Sunday 18th December 1898

The first sprint meeting in the world, sponsored by La France Automobile, was held in Arches Park, near Paris. The course `was flat but very wet, and competitors were timed over 2 km from a standing start, thus providing two sets of figures, for the standing one-kilometre and the flying kilometre. The Comte de Chasseloup-Laubat, in the 1½ ton Jeantaud electric car, powered by an electric motor and alkaline batteries, covered the first in 72.6 seconds and the second in 52 seconds. His average speed over the flying kilometre, 39.3 mph, automatically became the first official World Land Speed Record. Jeantaud is widely believed to be the first automobile steered by a modern steering wheel rather than a tiller. The tiller was quickly replaced by the steering wheel in the early 1900s.