Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-08-30
DELIVERY CAR WINS BIG RACE
AFTER GREAT SERVICE IN ARMY
AU Competitors Outrun by Wm-Scnred Veteran OF
Many Campaigns; $4,000 Soldiers
See Speed Classic

Merchants. farmers and other users
ciate what motorized equipment
means in the way of quick and re-
liable service. will be interested in
race story brought back from
France by discharged soldiers. As
told by Major Hayes Mcfarland, who
went overseas in command of the
Slfth Supply Train, the story is re-
produced from Automobile Topics of
July IL:
Those Memorial Day races at st.
NaZaire and the entirely care-free
performance of battle-scarred
Dodge Brothers light delivery truck
are still talked of wherever there are
doughboys who were coming through
that port about the first of juno on
their way home. Four first places
and two seconds against q mixed field,
out of-six events scheduled. is good
score for any car. Hence the pride
of the 311th Supply Train and of the
Motor Transport officers at Nantes,
France. in the little racer which they
rebuilt in five days out of a truck
that had been all over the battle
fields and had come finally to the
Nantes park. For the car which rep
resented Nantes at the races on La
Baule Beach near st. Nazaire turned
in just such a score, after exactly
that war experience.
Fifty thousand soldiers, it Is asti-
mated, were waiting at st. Nazaire to
nave their service records checked up
and the last animate traces of their
overseas service removed from their
persons. For Memorial Day by way
of celebration an automobile race was
plainly indicated, as the doctors saw.
When permission was given some
three weeks before the event there
was a wild rush, to use the words of
an officer who was present, to build
racing cars in every Motor Transport
shop in st. Nazaire. and every town
within the limits of Base Section No
l, S. o. S. for which that well known
port is headquarters. Some 40 cars
were finally entered, ranging in size
from the ever present four whose
name needs no mention, to SKIES
eights and twelves.
Motor Service Park "767" at Nam
tes picked the best material it had
available. a Dodge Brothers light de-
livery vehicle which. after hard serv-
ice at the front. had been driven
overland to the park. where it was
bNiH5 hNpl SCINlCGs .
make a racer out of it, the tenders
and body were removed, the wheel
base shortened to 100 inches, the COM
preston increased by planning down
the cylinder heads slightly. recipro-
eating parts lightened. and a stock
roadster gearset substituted for the
commercial gear ratio already in
place. With these few changes the
car was ready for it's mile-a minute
performance in races from one to
40 miles on a beach that was only
seven miles long.
In the first race, one mile against
time in n field of ten starters, the lit
tie car finished second with a time
of 53.4 seconds. 1t won the second
race. 21 miles. free-for-all. with IS
starters. showing 21 minutes sec
onds for the distance and beating
cars considerably larger and usually
regarded as more powerful.
THE second days racing turned out
a large crowd to cheer for the little
white racer with its red "N'' in a
circle. The first race of the second
day was at IA miles for light cars
only. The Nantes entry won easily;
time 13 minutes 1914 seconds. The
next race was a 49-mile free for all
with 16 starters. Over this distance
the rough surface of the course mad a
chance to make itself felt, and one
of the entrants turned over. killing