WHEN the big Mercedes car ran away

Harry S. Harkness

WHEN the big Mercedes car ran away from everything at the Brighton Beach track two weeks ago, the question on everybody’s lips was “Who’s Harkness?” That he was a chauffeur of undeniable nerve and skill, everyone who saw him swing his ponderous machine around the track’s sharp corners, allowed. But who he was, or where he came from, was a puzzle which lent additional interest to his brilliant performance.

Harry S. Harkness is the son of Mr. L. V. Harkness, a Standard Oil man, who resides at 933 Fifth avenue, New York. Young Harkness, who is in his 25th year, inherits his love for sport from his father, the latter being one of the best known, and, withal, most modest sportsmen on the American turf. Four years ago, the subject of this sketch purchased his first automobile, a Locomobile, on which he made many trips in and around New York, and subsequently through California. Having disposed of this machine, he bought an Orient motor tricycle, but after a few months sold this and returned to his first love, the Locomobile. In his second machine he made several trips from New York to Boston, to the Thousand Isles, and hack. In September, last year, he went to Paris, where he received his first lesson in steering a big automobile. Beginning with a Mors 10-hp., he subsequently bought a Mercedes 12-hp., then a Panhard 40-hp., and finally the big Mercedes, in which he first showed his ability as a driver on an American track at Brighton Beach. This machine he has dubbed “The Crimson Cyclone.”

Having demonstrated his fitness to class in the front rank of American drivers, with a Vanderbilt, Bostwick, Foxhall Keene, Bishop, etc., young Harkness has a laudable ambition to aim at the highest honors in the automobile world, namely, to lift the Gordon Bennett trophy. When the American team goes to England next June to compete for this prize, he will be on hand with a machine of his own, American built, of course, and, with a modicum of good fortune, he ought to be heard from among the first to reach the winning post.

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