Page:Dorothy Levitt - The Woman and the Car.pdf/27

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Dorothy Levitt: A Personal Sketch

to the family in the West Country. In a very few days Dorothy Levitt had become well acquainted with the intricacies of that motor. She handled the wheel as well as the owner or his chauffeur. She attended, as a spectator, a county competition, driving the car with such skill that the attention was attracted of the manager of a big motor firm. He secured an introduction and asked her to drive one of his cars in a competition. She agreed and thus became the first Englishwoman to drive a motor-car in a public competition.

Her first prize was won a month later, and since then she has steadily mounted the tree of her chosen profession. Yet she has remained an amateur, accepting no money prizes, only medals and cups and such like trophies.

In hill climbs, endurance and speed trials she is alike invincible. At the first aerial hare-and-hounds race of balloons this year she was selected as the umpire. The most careful, as well as intrepid and fast-driving motorist, was wanted. Miss Levitt unerringly followed the hare from London to near Arundel, Sussex, and was on the spot when the first

5