Since the days of Roman chariot racing the records of man describe nothing that parallels automobile racing, and, so far as we have any knowledge, chariot racing, save for the plaudits of vast throngs of spectators, was tame and uneventful compared with the frightful pace of sixty and eighty miles an hour in a throbbing, bounding, careering road locomotive, over roads practically unknown, passing persons, teams, vehicles, cattle, obstacles, and obstructions of all kinds, with a thousand hair-breadth escapes from wreck and destruction.
The sport may not be pretty and graceful; it lacks the sanction of convention, the halo of tradition.

It does not admit of smart gowns and gay trappings; it is the last product of a mechanical age, the triumph of mechanical ingenuity, the harnessing of mechanical forces for pleasure instead of profit,--the automobile is the mechanical horse, and, while not as graceful, is infinitely more powerful, capricious, and dangerous than the ancient beast..