The first prearranged match race of two self-powered road vehicles over a prescribed route occurred at 4:30 A.M. on August 30, 1867, between
Ashton-under-Lyne and
Old Trafford, a distance of eight miles. It was won by the carriage of
Isaac Watt Boulton, one of six he said he had run over the years, perhaps driven by his 22-year-old son, James W.
The race was against Daniel Adamson's carriage, likely the one made for Mr. Schmidt and perhaps driven by Schmidt. The reports do not indicate who was driving, since both were violating the red-flag law then fully in force. Boulton's carriage was developed from a scrapped John Bridge Adams light-rail vehicle. These were solid fired steam carriages. This event and the details of the vehicles are recorded in the contemporary press,
The Engineer, and in Fletcher's books.
The Wisconsin legislature passed an act in 1875 offering a substantial purse for the first US motor race, which was run on July 16, 1878, over a 200-mile course from Green Bay to Appleton, Oshkosh, Waupon, Watertown, Fort Atkinson and Janesville, then turning north and ending in Madison. Only two actually competed: the Oshkosh and the Green Bay (the machines were referred to by their town of origin). This is examined and illustrated in detail in The Great Race of 1878 by Richard Backus, Farm Collector, May/June 2004.
Early motor competition
Internal combustion auto racing events began soon after the construction of the first successful gasoline-fueled automobiles. The first organized contest was on April 28, 1887, by the chief editor of Paris publication Le Vélocipède, Monsieur Fossier It ran 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from Neuilly Bridge to the Bois de Boulogne. It was won by Georges Bouton of the De Dion-Bouton Company in a car he had constructed with Albert, the Comte de Dion, but as he was the only competitor to show up, it is rather difficult to call it a race
Another solo event occurred in 1891 when
Auguste Doriot
and Louis Rigoulot of
Peugeot
drove their gasoline-fueled
Type 3
Quadricycle in the bicycle race from
Paris–Brest–Paris. By the time they reached
Brest, the winning cyclist,
Charles Terront, was already back in Paris. In order to publicly prove the reliability and performance of the Quadricycle,
Armand Peugeot had persuaded the organiser,
Pierre Giffard of
Le Petit Journal, to use his network of monitors and marshalls to vouchsafe and report the vehicle's performance. The intended distance of 1200 km had never been achieved by a motorised vehicle, it being about three times further than the record set by
Leon Serpollet from Paris to Lyon
On July 22,
1894, the Parisian magazine
Le Petit Journal organized what is considered to be the world's first motoring competition, from Paris to Rouen
Sporting events were a tried and tested form of publicity stunt and circulation booster.
Pierre Giffard, the paper's editor, promoted it as a
Concours des Voitures sans Chevaux (Competition for Horseless Carriages) that was "not dangerous, easy to drive, and cheap during the journey." Thus, it blurred the distinctions between a reliability trial, a general event, and a race. One hundred and two competitors paid a 10-franc entrance fee.
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Sixty-nine cars started the 50 km (31 mi) selection event that would show which entrants would be allowed to start the main event, the 127 km (79 mi) race from Paris to Rouen. The entrants ranged from serious manufacturers like
Peugeot,
Panhard, or
De Dion to amateur owners; only 25 were selected for the main race.
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