Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1912-06-08
DAWSON TELLS
STORY Of RACE
He Gives Graphic Description
of the Worlds Greatest
Speed Battle.

Joe is quiet, boyish young man full
OF life and fun but capable of serious rea-
soning and never Exceeds the speed
limit in his life habits. He is Y. NJ.
9. A. member and a constant attender.
With his enormous prize. sS5 900, won in
the 5o0-mile race at the Indiana polls mo-
tor speedway last memorial day driving
National car, Dawson still lives at his
Indianapolis home.
Here is his own story Of the world S
greatest speed battle:
"A man to win in any race, must know
his gait"
''DePalma, who drove his marvellous
European car, the Mercedes. which has 20
per cent greater piston displacement and
costs fabulously more than my National
car. put up wonderful fight for first
place. DePalma is great driver, but
when all the cheers die down and the
smoke clears away the cold fact remains
that his car was not capable of going 500
miles at a winning speed and my Ma
tienal car did. l was even compelled to
do two extra laps, two and a half miles
each, after I had won the race just for
good measure to avoid any chances of
mistakes in counting.
IT can not tell what won the race, as
1t was combination Of things that de-
ctded the victor in this, the greatest test
of man and machine ever held since ma
chimes Of any kind have been built My
record Of 800 miles in 3S1 minutes and 6
seconds stands as record for any kind
of mechanism for that distance No other
man alive has travelled that far as fast
as I did I do not boast about it, but
simply call attention to the fact that OF
all the hiP rouarfi1I
driven by drivers as experienced as I am,
only one car won first place. 1t was the
verdict of the white heat test
IT was greatly assisted by Don Herr,
who relieved me at the wheel for almost
90 miles while I rested In the repair pit.
Instead of watching the race while I was
resting and instead of keeping myself in
a nervous strain, I flung my tired body
onto the grass and relaxed entirely. I
shut my eyes and tried not to hear the
noise Of the cars roaring past on the
track Then when 1 went back into the
fray I was much rested. OF course the
car never had a rest, but my body is not
made of vanadium and chrome nickle
steel like the car IS. I am just human.
From past experience I never give up
hope until a race Is over. l knew De
Palma was driving a wonderful race
ahead OF me in his Mercedes, and just
behind me in the Fiat came my next
closest rival There I was in a medium
priced American car. a wedge between the
foreign Mercedes and the foreign Fiat
car. But I am proud TO say that did
take orders from the manager of the Ma
tional team from the repair pits. 1 got a
signal along toward the latter part of the
race to slow down my speed. really
did not want to, because 1 was confident
that my car could stand the pace I was
going, but I obeyed and dropped from
eighty to seventy miles an hour. 1t was
not long after that when l got the signal
TO "1et her go" That was the time that
pePalmas car began to go to pieces. I
then began to go at the rate of 81 miles
an hour If I had never slowed down at
sn l could have broken the record easily
much greater than l did. No, l was not
so tired Ny arms and shoulders were
rather sore. but the ride was not tire
some The mental strain was the hard
est part had TO keep close watch all
the time for fear some other car l was
nassing might crash into me My car was
not repaired any. no water was put in the
radiator but three spark plugs were re-
rlaced | wish I could run the race over
again and l would certainly drive even
faster