Bandits, Guns and Automobiles --
1908 Great Race winner regaled his great-grandson with epic stories.

Editor’s note: The writer, Auxiliarist Jeff Mahl, is a great-grandson of George Schuster, who drove the winning 1907 “Thomas Flyer” in the 1908 Great Race: New York to Paris, an incredible automobile race nearly around the world.  Schuster lived to 99, giving his great-grandson opportunities to hear first-hand accounts of the adventure of a lifetime.  The author is an active Auxiliarist, former Chief of the Information Technology Department.  Jeff took a hiatus from some of his Auxiliary tasks to participate in this reenactment of the “Great Race.”

By Auxiliarist Jeff Mahl, Past Chief, National Information Technology Department

Auxiliarist Mahl and Mr Schuster in Times Square

As a young boy, some of my earliest memories of Great Gramp (my great-grandfather, George N. Schuster) were of those summer afternoons on the front porch swing as I listened for hours to his stories of past adventures.
 
These were more than just fables from some book.  They were true stories revolving around the 1908 New York to Paris “Great Race,” and his victory as driver of the American entry, a Thomas Flyer.  That epic race was to become not only part of my heritage, but that of the American motoring public’s as well.

Great Gramp was part of a legend -- a race so impossible that many people must have thought the competitors were crazy or at least oblivious to reality.  And I was hearing stories more intriguing than anything I ever saw on “Gunsmoke” or “Perry Mason” TV shows. 

It was a story about men and their amazing machines, facing colossal challenges at a time when some people actually believed you could drive cars across the frozen Bering Strait.  In the 100 years since, it still hasn’t been done…

Great Gramp had stories all right.  He talked about a serious encounter among the competitors at Vladivostok, on the Siberian coast of Russia, when the French, Italian, German and American cars were to restart the Asia/Europe legs of the race. 

Auxiliarist Jeff Mahl and the Thomas Flyer

The French De Dion team, headed by Bourcier St. Chaffray, had recently learned its entry was withdrawn by the Marquis de Dion, owner of the factory.  It seemed the Marquis sold the De Dion, and the car was to be shipped from Vladivostok to a wealthy merchant in Peking, China.

St. Chaffray, an aristocratic Frenchman who considered himself the “Napoleon of the Automobile,” was not about to return to Paris by train in defeat.  He approached Great Gramp soon after the Americans arrived with the Thomas in Vladivostok.  He explained he could not continue with the De Dion, and wanted to join the Americans.  When Great Gramp told him he already had a full crew of four and there was no room, St. Chaffray defiantly announced he had purchased all of the gasoline in Vladivostok.  If the Americans would not take him, no one would go!  Great Gramp said he would think about it and give St. Chaffray the answer the next morning.

George then set out to find the needed petrol, visiting the German trading firm of Kunst & Albers.  Great Gramp, who was fluent in German, spoke with the clerk and negotiated for about 65 gallons.  As he was about to leave the store, the manager came out of his office, and Great Gramp thanked him for the service of his clerk and for the gasoline.  The manager, knowing the Germans were also in this race, countered that there would be no gasoline for the Americans!

Great Gramp knew he had to have this fuel and sternly advised the manager he had aboard the Thomas a correspondent for the New York Times.  He would return to pick up the fuel he had already paid for.  If it wasn’t ready for him, the journalist would cable a story back to New York telling the entire world about the true nature of German sportsmanship! 

Hansen Roberts and Schuster driving in Times Square

When George later returned, the petrol was waiting for him, a total of nearly 300 gallons at $1.25 per gallon.  He proceeded back to the hotel to tell St. Chaffray he would not be in need of his gasoline, foiling St. Chaffray‘s plan.  Great Gramp suggested the Frenchman hitch a ride with the German Protos to Paris, only to have the disgruntled St. Chaffray reply that a Frenchman in a German automobile was not something he would even consider!

Another of the stories that always caught the wandering attention of a boy in his early teens was one of bandits, and a moment of bold bravado to avoid a robbery and possible death.  The team of the Thomas Flyer had been warned of marauding Manchurian brigands -- well armed, skillful horsemen who plundered the remote countryside.  No travelers were safe unless they paid tribute and were themselves well armed.  Russian army troops were stationed along the Trans-Siberian railway in an effort to protect both the railway and surrounding villages from these roving bands of thieves.    

As the Flyer was progressing along a road, in the distance there was a group of menacing horsemen waiting at an intersection.  The crew of the Thomas was armed with Colt revolvers, a repeating rifle and shotgun but certainly no match for the impending showdown.   As they approached close enough for the horsemen to hear, the occupants of the Thomas (in a moment of true inspiration), started laughing and carrying on as if they were quite insane.   The horsemen, who had never see an automobile, much less one loaded with crazy Americans, parted to each side of the road, allowing the Flyer to pass as they gazed on in perplexed amazement.

Though not a gun was drawn in the encounter with the Manchurian bandits, things were destined to change in an altercation within the Thomas crew itself.  After days of hardship and frustration crossing the endless tundra of Asia, the Flyer came to a point in the trail with a choice of turns. 

A man named Hansen, a Norwegian explorer who had bolted from the French De Dion team and joined the American Flyer team, thought he knew the direction to take.  Great Gramp, who with a sextant he had made by hand and a crude map showing Asia on the right and Europe on the left of the page, felt he knew the proper way.  Tempers flared, with Hansen pulling his gun on George to enforce his choice of direction.  While Great Gramp carefully considered his options, the New York Times correspondent pulled his gun on Hansen -- tipping the balance in favor of Great Gramp’s decision.  In the end, Great Gramp was correct in his sense of where the Flyer needed to go.

Every one of the 169 days of the race adventure was a story in itself.  Once, in the Nevada desert, the Flyer was chased by a pack of hungry coyotes.  On another day, the Flyer had to make a hasty retreat backing out of a train tunnel to avoid being smashed by an oncoming freight train.  On the way to Alaska, carrier pigeons were used to relay the next day’s headline back to the New York Times. 

Great Gramp talked about inventing a seatbelt to keep from falling out of the Flyer, and using the first “car wash” to remove hundreds of pounds of mud from the Thomas.  He recalled people such as a Dr. Shaw giving him a first aid kit with the “wonder drugs” of the day including morphine and quinine, and the young mother in San Francisco who gave him a baby shoe wrapped in a silk American flag for good luck. 

There were memories like pulling the German competitors out of Siberian mud that was so deep, horses would drown.  The captain of the German Protos team uncorked a bottle of champagne, with both teams toasting “a gallant, comradely act” in the middle of the vast tundra.  And recollections of missing leather fenders while the Thomas was in the hold of a ship crossing the Pacific.  The ship’s crew had stolen them to make new soles for their sandals. 

My imagination would jump into high gear as Great Gramp told of the smell of rancid beef tallow used for lubrication in the Black Forest. And of how the Flyer team hoisted a bicycle with its headlight onto the hood of the Thomas to appease a French gendarme at the gates to the City of Lights, Paris.

Fortunately, even as a young boy I soon realized these true life-adventures were far better than fiction.  Great Gramp lived to the age of 99, passing away on July 4, 1972.  He was a humble man, who never thought of his globe-circling adventure as anything extraordinary.  For him, it was part of his job, fulfilling a duty to his company and to his country.  He was still shoveling snow and driving cars well into his 90s. 

As the years passed, and I grew into my late teens, I began to appreciate that I was actually hearing history from the man who lived it – Great Gramp, a.k.a. George N. Schuster, winning driver, The Great Race 1908: New York to Paris. 

The Greatest Auto Race on Earth – 1908 Documentary Preview Video:

http://www.thegreatautorace.com/Greatest_Race_Film-SEP07.wmv

Great Race 2008 - New York to Paris Video:

http://www.thegreatautorace.com/Great_Race_2008-SEP07.wmv

~DW