Horses vs. Horsepower: Watch Historic Rides Race Each Other | National Geographic

History is important, and we get hundred-year-old vehicles out and run. We feel that the educational aspect of someone being able to see these cars in motion is well beyond what someone would learn simply by watching the cars in a museum.

Welcome to Race to the Century! This event, Race of the Century, we're highlighting the chronological advancements of transportation technologies from the mid-1800s up to the 1930s through a series of competing races. I get to help tell a great story that is America.

It's a lot of work; it's a lot more work than you would expect compared to what we drive today. Your hands are constantly busy; you're either breaking with a hand lever on the outside, you're pumping fuel pressure, you're shifting. So you're very busy inside the car.

You're dealing with a lot of vehicles here that are over 100 years old and quite temperamental. They were temperamental 100 years ago, and they haven't gotten any better over time, so it really gives you an appreciation of what a challenge it was.

I get a chance to race a 1904 Franklin against a stagecoach, and this woman on a bicycle driving the Franklin is kind of a bit embarrassing. It's really slow; it's only got about seven horsepower. But it's illustrative because you could see how effective the horse and stagecoach was for a very long time.

This is a 1906 Stanley Steamer model F; it's a 20 horsepower boiler. This is one of the first hybrid cars; it doesn't use much gas; it uses steam power. The Stanley Steamer can take anywhere between 45 minutes and three hours to get it ready to function for the day.

You really do have to be a craftsman you're working on these old cars because you can't just run to the local auto parts store to pick up a gasket or a piece of equipment. You have to be able to craft and make some of these new pieces, so it's very challenging to work on these cars.

My favorite part is when I go home at night and I still have my eyebrows and all the arm hair because there are days where the steam mop process has become difficult and where I've lost eyebrows and singed hairs on my arm.

History's critical for all of us to grasp. By seeing this competition, people can see firsthand how the car, frankly, was a joke in the beginning and then how it evolved so quickly into something that we take for granted today.

We went from a horse to a flying machine to humans on the moon within the span of a hundred years. It's this sort of revelation, this unique inspiration as far as discovery that I really enjoy in this event.

He heard it through the final swinging curves on the shuddering braking to La Source and over the line to Victor.