In 1903, the Automobile Club de France (ACF) and the Spanish Automobile Club organised a 1,307km road race from Paris to Madrid over three stages:
Versailles – Bordeaux (552 km)
Bordeaux – Vitoria (km 335)
Vitoria – Madrid (420 km)
Around 170 cars and 54 motorcycles arrived at the gardens of Versailles in Paris ready to start from 3am (yes, am).
The race had generated huge public interest and 100,000 people turned out to watch the start, much higher than expected, causing problems for the soldiers deployed to manage the crowd that swarmed the streets of the route.
Competitors were supposed to leave at 2 minute intervals but so many had entered it was reduced to one minute. Vehicles also started in order of registration, so faster, heavier cars were screaming around the dusty roads with visibility reduced to a few metres, mixing in with the smaller cars and motorcycles, and all while the racers were trying to dodge the spectators standing in the road and generally getting in the way.
It was chaos. Half the cars never reached the end of the first leg in Bordeaux, either breaking down or crashing. Five racers and three spectators died. An estimated one hundred people were injured.
Among the dead were drivers Marcel Renault of the Renault Frères Company, Claude Loraine-Barrow and his mechanic Pierre Rodez who crashed into a tree while avoiding a dog. Pierre Rodez died at the scene immediately and Claude Loraine-Barrow after undergoing surgery as a result of injuries sustained in the crash died within weeks of the race.
A car was destroyed at a rail crossing where the bar was unexpectedly down. The car hit it and overturned, killing his mechanic.
Georges Richard hit a tree in Angoulême, trying to avoid a farmer standing in the middle of the road, and news came that in Châtellerault Tourand’s Brunhot had hit spectators while avoiding a child who crossed the road. A soldier named Dupuy intervened and saved the child, but was killed and the car lost control, killing a spectator.
Further south, another car left the road and went into a group of spectators. Two people were said to be killed in the crowd.
The race was called off, and by order of the French Government the cars were impounded and towed to the rail station by horses and transported to Paris by train.
Newspapers and experts declared the “death of sport racing”. It was commonly thought that no other races would be allowed, and for many years this was true: there would not be another race on public highways until the 1927 Mille Miglia.