Indianapolis Star 1907 Glidden Tour Coverage

This is a collection of articles covering the 1907 Glidden Tour that were published in the Indianapolis Star. These are listed in chronological order, starting with images of the Glidden and Hower Trophies. The Glidden Tour, founded by Charles Jasper Glidden, is the most historically significant of these early 20th Century "Reliability Runs," very much a form of rally racing where where speed was not the objective - but more a controlled pace, typically legal limits of roughly 20 MPH. Scores were kept in the form of demerits due to not maintaining a prescribed pace and for mechancial issues.  Proponents of this category of automobile competition believed these were truest of tests because they utilized stock cars, the products that consumers purchased and not what some pejoratively labeled "freak racers" purpose-built for speed and nothing like what dealers made avaialbe to the average person.
 
The Glidden Tour was not a cake walk and delivered harrowing moments. One story in particular called to light an accident that involved the turnover of a car that left one female rider with life-threatening head injuries. In the main, though, the events lacked the drama of shorter high speed contests as they stretched over multiple days.
 
For more information on the Glidden Tour, check out coverage from the 1908 event.