Since the very dawn of motorsport, automobile racing has been governed by rules. The very first motoring competition was the Paris-Rouen trials in 1894. Organized by the Parisian newspaper Le Petit Journal, the rules were seemingly vague and capricious, including the caveat that the winner would be “chosen” by a panel of judges from the vehicle which demonstrated itself to be safe, easy to handle and inexpensive to run! Perhaps not surprisingly, the very first motoring competition also saw the very first motoring controversy and protest, resulting from the judges disqualifying the apparent winner—the 6-passenger vehicle of Count Jules de Dion—for being steam-powered, despite these same judges allowing it to compete in the first place.
Sadly, things didn’t get much better for the first true international race, the Paris-Amsterdam-Paris races, held July 7, 1898. The chief engineer of the Paris police, a Monsieur Bochet, was concerned for the public’s safety, as a result of two deaths that occurred in the Course de Périgueux, a few months prior. Bochet’s solution was to impose a rule that he had to personally approve the safety of each entrant’s vehicle (making Bochet the first tech inspector?), which of course, he summarily rejected as being unsafe. Outraged by this abuse of power, the entrants banded together and vowed to race anyway. However, Bochet countered with a half squadron of the 23rd Hussars, and two cannons at the starting line, with orders to shoot anyone who defied his ban. In the end, the competitors had to tow their racing machines to Villars (outside of Bouchet’s jurisdiction) in order to start the race from there.
