The Fast Times of Albert Champion

by Peter Joffre Nye

  In Fournier’s view, if you act quickly, you are safe. “If not, the coroner gets you.”

  Champion had acted quickly and survived. But he required several weeks after leaving the hospital before he and Elise boarded a train west to Detroit and the Packard Motor Company.

  Packard’s plant on forty acres along East Grand Boulevard on the city’s east side boasted the most modern automobile manufacturing factory in the world. It introduced extensive use of reinforced concrete in walls, supports, and roofs—a departure from traditional wood and offering better fire protection. The architecture also provided a larger unobstructed interior space than conventional buildings and more windows for letting in natural light. When Albert arrived, he found the Packard factory was energized with craftsmen practicing dozens of trades. They were turning out the new Packard Model N, which would set the industry standard for engineering and luxury.

  The factory represented a vast improvement over the alley garages of early carmakers, like the workshop in which Henry Ford had made 999. Behind the architecture was the youthful German immigrant Albert Kahn. Henry Ford was impressed with the Packard factory and commissioned Kahn to design a similar plant for his new startup, the Ford Motor Company.

  The Packard Motor Car Company was among the first automakers to test products.97 Its acreage had a road made of loose gravel with a steep hill to put cars through grueling drives.

  Henry Joy furnished Champion with an office of his own to begin plans for racing the Packard Gray Wolf in the upcoming season.

  The Frenchman wrote letters to friends in Boston. “I am lame, and will be, but that will not prevent me from running my car and making new records,” he told John J. Donovan of the Boston Globe. “As soon as I get going, Barney Old-field and Mr. [William K.] Vanderbilt and others had better look out, for I will smash all their records.”98

  Donovan, in an article for the Globe, described how Albert sometimes in fits of enthusiasm tossed aside his cane to hobble and limp around his office with the aid of benches and chairs.99

  By April, Champion was approaching six months since his accident, and he felt his usual vigor returning. After fully healing, his left leg was a couple inches shorter than his right.100 But he could put weight on the leg to walk without assistance and, as soon as he could, he put away the cane.

  He wrote a letter to a friend in Boston to send for one of the bicycles he’d left behind there. Then he initiated light exercise on a bicycle he mounted on his training rollers, the rear wheel spinning over a roller and the frame held up by a mechanical support he rigged up where he and Elise were living. It was simple to insert a longer crank arm on his bicycle for his shorter leg to compensate for the length difference. More tricky was crafting a custom pedal to accommodate the foot of his healed leg, now turned permanently slightly outward. He fashioned a special pedal, built up with wood on top of the steel base like a version of a clubfoot,101 and he had to experiment to perfect the angle. His aero bicycle’s one-speed fixed gear, popular today among urban cyclists as a “fixie,” helped his damaged leg to recover. The chain connected straight to the rear-wheel sprocket, without a coasting mechanism; when the wheels turned, so did the pedals, in cadence matching the turning wheels. He practiced accelerating from a slow speed to a brisk pace. Once up to speed, the fixed gear took on characteristics of a flywheel to sustain momentum. Both legs rolled in a synchronized motion, which prevented him from favoring his weak leg. He gradually recovered his usual fluid pedal strokes. Strengthening his injured leg also improved his walking.

  Never inclined to sit back or drift on his past achievements, Champion got in touch with other drivers and race officials about the 1904 racing circuit. He gathered information about registration deadlines and fees, train schedules for transporting the Gray Wolf, and what hotels and restaurants were recommended. To drive the Gray Wolf, however, would depend on cooperation from Charles Schmidt. The older Frenchman wielded the upper hand.

  Henry Joy may have tolerated Schmidt’s attitude in order to placate him. The Gray Wolf induced him to stay when other companies like Peerless in Cleveland were offering higher pay for his talent.

  Schmidt could have felt responsible for Champion’s injuries. Schmidt also may have been peeved about something else. On January 2 and 3, 1904, at Ormond-Daytona Beach, he had driven the Gray Wolf in a straight line along firm coastline sands connecting the two cities and set a new national one-mile record of 46-2/5 seconds, clocking 77 mph. He also set national records for the kilometer and five miles. But what mattered most was the mile—the gold standard for achievement. Only a week later, Henry Ford drove his latest racing car a mile in forty seconds flat on the ice of Lake St. Clair in Michigan, a world record of 91.37 mph.102 On January 25, William K. Vanderbilt Jr. drove a Mercedes a mile in thirty-nine seconds for the world’s land-speed record, an astounding 92.3 mph.103 Schmidt was in no mood to allow anyone to use his Gray Wolf. He focused on supervising production of his latest design, Packard Model N.

  Henry Joy must have felt like George Washington with two headstrong Lafayettes. He had higher priorities and disparate demands on his time. James Ward Packard had stayed in Warren, Ohio, and left expansion of the company’s operations up to him.

  Champion deliberated about his future. He could take up what he knew best, as he was assured of good money motorpacing.104 Over the previous nine years, April had been the month he dedicated to training in earnest for the next season. His leg discrepancy was easily compensated for by riding with one longer crank arm and a built-up pedal. Spectators watching him ride would see he was back to normal.

  He had been pining for Paris. In September in Atlanta, Champion had mentioned to reporters that he had been planning to return home after the racing season to take advantage of the French government’s amnesty for draft dodgers and deserters. Now with a limp and X-rays of his broken leg bone to show the draft board, he could go home without fear of arrest at the port of entry. He missed his mother and brothers Louis, Henri, and Prosper. Elise also longed to see her parents, Marie and Bernard Sr., sister Gabrielle, and brother Bernard Jr. Albert’s Brighton Beach accident had wiped out that plan. Now he could follow through.

  His stint in Detroit exposed him to the phenomenal importance of the gas-combustion autos to the city. Over a bottle of the local Vernors ginger ale conversations buzzed about the city of 285,000 residents in 1900 growing at a rate sufficient to nearly double its population in a decade due to job openings in the proliferating auto factories.

  Packard had been in town less than a year and Henry Joy already had hired architect Albert Kahn to add additional factory buildings through 1911, which would expand the plant to 3,500,000 square feet. Detroit’s Oldsmobile dominated as America’s biggest-selling automaker in 1903, with sales of 4,000. Mass-produced, gas-powered Oldsmobiles outsold all the electric and steam-powered vehicles combined for the first time, signaling a tipping point for gas-combustion engines. Another thriving Detroit company was Cadillac, which trailed Oldsmobile in sales. Horace and John Dodge had a booming business making engine components and chassis parts for Oldsmobiles and for Henry Ford’s new company.

  Champion felt the onus to create his own business to serve America’s mushrooming auto production. He considered forming a company, taking advantage of his name recognition, to import French auto parts, especially spark plugs and magnetos to generate current for the spark plug’s ignition of internal-combustion engines. He had contacts in Paris. However, he lacked capital.

  Sometime in April, Champion made up his mind to dive back into motor-pace racing, hit the East Coast circuit for May and June, then return to Paris for a final racing campaign. He wanted a shot at winning the French national motorpace championship. Paris and Berlin offered bigger tracks for faster speeds, larger audiences, and more lucrative purses. He could raise the capital he needed on tracks and later return to Boston, a city he’d grown to regard as his second home, to start his own company.

  Albert informed Henry
Joy of his plan. Henry invited him to have their photo taken together in the latest Packard, a souvenir in appreciation for his service to the company.

  On a bright, chilly day in late April, Henry Joy drove an open Packard Model N, a de luxe tonneau—with upholstered seats in the back for family members—out of the factory with Albert on the passenger seat. Henry parked next to the curb. The auto was regarded as one of the finest luxury vehicles made in America. The Model N had a four-cylinder engine and a transmission equipped with an H-slot gearshift pattern for three forward speeds and one for reverse—a pattern used universally for decades until the advent of automatic transmissions. Packards boasted the slogan: Ask the Man Who Owns One.105

  Some Packard employees in their Sunday best looked on from the other side of the sidewalk. They watched the photographer set up the tripod and camera in the street to capture Champion and Joy in profile while showing off the graceful lines of the car and the shine of the polished hood reflecting the front wheel. Albert adjusted his bowler, unusual for him, as he preferred a wool flat hat. He checked his collar and the knot of his bowtie one last time before turning to look directly ahead.

  Champion, left, sat next to Henry Joy in a new Packard in Detroit before he passed up Joy’s offer to drive racecars for 1904. He returned to France to race bicycles and used his prize money to go into the auto industry. Photo courtesy of Cherie Champion.

  Henry Joy removed his pince nez and put the spectacles in a waistcoat pocket. He placed his hands on his lap and gazed ahead, as though the car could drive itself. He would serve as president of the company and chairman of the board. In the next decade, he would take the helm as president of the Lincoln Highway Association, which built a paved highway from San Francisco to New York—America’s first cross-country road.

  Albert pasted this photo in his scrapbook with his career highlights.

  On the first of May, Albert and Elise boarded an eastbound train to Boston. He had to prepare for the Memorial Day season opener in Charles River Park. Albert required world-class fitness by the end of June—and to be in Paris.

  HIS LIMP PREVENTING HIM FROM WEARING THE MILITARY UNIFORM.

  —PIERRE CHANY, LA FABULEUSE HISTOIRE DU CYCLISME, CITING CHAMPION’S PLACE IN THE PANTHEON OF FRENCH CYCLING GREATS1

  While Champion hobbled around Boston with his gimp leg and splay-foot renewing acquaintances, Globe reporter John J. Donovan told readers, “Champion Is Back in Town.” Albert pasted the article in his scrapbook, penciling in the date, May 5, as he was keeping track of the days while he weighed his opportunities and preferences. “He has almost entirely recovered from his injury,” Donovan wrote, “and, with a little preparation, should be in his old-time condition.”2

  The odds against fulfilling the upbeat forecast were enormous, yet Champion was undaunted. Fractured legs were pitiless in the way they destroyed all manner of sports careers. His Paris friend Constant Huret had been forced to retire after breaking an ankle in a crash racing on the Parc des Princes.3 Determined, Champion defied his fate.

  The Memorial Day season opener loomed in only a few weeks. Yet picking up where he had left off before his accident had turned even more complex. The bicycle industry spiraled in freefall. Former cycling enthusiasts bought Brownie Box Cameras, made by the Kodak Company, for as little as a dollar. The cameras had George Eastman’s ingenious flexible rolls of film for taking pictures. People carried the cameras around in a pocket and pursued photography as the new national hobby. In cities that boasted wheelmen by the battalions, golf courses also proliferated, with memberships swelling from converts swapping two-wheelers for bags of golf clubs. Men and women frequented downtown venues with novel roller-skating rinks and bowling alleys. As cycle sales languished, dozens of manufacturers merged and formed the American Bicycle Company,4 a Chicago consortium, to control supply and limit competition. The new consortium slashed prices even when it meant sacrificing quality.

  The early twentieth century saw autos increasing on urban streets. Motorists had to thread their way in traffic dominated by horses and manure piles. Drivers endured a chorus of righteous jokers on the side of the road singing out, “Get a horse!”

  Many bicycle company owners were cashing out to make autos that retained their brand name, following earlier auto pioneers Alexander Winton, Colonel Albert Pope, and Charles and Frank Duryea. Thomas B. Jeffery, founder of Rambler bicycles, made in Chicago and once a dominant marque, sold the business and decamped north to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to found the Rambler Motor Company.5 George Pierce in Buffalo, New York, was a master of entrepreneurial versatility.6 He had made wire birdcages, then spokes for bicycle wheels, then complete bicycles. His Pierce Bicycle Company became well known for its logo of an arrow with a chipped flint arrowhead shot straight through the name Pierce. From that came the Pierce-Arrow Motor Company.

  In such an effervescent climate, Champion discussed retiring from paced racing or reconsidering Henry Joy’s still-open, flattering contract offer to drive the Packard Gray Wolf.7 In Paris, the International Commission representing automobile clubs on two continents decided to allow professional drivers in the upcoming international James Gordon Bennett Cup Race in Hamburg, Germany.8 The commission cited Champion, Barney Oldfield, and three others as possible drivers to make up a team driving US autos.

  While he mulled over his next move, Champion turned his attention to building up his atrophied leg muscles. This pushed him to workouts at Revere Beach and Charles River Park. Champion signed a contract to ride for the Imperial Bicycle Company, which had formed in Buffalo before relocating under new ownership to Chicago.9 Imperial’s logo featured its name in diamond-style capital letters over an arrow shooting up at a diagonal to distinguish Imperial from the Pierce company. He practiced behind Billy Saunders, a disciple of the Gillette safety razor who shaved all facial hair.10 Champion and Saunders wore jerseys with Imperial inscribed across their front and back.

  Champion (left) in his final season stands with his aerodynamic motorpace bicycle made by Imperial, one of the last brands to survive the era when America had more than three hundred bicycle manufacturers and only a handful of automakers. Photo from US Bicycling Hall of Fame.

  The Frenchman trained twice daily up to two hours each session, with the characteristic intensity the Washington Star had once described as pitching in like ten men. He grew stronger and steadily built up muscle mass. Cycling since he was eleven had endowed him with a base of strength and endurance to hasten his recovery. He tipped the scales at a robust 150 pounds.11

  Barney Oldfield came by train to Boston in late May for an auto race at the Readville Trotting Park, sponsored by the Boston Herald. Oldfield visited the Revere Beach velodrome and spent an afternoon chatting with Champion and the men Oldfield had raced against in his cycling days, like an alumnus returning to those from whose ranks he had graduated.12 America’s fastest racecar driver volunteered to serve as official starter for the track’s Memorial Day cycling program. He was employed by Alexander Winton to drive Bullet II. His illustrious 999 was still making the circuit rounds, piloted by Jed Newkirk,13 Champion’s former pacer.

  “Albert Champion is particularly anxious to drive here as he desires to have his name engraved on The Boston Herald trophy,” a scribe for the Herald asserted, “and he thinks that with the ‘Grey Wolf’ this will be possible.”14

  Perhaps he was thinking of something else even more. Gas-combustion automobiles were noisy, smelly, and prone to breakdowns. But after a medical doctor from Burlington, Vermont, had driven a two-cylinder Winton from coast to coast in seven weeks to win a $50 bet in 1903, the potential for motor vehicles appeared boundless compared to electric or steam vehicles. The oil gushing from Spindletop, and additional discoveries of northeast Texas wells, indicated that plenty of fuel would be available. Champion’s former boss, Adolphe Clément, president of France’s National Automobile Syndicate, had been invited to America that summer to serve on the jury of the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missour
i.15 The World’s Fair commemorated the centenary of President Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, buying from France the broad swath of land from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico.

  Since the turn of the century, US auto sales had swelled too fast for accurate accounting. Automobile complained that industry figures were so conflicting and confusing that accurate measures were unavailable. All anybody knew for sure was that the growth over the preceding half-dozen years had been tremendous. Autos had developed from a plaything for the very rich, like a fad of the hour. The magazine acknowledged, “Then very little capital was invested in automobile factories; now over twenty millions of dollars are employed in the business.”16

  From garages with dreamers and tinkerers and two or three small factories making a handful of early autos, which the automakers also had to sell on their own, the industry had escalated to about fifty large factories equipped with machinery and staffed by skilled workers. In five years annual production had jumped from four thousand to twenty-five thousand.17

  Detroit was home to Ransom Olds and his Olds Motor Works, manufacturing one-cylinder Oldsmobiles.18 Oldsmobiles were America’s first auto produced in big quantities—600 in 1901, 2,500 the next year, and 4,000 in 1903.19 Ransom Olds produced cars with an assembly line adapted from New England arms manufacturers. Oldsmobiles were light, made of wood, styled after open-topped horse buggies, and steered with a tiller. They sold for $650,20 compared with about $250 for a horse carriage. Oldsmobiles were noted as the first commercially successful autos. They inspired the cheerful song, “In My Merry Oldsmobile,”21 made popular from sales of sheet music propped up on pianos in drawing rooms for family sing-alongs and parties. The ascending vehicle production rate pointed to the United States surpassing France in a couple of years as leader of all the nations producing autos. Jokey get-a-horse cries were going the way of beards.