Barney Oldfield

It doesn't thrill me a bit to drive a 1:05 clip, and though I might win races without having to drive under the minute, I just have to let it out to get another thrill. You just clamp your teeth on your cigar and get down to your work so that you know to an inch how much the car will swing on the turns, and you get more fun out of the ride than a whole stand full of people.

I haven't any mania for speed, and I don't lose my head and do the mad-man act or anything like that, but I do like to feel the car jump and feel the power of being able to guide the machine so nicely, no matter how quick the turns come.

My car is so well balanced and I know it so well, that I know just how to take those skids. A little too much turn of the front wheels would throw the back wheels out so far that the car would not right itself; then there would be something doing.

Source: Barney Oldfield, interviewed in Automobile. August 1, 1903, p. 116.