane rush
that lap by lap cut down the time
separating him from the leader. He
caught and tried to pass Bragg in the
next to the last lap near the spot where
David Bruce Brown was killed on
Tuesday. Either the Mercedes grazed
Bragg's car or struck a soft spot on the
road and turned over. The occupants
Of the car were thrown clear, but both
landed heavily.
Braggs speed average for the race
was 69.3 miles an hour, as against the
late David Bruce-B Browns average OF
74.45 miles an hour in last years race
at Savannah. Ga. He covered the dis
lance Of 400 miles 4.616 feet in 3 hours
50 minutes and % seconds. Bragg
drove a heady.. consistent race, He
was never further back than third
place at any stage OF ihe long grind.
He was in the lead thirty laps of the
ffty-two lap contest. For the first
eighty miles Teddy Tetzlaff led the
field, but Bragg and De Palma were
almost on top Of Tetzlaff all the time.
With the elimination OF Tetzlaff by
minor accident TO his Fiat car at the
244-mile post the race settled down TO a
driving duel between Bragg and De
Palma. The latter led Bragg for only
four laps. However, when De Palma
jumped into second place, with Tetz-
laf's withdrawal, he was eight minutes
back Of Bragg. he trailed at about
that distance for more than eighty
miles Then, in the last fifty miles. De
Palma started his sprint.
Bragg as his part Of the $4,000
purse, received $1,000. Erwin Bergdoll,
Of Philadelphia, who drove Benz car
into second place after a pretty fight
with Gil Anderson for the last sixty
miles Of the race, received $1,000.
Bergdolrs average speed for the race
was 1851 miles an. hour. Gil Ander-
son. who finished third, with a Stutz
car, the only American car to remain
through the race. got 81 ,2J0 as his end.
His average speed for the race was
oo.JJ miles an hour.
Barney Oldfield, who finished fourth
with Fiat car, at an average speed
OF 6475 miles an hour, took $3.50 as
fourth money. George Clark, who was
still driving his Mercedes, with one
more lap TO go, when Oldfeld finished.
was tagged by the starter and was
awarded $500 as fifth money. Bob
Burmsn, who had taken Joe Horans
place at the wheel of a Benz car in the
last fifty miles Of the race, was Ragged.
with three more laps sim TO go.
Louis Fontaine twice drove his Lo-
zer through the bunkers of baled hay
on the turns, the first time hitting the
fence and the second time crashing
through fence and landing in pond
OF water. Hughes, with the Mercer,
withdrew from the race at the END or
his seventeenth lap, because Of a broken
sasolene feed pipe
Referee A. r. Pardington, during the
race, Issued a statement condemnlng
the action OF Farnum Fish, the aviator,
N driving biplane across and around
tne course, several hundred feet above
the heads OF the crowds.
Any accident 70 Fish's biplane over
or near the course would result in q
stampede OF thousands Of spectators
on 70 the course that would mean
wholesale butchery," said Pardington.
l shall take up Fish's action with the