From the archives of Bob Montgomery, motoring historian
HOT AIR AT BALLINSLAUGHTER:
The Irish Automobile Club ran its annual Ballinslaughter Hillclimb in 1906 amid controversy caused by the appearance of several Stanley stem cars which proceeded to blitz the opposition. One Stanley was driven by the famous US record-breaking driver, Fred Marriott, who recorded his memories of the event in 1954.
"Stanley had an agent in London in the early days, and he got the idea to send me over there to do a little demonstrating, hill climbing, and in general, prove to those Britishers what we were doing here in Newton. The agent had a few cars there, and I went over with a Model H in the summer of 1906.
"When I got to London, I found that our agent had made arrangements for us to go to Ireland, just outside Dublin, to participate in a famous hill climb. They had different classes according to horsepower or weight or something. Anyway, we entered three Stanleys" - one a little tiller 1904 Stanley in the smallest division, one a 10 hp Model E (about 1905), and the H in the unlimited power class.
"The two boys driving the two smaller cars come to me for advice. They were not too familiar with the operation in competition of this kind, and we tried to figure out the course. I went up once slowly, not to arouse any suspicion that we had anything good, just to get the lay of the land. The course was about a mile long . . . there was a sharp curve with a big rock right beside the road, if you could call it a road, on the inside of the curve.
"They had cars there from all over Europe: some of those drivers were a pain in the neck - 'overbearing' as the dickens and the more high-powered they thought their cars were the more 'overbearing' they were.
"Most of the spectators had never seen a steam car in a race. The little Stanley started off. The times of the various cars were coming down the hill, and each time a faster time was announced, there would go up a cheer from the mechanics, etc, at the bottom.
"Finally, we got the Stanley's time. I thought he should 'a done better, but even at that he was five or six seconds ahead of the field in that class! More people took notice of the two remaining Stanleys after that! The fellow driving the Model E . . . cleaned up his nearest rival by 10 seconds! He did a nice job.
"These 'overbearin' fellas were now going to their chance - they were runnin' big Italian and French and German cars in the unlimited class. We were already gettin' pretty unpopular because we'd cleaned up the other two classes.
"Just before it was my turn, some fella come runnin' down the hill shouting that there had been an accident above the curve, and I oughta go very slow on the upper part. They held me for a while then gave me the signal. I made a good start and a fast climb, the car was workin' good! I went around there much slower than I'd intended because of the warning, and there wasn't a thing on the course - it had been a trick!
"I was burnin' when I shoved the trottle wide open for the last stretch, and that thing jumped like a scared rabbit; those Irishmen gawkin' along the way. I'll never forget that Stanley! We beat the second place car by nearly 20 seconds!
"Well, we Stanley men got together at the top of the hill. Even if most of the competitors wouldn't speak to us, they gave us three cups of some sort. Then some of the women came along and wanted to serve us tea! I wasn't in the mood for any tea!"
The difficulty between the Stanley drivers and the other competitors almost certainly arose because these were three 'trade' entries by Stanley's London agent. The rigid class barriers at the time would have demanded quite a separation at the event between 'gentlemen' and 'trade' drivers.
So, it wasn't surprising that Motor News, reporting the event, made no mention of the illustrious American driver of one of the Stanleys - Marriott had broken the land speed record in January 1906 in a special Stanley Rocket at Ormond Beach (now Daytona Beach) in Florida at 121.57 mph. Indeed, Motor News seemed unaware of his presence at the IAC event - its August 25th issue noted that he was currently on a visit to England.