The Crittenden Automotive Library

AUTO MEN HEADED TOWARD SAVANNAH

Topics: Grand Prize

AUTO MEN HEADED TOWARD SAVANNAH

The Indianapolis Star
22 November 1908

Thousands of People Making Way to Scene of Great Contest Thanksgiving.

MANY CARS DRIVE OVERLAND

Race Promises to Be Greatest Event of Kind in World's History of Motordom.

Jolly crowds are coming to Savannah by train and boat from New York and the trip of the New Yorkers will in every instance be a vacation jaunt the like of which has never been known before. Special boats, two of them, have been chartered and filled, chefs have been hired and the boats will be stocked with the best the market affords. Trains, a half dozen of them, will make the trip to Savannah and clubs will have the entire trains to themselves.

The Southern Railroad has provided one entire train for the Twentieth Century Automobile Club of New York, and not less than 100 members of the club will make the trip. The equipment is the same as is used ordinarily on the Palm Limited and the party will make its headquarters while in Savannah on the train.

Two special trains are to be sent South by the Seaboard Air Line Railway and each is being filled rapidly. These trains will be hotels in themselves, compartment cars, club cars and so on. The occupants will be given a specially conducted journey to the sunny South without the trouble of moving from their hotel upon arrival. The hotel expense of the journey will be hardly more than regular travel and hotel service added and as compartment cars will be used each passenger will have the benefit of a room from the time of leaving New York until the return.

In addition to the thousands who will reach Savannah and cause no trouble about accomodations there will be countless other thousands who will have to be cared for in private houses after the hotels are filled. The tendancy at present in Savannah seems to be to maintain the regular hotel rates throughout the meet and to bring credit to the city and the De Soto, Pulaski and other houses are making no efforts to boost rates. Savannah seemingly has things well in hand to make the event of the year an unqualified success.

Three Oldsmobiles Entered.

The announcement of the entry of the three Oldsmobiles for the Savannah light car race caused interest throughout the country, and the later announcement that the three Olds would be withdrawn owing to the inability of the manufacturers to finish these, their latest models, and properly test them out in time for the contest, will cause dismay. The Olds Motor Works has been out of racing for a long time, but with the announcement of the light car event decided to make an entry and once more enter the field. The thousands of owners of Olds cars the country over predicted all sorts of success for the Lansing makers, but for this event must be disappointed.

Mananger Smith of the Olds Motor Works, who made the entries, is quite as much disappointed as are the users of Olds cars, but promises to enter future contests when he will be able to show a product thoroughly tested out. In the past the Olds had made a splendid reputation in speed contests on the track, the road and the hill.

It's going to take quite some running to reach the camps of the various contestants in the Grand Prize race and the light car races at Savannah, as there will be at least twenty-eight camps in all located all over the country away from and contiguous to the course. The committee has scoured the country over to find accomodations for the drivers and their mechanics and it is estimated that at least 200 miles will have to be covered by road to reach the various training quarters, somewhat more of a job than that which was encountered on Long Island at the time of the Vanderbilt race.

And by the way, the Parkway management intends another year to erect quarters on the Parkway in a row for all competitors and Savannah plans to do likewise. The innovation will be appreciated by the makers, importers, drivers and their mechanics as everything will be simplified in that way.

Plenty of Protection.

Savannah's automobile races are to have the protection of a complete fire department sent from New York by the Tea Tray Company of Newark, N. J. This fire patrol will be posted at four points on the course and will be habited in tents especially erected and in close touch with the telephone. In addition to the regular fire department of forty-gallon tanks, Mr. Albert S. Marten of the Tea Tray Company will supply two fully equipped cars carrying fire extinguishers and ready to go out at a moment's notice to any point on the course and at racing speed.

The Marten fire patrol protects all automobile events nowadays and in the North has been very successful. The Brighton Beach twenty-four-hour race saw the patrol in successful operation. Three cars were saved and one was the Simplex, which, with a lead of forty-seven miles, caught fire in its camp. In a minute it was again under way. The Renault, which took fire on the track and ran through the fence, was extinguished before the paint had been scorched, although a half-mile run was necessary. The Garford was put out in its camp. At the Vanderbilt Cup race the Marten fire patrol was successful in extinguishing a big blaze in a Thomas car, the property of “Birdie” Munger, right in front of Krugs.

Marten, a member of the Automobile Club of America, sent Bruce La Pierre to Savannah on the boat which sailed on the 10th and will follow himself with the second car on the boat chartered by the Automobile Club of America. Extinguishers are also to be sent to protect the camps of the drivers and for the use of the drivers on their cars in the race, an innovation in auto racing. In the Vanderbilt race three cars caught fire at different times, and that is possible with any of the huge cars used in such contests as the one in Savannah.

The extinguisher carried as a regular equipment of the cars provides the means right at hand to put out any blaze, and without injury to the car. The protection promised has proved most welcome to several managers of the camps, and this will be a regular feature at every big race of the future, thanks to the energy of Mr. Marten, who is an ardent automobilist and owner of three cars at present.