Dawn of Automobile Racing

The dawn of automobile racing was anything but that. It was thought that a car's ability to navigate roads in a reliable manner was all that could be hoped for. Outright speed was not even considered important that is until the flag dropped ... The first event to have been planned was to have been a short trial in Paris organized by "Le Velocipede" in 1887, but only one competitor turned up and so it was abandoned. The first organized event was actually a Reliability Trial run from Paris to Rouen in 1894 over a distance of 126 km. It was organized by a newspaper, Le Petite Journal, and the winning "horseless carriage" had to be "safe, easily controllable and reasonably economical to run." Twenty one entries left Paris on July 22nd, and the first home was Count de Dion in a steam driven De Dion tractor. Unfortunately for De Dion, the jury decided that his car was not a practical road vehicle and instead awarded the prize jointly to the next two leading cars, a Peugeot and a Panhard-Levassor respectively. The winning average speed was an exhilarating 17km/h. Many town races were run in the following years including Paris to Bordeaux and back. This 1895 event, a true race, was won by Emille Levassor. Driving a 2-cylinder, 4-bhp Panhard-Levassor he drove 48 hours 48 minutes virtually non-stop. Because his car only had two seats instead of the required 4 he was denied the prize of 31,000 francs, yet it is his statue that overlooks the finishing line at the Porte Maillot in Paris. An other interesting entrant in this race was the Peugeot of André Michelin which used pneumatic tires. Typically wheels used on other cars were either iron or solid rubber. At first the "air tyre" was ridiculed as impractical and indeed Michelin's car suffered from numerous flats due to the poor condition of the roads at the turn of the century. Panhard would dominate racing until the end of the century.

The first Italian race took place on the 18th of May, 1895. The 93 kilometer route took the drivers from Turin to Asti and back. Only five competitors took the start and of those three were able to finish. The winner was Simone Federmann at an average of 15.5 kph in a Daimler Omnibus which contrary to its name had a seating capacity of four. 1895 marked the formation of the Automobile Club de France while in America the Chicago Times Herald sponsored a race or more accurately a challenge as there were only two competitors. The A.C.F. sponsored what would be the longest race held up to that time from Bordeaux to Agen and back to Bordeaux, a distance of `1710 kilometers. Rather than one long race the event was divided into 10 stages and rand from September 24th to October 3rd. To the delight of the French crowd the first two places were won by Panhards followed by a De Dion-Bouton tricycle in third.