CHAPTER XXXV
TWO THRILLING CHAMPIONSHIP VICTORIES—INDIANAPOLIS
I decided to make the best of matters in the meantime, however, and assured myself that the best way to assuage my feelings would be to defeat Kimble on the same Indianapolis track. By some clever maneuvering my trainer and myself drew my great rival into a championship match to decide the dispute over the dead heat business between us. We agreed to ride for a purse of $300, winner take all, and I tried in vain to persuade Kimble to add a side bet of $100 to make an even $500 purse.
I knew that Owen Kimble being a southerner did not like me because of my color. He was naturally imbued with all of the old traditions relative to that perpetual color prejudice and race hatred that are so typical of that section of the country. Kimble felt that in order to uphold those inherited ideals of his forefathers he was obliged to hate me with a genuine bitterness and to do his utmost to defeat me every time we met. Because of this intensity of color hatred for me, Kimble always seemed to be able to develop an extra degree of speed when battling it out with me that he never displayed against any other rider in the world. In fairness to Kimble, however, I wish to state that he took a decent stand against me in all of our races inasmuch as he had never actually put me down by unfair means.
He made a claim, however, that I elbowed him in the championship event the week before, which was declared a dead heat. His claim was not allowed as he was generally known to be very unsteady in sprinting, and was very wobbly even in practice, but he was a very dangerous rider at any stage of the sprint game and I had the utmost respect for his somewhat awkward though powerful sprinting ability.
No sooner had the agreement for the special match race between Kimble and myself been drawn than I set about training as I never had before. I sought to be in my best sprinting form for this big event which was already creating great interest and promised to draw a tremendous crowd. I was now at a point where too much training might prove disastrous by causing me to go ‘“stale.” On the other hand if I were insufficiently trained, of course, I could not expect to be at the height of my form. In a word my chief concern at this time centered about my fear of being a little “off color” so to speak, so I trained very carefully and cautiously.
My rival was equally vigilant in his training and was in wonderful condition also. However, I was confident of being able to bring the big Kentuckian into camp again, single-handed and without the
