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Show Newkirk's Drive Was a Failure "Dare-Devil Jed" and His "Man-Killer" "Man-Killer" Pail to Enthuse Crowd at Agricultural Park. It was a chilly gathering at the Agricultural Agri-cultural park track yesterday afternoon when Jed Ncwklrk, "Dare-devil Jed," In other words, drove his man-killing "999" two miles In 2:52. About 300 people, some In autos and carriages, but the majority riding- on the street cars, were lrt on the grounds at 3:30, the time set for the beginning of the "race against time." The track was there, so was the terrible ter-rible man-killer and Jed. Jed had his coat off, and a wrench in one very much grease-bosmiared hand. He was bending busily over the cylinders of the machine, turning a nut here and loosening loos-ening one there, and then tapping lightly light-ly on the top of the gasoline tank to start the flow of the power generating fluid. From the time people began to arrive ar-rive at th park until 4:30. Newklrk tinkered and hammered and hammered and tinkered. Between whiles he stepped to the front of the "man-killer" "man-killer" and "cranked" his machine industriously, in-dustriously, but the engine -wouldn't spark. At 4:30' o'clock Newkirk cranked again, and with a rip and a roar the man-killer's engine blew out sparks and announced its readiness to proceed. Newklrk Jumped for the seat and started start-ed the machine and circled the track for two miles. Then he stopped and waited for the crowd to enthuse. But it didn't enthuse, and then John M. Sharp, one of the timers, announced that the two-mile dash had been merely mere-ly a "warming up" of the "999." After he had announced this to the crowd he shouted the same message over to Newklrk. New-klrk. Newklrk proceeded to again get busy with tho auto and ln another thirty minutes the engine again decided to start, and a two-mile "world's record" race against time was on. The distance dis-tance was mnde In 2:52, and the machine ma-chine was then roped to another auto and pulled to town, while the people went home. After the "race against time," Newklrk New-klrk stated that he had been experi-menting4 experi-menting4 with the machine and that It was not working well. He said that the distance had been traveled with but two cylinders working. The race with Bert Fuller was not pulled off, Fuller not being at the track with his machine. It was a sadly disappointed dis-appointed crowd that left the track and considerable grumbling was heard at the exhibition put up. There was not an event outside of Newkirk's exhibition, exhibi-tion, and the wait for that was so long that many people left the track before the first "warming up" was pulled off. |