Paris–Madrid race
The Paris–Madrid was strongly supported by King Alphonse XIII of Spain, and French media suggested that France could not withdraw from the competition, being the country with the most advanced technology in car manufacturing.
Many French car manufacturers supported the request, employing of over 25 thousand workers and producing 16 million Francs per year of export alone.
De Dietrich and many other French brands such as Gobron Billiè, Napier and Charron Girardot shunned the lightest classes and raced only with their most powerful and heavy models.
The first hundred of kilometers of the race track were crowded with spectators, and rail stations were swarmed with people trying to reach Versailles.
In the early morning of 24 May 1903, participants started at one minute intervals for the first leg to Bordeaux via Saint Cyr, Trappes, Coignières, Le Perray, Rambouillet, Chartres, Clayes, Tours, Ruffec, Angoulême, Chevanceaux, Guitres, Libourne.
Just after Rambouillet, Louis Renault's wild racing style allowed him to overcome both De Knyff and Jarrott, who were struggling for first place but keeping a more prudent stance to avoid the crowd.
Thery and Stead followed at distance, while Jenatzy's Mercedes and Gabriel's Mors were leading an incredible recovery, surpassing 25 cars and achieving a spot in the first ten drivers.
Another incredible feat was achieved by Marcel Renault, who started in the 60th position but managed to almost reach the race leaders at the control point of Poitiers.
Outside of the leading positions, the accidents continued throughout the day; cars hit trees and disintegrated, they overturned and caught fire, axles broke and inexperienced drivers crashed on the rough roads.
Louis Renault reached Bordeaux in first place at noon, while Jarrott, who was racing with a defective clutch and was troubled by mechanical problems to the engine and exhaust, arrived half an hour later followed by Gabriel, Salleron, Baras, de Crawhez, Warden, Rougier, Jenatzy and Voigt.
A memorial to his accident on the RN 10 road in the Poitou-Charentes region of France was destroyed by the Germans during World War II.
[2] Rolls's Panhard-Levassor, Mayhew's Napier, Maurice Farman's Panhard, the Wolseleys of Herbert Austin and Sidney Girling, Béconnais's Darracq all had major technical issues, and had to retire.
An emergency Council of Ministers was called, and the officers were forced to shut down the race in Bordeaux, transfer the cars to Spanish territory and restart from the border to Madrid.
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.
[citation needed] While some newspapers, such as Le Temps, used the disaster in a demagogic way to attack the car fashion and the race world, other (such as la Presse) tried to downplay the issue, stating that just 3 "involuntary" victims, the spectators, had been sacrificed on the "altar of Progress".
[citation needed] La Liberté rejected the call for a ban on sport races, since automobile manufacturing was a source of French pride, and the socialist Petite Republique defended the car as a mean of mass empowerment and freedom from work fatigue.
[citation needed] Le Matin supported the opinion first stated by the Marquis de Dion, that speed races were useless, both as a publicity stunt and as testbed for technological improvement.
The massacre was due to a few concurrent factors: The police force was accused of being more interested in the race than the public safety, forgetting to intervene when people crossed the road or stood in it.
The random start order was a mess, since faster and more powerful cars were mixed with slower and smaller ones, causing many unneeded overtakings.
The interval between starts was reduced to one minute only, worsening the dust problem and randomly mixing in motorcycles, voiturettes and race cars.
[citation needed] The London's weekly magazine The Car verified the death claims, discovering that some of them were only rumours, and investigated the actual causes.
[citation needed] In the Angoulême accident killing the soldier and a spectator, it was discovered that the child was at fault, having crossed the road after escaping his parents.
Marcel Renault's and Stead's accidents were the only true racing incidents, and were both due to the excessive dust impairing visibility during an overtaking.
[citation needed] French Prime Minister Émile Combes, was accused of being partially responsible, because he agreed to allow the race to proceed.
