Derby Day

Barefoot Indian and mestizo youngsters swarmed last week into La Paz for a homemade-auto derby promoted by Bolivia's leading newspaper, La Razon. Some 10,000 spectators lined a twomile, zigzagging, up & downhill race course. Among 250 drivers was one seven-year-old who came equipped with a white smock and first-aid kit; he listed his car as an ambulance, won the right to enter it. The Catavi tin-mining region sent six entrants whose expenses had been paid by subscription. One boy, asked whether he had brakes on his car, replied: "How can I win if I have brakes?" "Then how are you going to stop at the end?" "The crowd will stop me."

Once the race got underway, tempers flared. Motorcycle cops patrolled the course, broke up fist fights among rivals who crashed into each other. Nineteen drivers suffered slight injuries. Two youngsters craftily painted the same number on two cars, with the intention of letting one take over from the other at the halfway mark. Their strategy miscarried when the second car got to the finish line before the first even started. Several boys whose cars had smashed apart crossed the finish line on foot, running with car wheels and bodies tucked under their arms. To the chagrin of the boys, a girl won. She was Amelia Aparicio, 13, who had averaged 19 miles an hour in a car designed by her mechanic father. Exclaimed Amelia: "I came determined to win for the Bolivian woman."

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