It was promptly rejected by the American Automobile Association, the sanctioning body for the tour, because only male drivers were allowed.

[8] Cuneo entered the 1905 Glidden, with three passengers, her husband Andrew, mechanic Louis Disbrow, and his sister, and set off in her 1905 White car.

Cuneo was enjoying the first day's drive when she saw the car in front of her inexplicably stop and start to back up at the entrance to a narrow bridge.

Her experience at Poughkeepsie was frustrating, and she expressed disappointment with her slow time of 1:22:5 for an exhibition mile to set a new women's record.

[12] In 1905, many male drivers, including Barney Oldfield and Ralph De Palma, drew crowds at local tracks when they attempted to set a new speed record for one, five, or even ten miles.

At the Danbury Fair in 1906, Cuneo was driving full speed in a gymkhana with two women passengers when the car caught fire.

[13] Cuneo had become an experienced driver who could muscle a car without power steering and minimal suspension and brakes on the poor roads of the time as well as rough dirt tracks.

Many who interviewed her were surprised to meet a small woman with a steady gaze and low voice instead of a powerful Amazon.

Cuneo believed that in the years since she had learned to drive, autos had improved mechanically, and the main problem now was blow-outs.

Driving a Rainier car, she completed the 1908 Glidden Tour[17] with a perfect score, for which she was presented with a Gorham sterling silver plaque by the Rainier motor company, engraved with scenes of her vehicle during the race and inscribed "as a token of appreciation for her skill, energy and pluck in successfully piloting Ranier Car No.15 and finishing with a perfect score".

[18] She set more speed records and had her entry accepted for a number of races to be held at the New Orleans Fair Grounds track in February 1909.

As a result, during the course of the three-day event, she defeated some of the leading male racers including Bob Burman and George Robertson, and finished second to Ralph De Palma in a fifty-mile race.

The resulting flurry of news articles trumpeting her success came just as the Contest Board of the American Automobile Association had decided to ban women from any competition they sanctioned, including the Glidden Tours.

[citation needed] After the new rules went into effect, Cuneo still competed in events that were not sanctioned by the AAA, and set several unofficial women's speed records.

She wrote articles on motoring for magazines and was a spokesperson for the Good Roads movement as well as orphans' charities in New York.

[19] Her glamorous life in New York slowly ground to a halt as Andrew Cuneo's bank and businesses came close to failure.

In 1915 her marriage ended in divorce due to Andrew's scandalous involvement with a showgirl, actress and artist's model, Yvette de Von.

In 1923, she followed her childhood sweetheart James Francis Sickman to Ontonagon, a small town in the upper peninsula of Michigan where she lived until her death in 1934.

Cuneo's obituary in the Ontonagon newspaper did not mention her racing career, and her death on March 24, 1934, merited only a brief paragraph in the New York Times.