Our history: Get ready, set - shovel

In 1965, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood and Jack Lemmon starred in "The Great Race," a slapstick comedy movie, complete with an enormous pie fight. The plot involved an automobile competition that challenged drivers to get from New York to Paris. Complicating their plans was the time period in which the film took place: the early 20th century.

That fictional contest was inspired by a real-life event. In 1908, drivers from four different nations revved their engines to travel westward from New York City to Paris - and part of their journey took them through southern Rensselaer County.

The entrants in the 22,000-mile race (13,000 of them to be driven) came from Germany, France, Italy and the U.S., each convinced that their auto was the best. The American team, headed by George Schuster, drove a Thomas Flyer. On Lincoln's birthday, at 11:15 a.m., a gunshot sounded in Times Square in New York City to send the competitors on their way. Ahead of them lay very few paved roads, and the daunting challenge of getting across Siberia.

First, however, the drivers had to contend with the Siberian-like winter in Rensselaer County. As reported by The New York Times, the German entry was "heavily freighted with camping paraphernalia for the long journey." That weight might have added to the difficulty the driver had with the snow. The car got stuck in drifts three times on its way from New York to Albany.


Poughkeepsie and Hudson were the sites of the first snowy problems. "At East Schodack," the Times told its readers, "the heavy Protos [the car model manned by the Germans] sailed into a snow bank six feet high."

Adding to their problem was the time of day when they got stuck: after darkness had fallen. The German team climbed out of the Protos and grabbed shovels.

It took three men two hours to free their car from the grip of the snow.

The head of the Protos team was Lt. Koeppen, who joked, "I expect Siberia will be a picnic compared with what we have experienced today." Many a resident of southern Rensselaer County has had the same thought.

The other competitors reported that they, too, had a "hard journey" from Hudson through Schodack and into East Greenbush.

Meanwhile, as often happens in February, the snow changed to rain. In East Greenbush, 14 cars, filled with enthusiasts for the new mode of transportation, greeted the cold and wet racers, and escorted them across the Hudson River to Albany, where a luncheon was held to fete the competitors.

In 1908, as the age of the automobile was beginning, roads were like a magician's rabbit: sometimes there and sometimes not.

Heading west, the cars in the contest hurried to Schenectady, where fire bells were sounded in greeting.

As they disappeared into the sunset, the cross-country racers traversed trickier routes, if they existed at all.

There were no highways and few paved surfaces. The cars often followed train tracks or even straddled them to keep to the quickest pathway to California.

Ships then transported the autos to Alaska and across the Pacific to Siberia and Manchuria.

The American entry got to Paris on July 30, more than five months after the contest began. Arriving ahead of them was the German Protos, but that team was penalized for cheating.

They had skipped the Alaska leg and partly shipped their car by rail. As a result, first prize was awarded to the U.S.

Ironically, the French car never got to Paris.

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