CHAPTER XXXIII
MY EASIEST CHAMPIONSHIP VICTORY—VAILSBURG
In the three weeks interval between the race meet on the new Bedford track and the next championship race which was scheduled for the Vailsburg track at Newark, New Jersey, on September 3, I spent my time training on the Colosseum track in my home town, Worcester. This track which was on the site which later housed the Worcester Professional Baseball Club attracted some of the greatest bicycle riders in the world to Worcester some thirty years ago. It has long since passed out of the picture but will ever remain a pleasant memory to hundreds of the country’s greatest riders and thousands of loyal bicycle fans.
It was heralded far and wide that the quarter-mile championship event would be the outstanding feature of the Vailsburg meet. Knowing that, I set to work in a determined way in an effort to win this event. I knew the field that would start for the laurels in this race would represent the greatest bicycle racers in the United States. With this fact in mind I trained faithfully on the old Worcester track for hours at a time.
A Worcester newspaper commented as follows after one of its reporters had clocked me in practice sprints at the old Colosseum track:—“Major Taylor is doing his preliminary training at the Worcester Colosseum for his next championship race at Newark on September 3, and if faithful and consistent training will win, Major Taylor has the quarter-mile championship already won. In practice sprints at the local Colosseum yesterday afternoon Major Taylor showed wonderful form, he covered a sixth of a mile (or one lap of the track) unpaced in the remarkable time of :16 flat, or at a 1:36 clip for a mile. From a standing start unpaced he finished a lap in :20 1/5.”
On the day following the holding of the meet on the Vailsburg track one of the Newark dailies carried the following article:
“Major Taylor Unbeatable. Wins Quarter-Mile Championship Showing Positive Superiority Over All Competitors. The Vailsburg track furnished an afternoon of rare sport yesterday for 10,000 people. The principal event of the day was a quarter-mile dash for the championship of America. This race was won by Major Taylor, the ebony complexioned record breaker, from a field of clever sprinters including Owen Kimble, Frank Kramer, Tom Butler, George Collette, Howard Freeman, and Al Newhouse, the pick of the fastest sprint riders known
