Sacrifices of the Around-the-World Race
“Current Literature” remarks: “Talk about sacrifices incurred for one’s country or one’s religious faith! What sacrifices will a man not endure to prove his faith in his own muscles and nerves? Lieutenant Koeppen, of the Protos car [one of the around-the-world race automobiles], an army officer with no previous automobile experience, sacrificed his entire fortune and plunged himself into a debt of $10,000 to carry the race through to completion. When he reached Berlin he declared that he had slept in a bed but five nights in the preceding two months. So far as the physical hardships were concerned, the experiences of the Thomas car crew were almost identical.” “Through northern Russia the crews bivouacked upon the open ground much of the time. Ill-fed, tossed over rough ways, improperly rested on the chilled earth,” they kept their wearied bodies to the tasks; and all the sacrifice, and pain, and toil, were literally for nothing but fame, and that perishing with the next successful record-breaking race.