Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-03-16 | Page 76 | A Mile in Twenty-Four Seconds with Ralph De Palma!

A MILE IN TWENTY-FOUR SECONDS WITH RALPH-BE PALMA! J' Coprrljht. 1010. by Public Lcdser Co. . Ct3t.. i - I r J J Ayr-" $SJxJt& U ilfffnaJ t r ffl l1 America triumphs again over Ger- f lM fefcKft f yMmrWW ' A flr many! When Ralph De Palm, in WZWl ir-Ov V MiMfUrM' firSTt' n all-American car established a fy .vllSfef 'wm new 6peed record in Florida ,ast ' VJV',f,,,'T'!yW hlf0fCr'J month he overtopped the record tsfrP ) I iij'rs Burman's record was made in a ryyyM fmm. mw 1 w "Biiizen we a,, j JjjQy -fj "JS J y S made-in-Germany stamp ' ' Him " By Jack Hughes J Ho!1''0 '""""scd all of De Palma's preliminaries as well as the official racing on Daytona Beach too c-: , UHEN a new page is written into per; ! history it is as Important to m:! w about the man who made it aa ahoo'-i:: Cresting to know how he made Jaciui? ' '" wller9 science, daring, sports-pei's sports-pei's '-mSh'P 1,1(5 sklu comprise the basic Vm ot 9 achievement, the task '3e. Ptrusal te readily transformed into ToK privilege flavored with virtue ajid it hsi':' tot- An all-American car and a 1 jo'rin ,i: tln8 automobile driver have played lTidei-'' leadin8T role In the latest chapter ', W'"11 thrm3- ' 6'Srt.'-:!i'or "r!y eight yeai-s "Wild" Bob the ';.naa,s nama bore the flying start ej-mGOO- lords ot the measured mile and kilo--offl3B:e! dances for automobile speed-.and speed-.and the figures of 25:40 seconds "has ;',' tt mile and 15:88 for the kilo jjjuds-' ter had stood up under the chal-p(a!t:, chal-p(a!t:, h of every contender since that' airB,eisW!;?Ultable Mver crowned him-;'a him-;'a ' I those victories , on Daytona )!t ! ln a "Blltzen" Benz on April 0 ,.)SirJ'. : 1311' Racing cars have beon a Hi'c UhC1 ad theIr wreckaS9 removed tt course, lives have been , Nai : lost and thousands upon p's ti!l! l!rnd8 f 3011318 have gone ln ,v's tJ'v esa efrrts to lower these marks, leroi. v e"ersles Anally culminating in a habit o' "u of all great sporting events ,:n the outbreak of hostilities be-olJer be-olJer Vjm the United States and Germany d W U' years ago. ir'lbe8;;- 1:'0 Miles an Hour )! De Pa'ma, the mu-epid Ital- )S n(lfl!';, r' had P'Uclpated in the 50? nt K S0.rl0S f ex,ltbi"ons, but staking, ' Z tortune. Ufa and reputation, 'T- 0f'"JT h,raselt nor any of his col-tne col-tne had attained the goal when (here ffJ: - the "niform of Uncle Sam oVfVj" p 3 0fE tor war- Meanwhile, ni'v irt . who was Idolized in the WtO1' m aUtm0b,le in his day, iV'it . a racll,S accident out gW ' li th worla behin(1- But oBierai5-f t0 hls srave with tho 1 Vre::' a..d hi 8 COlors sti11 we HlaWv h9 Servlco ho started Wca; 1 on a lino of mc- and within a few months he had crowned himself wltn these victories over the same course where Burman established his: One mile, flying start 24.92 seconds Kilometer, flying start.. 13. 86 seconds Thus the news was flashed through the world of a new speed king having ascended the last round of the ladder ' of all speeddom on Daytona Beach on .February 12, 1919. The intensifying speed at which De Palma was traveling when he made these records approximated 15CT miles an hour. This meant that for every second consumed while covering that mile the driver was actually going over 215.65 feet of ground. At the end of the hair-raising dashes De Palma was overcome by emotion as his friends jammed around his car to offer congratulations. The bulletlike bullet-like racer had heaved to the sand, owing to its - marvelously contoured system of design, and there never was anything like the Jumping and skipping experienced by Burman while making his record in the Blitzen Benz. . ' Tribute to, his car was the first thing that De Palma uttered, then to the memory of the famous rival who set up the record he was taking down with every fleeting Eecond, and U the veteran associates with whom he had grown to fame in many a hard-fought race on every kind of course in America. Amer-ica. These "were uppermost in Ralph De Palma's mind during and immediately imme-diately after the record-breaking run on the sands of Daytona Beach. "I went to the starting point with all confidence," he said, "because in previous tests I was satisfied that the airplane motored car would do at least 150 miles an hour. The beach was soft, but still fair enough, for fast traveling ; the timing device was working work-ing like a charm; Fred Wagner was wielding the flag this was the hour for a new world's record. "In my mind at the moment was an account of Bob Burman's experience In the Blitzen Benz, when he set the world's record that had lasted for eight years and lived after poor Bob had gone himself. He was quoted as saying that he bumped and leaped and jumped and battered his way along the sands In a really hair-raising experience. ex-perience. Sensations of Race "Well, to go immediately to the finish, fin-ish, i rode as If in a limousine on a boulevard. Here and there, for a fraction of a second, would be an interval in-terval of side swaying that probably looked terrible to the spectators, but it wasn't so bad from the Inside of the car. In front of me and around me was the high, tenuous, humming sound of the beautiful working twelve cylinders. Beliind me was the machine-gun roar of the exhaust. Down the glittering beach the yellowing course leaped toward the front wheels and disappeared alongside me with something of motion-picture unreality in its disappearance. "The ease with which the car rode, the unfailing performance of its mighty power plant, reminded me of the development in automotive engineering en-gineering that has come within the eight years since Burman rode these sands to fame. The more recent years, with their stress of war, have quickened quick-ened that development. Two of the products of it are better distribution distribu-tion of weight, insuring a more even riding quality and higher speed. These were in my favor. Another great factor fac-tor working for mo was the perfection perfec-tion of streamline design brought about by the airplane engineering experience ex-perience of the war. Head resistance was cut to the vanishing point, and the great retarding factor, vacuum drag at the back of the car, was reduced re-duced to the minimum. "Burraan didn't live and race in the day of theee perfections, and as I reflected re-flected on his wonderful mark of 141.72 miles per hour, and thought of the time it was made, April 23, 1911, the wonder of his achievement grew on me. It was really a. most remarkable re-markable triumph. I. gave a lot of my thought immediately before the race and during it, too, to 'Wild Bob' Burman. He and I were intimate friends, often pitted against each other on the speedways, and I remember him with affection and esteem. But I gave some thought, too, to the fact that Bob made the record in a product that was 'Made in Germany,' the Blitzen Benz. I was at the wheel of a thoroughly American car, empowered empow-ered with a thoroughly American motor and it was to be American day on the world's finest straightaway. I didn't forget any of that either in preparing for the spurt or as I came down the course." When I asked De Palma as he a -::''"' ' : ; - v; ' '-;- , ( 4 r - 1 s ' , V jf; t ft hmnrn immmlm J RALPH DE PALMA stopped his car at the end of the dash what were his uppermost thoughts while actually making the mile, he replied re-plied as coolly as if just out of the surf: "Oh, a thousand things, mostly unrelated," unre-lated," he said, laughingly. "You know, there is something faster than the twin six, after all. Thought, especially the fleeting thought, travels much faster than any other kind of electricity, elec-tricity, and beside it even 215 feet a second is laggard space. So if I say I was thinking of such and such or so and so, don't think because it takes me a little while to tell it and you some time to hear it, I couldn't have thought of them all in twenty-four seconds. sec-onds. My mind went something like this:' A New Record " 'Now for it, Mademoiselle! Pick up your heels! We have to be going 100miles an hour even this far, two miles from the starting line. That's good. That's better. Now we're going. Aha! Beach not so hard and dry as it might be. Well and good. That's all right. We have enough reserve to take us over the line well under the record. " 'Nice day we have, Mademoiselle. Clear course. That black line off there is the grandstand; the blue out there is Pere Neptune- We must keep away from him. Tick-tock. A little sway there. That's right. Keep the finely shaped head straight down the fairway, fair-way, and we're going fine. Oh, beautiful! beau-tiful! " 'You're in perfect tune, my dear. And such a delightful color all cream, with sunshine playing on it. You must look lonely, if they have time to see you. "'A German record, eh? Well, we shall see. An American beauty will replace that scratchy eagle. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. " 'Flags, thick black spots up the beach; wire the starting line. Now for it! Just as steady and sweet-running as ever will do the trick nicely. Bob had no such car as this. He humped. Now, now no swaying. Why there's no tremendous rush of wind past us; we can even feel the light cross-current breeze. That's what the aircraft designers have done for us. This is just like flying around In the clear sky only faster. " 'Another wire start of the kilo meter. Fine balance, perfect poise. If we had a little better beach! No complaining. com-plaining. It's all right. We're getting there. Wish now I had not spun you up and down the beach so often this morning. After this must take better care of you, cherie. But it's all right. All right. That German record is doomed unless little tachometer is fibbing fib-bing with the needle. He resents that. He tells the truth. See him nod his head more up than down to that nod, though. " 'Here we come flags another mass of people there's a long thin pencil of black against the sand. Wish people would but it's holding out a black dot. It's Wag. Grand man, Wag. Minneapolis, twelve years ago, Barney got mad at Wag for telling me how to beat him in five straight aces. Kid then. Green at it. How seriously we took it snail's play alongside this, for speed but man's fight for roughness, rough-ness, those old race-track affairs. Lots of good boys. Big hearts. They all taught me a good deal but Wag isn't he genuine? A precious character! charac-ter! " Now, Wag, quick, flags! Fine! Now, Captain Leavel, your timer! La! La! Easy, slow a bit, now a bit more, down, down. They're cheering back there by the timer. A new record, rec-ord, they say. That's fine. One hundred hun-dred and fifty miles an hour. Fastest in the world. Where's tho German now? But it's a trifle slow for us, car o' mine. Let's look inside and see if there isn't enough to clip four-fifths off that 24.2. I thought so. Good enough. It's all right. It's all right. An American record. It has to be all right' " De Palma moved toward his car and dashed for the garage. Races for Love of It Ralph De Palma, the man, the mechanic me-chanic and the most daring speed artist of his time, possesses personal qualities which distinguish him from the De Palma one not knowing the daredevil would first picture in the mind. De Palma is not .the nervous, superstitious sportsman often told about in storie3 of his career, but a man from whose general countenance radiates the eloquence of a polished gentleman,; he enjoys an equilibrium easily explaining why he selected the hazardous profession of automobile speeding as a life vocation, and is guided in his racing exploits by an attitude at-titude of commendable independence in every transaction connected with a. contest where his name is heard. He buys his own tires, his own accessories ac-cessories and his o.'n racing cars and rays his way in full. He speaks French, Kalian and Eng- mimnnrrnm miwifaiwii ::'7i'n:,r;;;;'N!!'!'"T:-:r'""":::-:";';;'r,n-'"nnn",'"i.1i!1, i mmsssmm ! 'I! H I fl to P: fife niMjiJnj::iJM;!:i:r:H!iiii:P;i5irM!ii'::::!,::ii lish iluentiy and has mastered another language now dead, and ono of Ills most pleasing characteristics is an absence of affectation in any respect. Whilo working around his car, wherever wher-ever it may be, De Falma converses with automobile magnates with the same ease and with no more interest than he chats with the meekest employe em-ploye about the garage. If you ask him why ho chose automobile racing as a life vocation he will answer that he did so because he never looked upon it as a hazardous pursuit, and that had he viewed it thus he would have remained re-mained in tho factory as a mechanic. K you engage him in a review of the series of accidents which have so dramatically cheated him of some of the most spectacular races ever staged, he will smilingly tell you that it might have been worse, and points to the fact that he has come out from under the wreckage of many harrowing smash--, ups virtually unscathed, has stopped his burning car while dashing through space at record pace and left it unharmed un-harmed himself. Never did he take any stock in the widely talked ot "De Palma luck," which so many declared de-clared had so long followed him. One instance is recalled where he led a field of eight racers over a 500-mile course, and at the 495th miie was twenty miles ahead of the nearest contender, with $30,000 at stake. As he whirled by the grandstands along the course his admirers had turned the air into a thundesous roar, and the betting was a hundred to one in his favor. The track was good and the weather clear, his racer was running as smoothly as if on a concrete floor; hut the whole affair collapsed at the 495th mile. The car stopped and the driver Jumped from his machine. A quick survey proved that an oil pump had blown ' up, and De Palma's first thought was to get his car to the goal before overtaken. To replace the pump was a physical impossibility if the race was to be won, and he attempted to push the giant racer over tho remaining remain-ing five miles. This method failed, however, and ho left the field. Never Lost His Nerve Fred Wagner, the veteran timer and "father of the speeding game," related this incident vividly while talking to the old-timers tho evening after the great accomplishment of Ralph De Palma at .Daytona. "I felt to the bottom bot-tom of my heart for Ralph," said Wag, "and I mentioned then that it was one of the most dramatic defeats qf its kind I had ever seen a driver suffer. The Italian had set tho great throngs at the Indianapolis speedway into a frenzy by his daring driving, and it seemed that almost every spectator spec-tator was his friend and booster. When the news of De Palma's 111 fortune flashed through tho long stretch of onlookers the sudden collapse col-lapse of tho hilarity into a spirit of utter gloom was something no one who saw it will ever forget. "I have seen Ralph in great hair-raising hair-raising Jams, where it looked like a tragic smash wa3 inevitable, but by skill and luck ho seemed to engineer his way through tho perils without losing his place until the courso was freed by another driver falling back or another shooting ahead. Sometimes Some-times it would be Do Palma to make the forward das!), and again he would be left in the rear, only to rebound as if a resilient ball. He never seems to lose his head, and through many dangerous dan-gerous accidents I have watched hiti skill and level-headed methods with thrilling admiration. The tragic end of Frank Croker, who was coming forward as a leader in the racing game, and the fatal race of Bruce Brown, as well as many others who have gone down in the great business of automobile speeding, nover made a single lm-oad on De Palma's nerve; and he has survived accidents more . startling in their general aspects than many of the fine boys who met their doom, and it has been next to a marvel mar-vel to watch him como out from under them literally without a scratch. His work here on Daytona Beach has established es-tablished him where It seemed aa if by the very hand of destiny ho eventually eventu-ally had to land." No Serious Accidents Wagner then told of defeats De Palma had suffered during (he Grand Prix races at Savannah, another ut Cincinnati and several Mill further back, and declared that If 11k-i0 (;ver was such a thing as "tuiiKh lu.-k" on De Palma's trail ho fell, proudly cer-tain cer-tain it had vanished now. During the whole of Do 1 'alma's pre-liminaries pre-liminaries and his mii.ial trials at Df-ytona F.-acli he never ;-; u n ererl an accident of notable, :vn,,nLU,:,., 81ld about the only thing u, Mart the 'Jin:" meters shunting wan a rear-eutl rear-eutl coiliwon the had with a crane on the heael, ,,, u!u.r l(J rerjehed Dayl.,,.;,. jt WUI, fcalc tIiat , b;r,J i,;,,) hern,,, e ,,;,:,,-., a, Mvcral army aviators v.;,u had failed to Inil,0 ' : " '"''' ,vi':i attempting to race t-'vovc C.e driver and had como out ititlf to defend the rights of the ar. It f!-w close to the ground, and as Jb Palma. approached, so much faster v.as he going than the confident oid tea fowl that the bird was thrown 300 j-arris ahead and picked up dead from a nrinc! rhino.