New-York tribune., 1918-08-25
Driver Sets New World Fig
ures for 10 Miles-Pat
Mcdonald Beaten
By A. c. Cayaenaro

Ralph De Palma. that daring demon
OF the auto racing world, gave crowd
estimated at 100000 an idea Of the ca
pability of his motor when he created
a new world record for ten miles in
the first day Of the field games Of the
New York Police Department, held at
the Sheepshead Bay racetrack yester-
day.
The italian "1ew" around the course
at an estimated speed of 1T miles an
hour, and was clocked In 5 minutes
Z 3-5 seconds. This smashed his own
record Of 5 minutes 1875 seconds,
which was set recently.
1t was planned to have Dario Resta
compete against De Palma In the tus-
sci to beat Father Time, but Resta's
car baked on the first lap. preliminary
to the flying start. Resta tinkered
with his engine for some minutes and
left behind by De Palma, who went out
alone.
Speed Thrills Crowd
Passing the grandstand on q flying
start, De Palma thrilled the monster
crowd by his speed, and when he COW
cred one lap of the two-mile course in
l minute 1-5 seconds new record
for him was predicted. De Palma kept
up his consistent pace for four laps,
when, on the final circuit, he applied
more "juice" and the light yellow car
leaped forward at greater speed, to
cover the final two miles in a little
over one minute.
BY the time De Palma had completed
haI
ceeded in getting his engine to whir
properly. The pair went off together
in another ten-mile exhibition to fur
nish additional thrills for the onlook-
ers: De Palma employed his clever
jockeying methods, passing Resta and
then falling back. until the final lap.
Resta rather surprised his Italian
rival by putting up real battle
throughout thes final two miles. De
to a ten-yard margin on the back
stretch, but the fight was not over.
Resta forced his car to greater speed
coming down toward the grandstand,
but De Palma was the victor by cars
length.
The track and field events we're so
numerous that the spectators heads
were kept bobbing back and forth to
follow the proceedings. Most amusing
of the contests were the shoe race and
the Roman chariot race. Street Clean
ing Department wagons were the
"chariots." The "drivers" were unable
to hold their seats on the speedy
"chariots" and went spinning along the
ground before the race was finished.
In the shoe race. the competitors
found the task of finding their shoes
most difficult. They would pick up
shoe and not finding it their own would
hurl it far up the track.
Interest in Motorcycles
While the crowd was greatly inter-
ested in the foot races, they showed
more concern in the ability of the men
to speed around the track on motor
cycles. While no spills or accidents
happened in these races. the men raced
along so close together that falls were
imminent. In the ten-mile motorcycle
race William Culbertson, of Motor
Corps Squad 2. getting away with the
limit handicap of fifty seconds. grad
ually left his rivals in the ruck, to win
easily by fifty yards.
Pat Mcdonald, Egon Erickson and
Matt ]. McGrath. athletic stars Of the
department. found the handicaps al
lotted by the officials to their oppo-
nents too much to overcome. McDon-
aid made an unusually good throw of
81 feet 91t inches in the thirty-fve-
poung weight event, but he found this
effort only netted second place. The
victory fell to Harry Correll, of Traffic
z, who. with handicap Of twelve feet,
totalled 55 feet inches.
McGrath also contested in this
event, but the handicap proved too
great, and he was shut out Of prize.
Erickson, also a victim of the handi-
caps, finished second behind William
Nevins, Traffic G, in the running high
jump.