The 1929 Bunion Derby: Johnny Salo and the Great Footrace across America

10. “Overcoming the Killing Distances”—The Last Five Days to Los Angeles: Yuma, Arizona, to Los Angeles, June 11–June 15, 1929

150 “Overcoming the Killing Distances”— The Last Five Days to Los Angeles Yuma, Arizona, to Los Angeles, June 11–June 15, 1929 AFTER SEVENTY-TWO DAYS of trial and error, the front-runners had a fairly clear idea about how far they could race without pushing themselves to the point of exhaustion. In other words, they had found that vague frontier, the line where sustainable racing was no longer possible if they pushed much beyond it. As both Pete Gavuzzi and Johnny Salo learned in New Mexico and Arizona, it was somewhere beyond fifty miles. When one of the front-runners crossed this line, he often gained an hour or more of time over his opponent, only to lose that or even more after his exhausted body rebelled against racing for the next several days. The remaining five days of racing would all take place well beyond fifty miles, transforming the Bunion Derby from a footrace into a struggle for survival, a dead-man’s march to Los Angeles. Arthur Newton wrote, “A man has only one anxiety now, and that is to be sure of overcoming the killing distances.”1 The prudent approach for the nineteen surviving men would have been to simply walk or jog to Los Angeles, saving any racing for the marathon finale on Sunday. That way, they would protect their prize money and avoid an injury that might put them out of the race. Such advice, however, was not what a competitor like Johnny Salo wanted to hear. He was determined to beat his English rival at any cost and would risk the ten-thousand-dollar second-place prize money to do so. Johnny could not wait until Los Angeles to challenge Gavuzzi. He trailed him by forty-nine minutes, giving Pete a comfortable margin that Map 11. 1929 Bunion Derby route, Yuma, Ariz., to Los Angeles, Calif. 152 • 1929 Bunion Derby he could use to hold off any charge Salo might make in Wrigley Park.2 If Salo wanted to win, he had to shake off the stomach cramps and push Gavuzzi across the desert, over the mountains to San Diego, and up the coast to Los Angeles. The New Jersey policeman would have to search for a new level of power and endurance. He would need to push beyond the known frontier of human potential if he wanted to win the Bunion Derby. Guisto Umek: Fast and Relentless Day 73, 19 Men The runners had their first taste of the longer distances on the fifty-ninemile run to Calexico, California, a town of about six thousand in the fertile Imperial Valley that was made to bloom with irrigated water.3 They would face another day of desert running on a dusty gravel road with temperatures hovering in the midnineties. Hundreds of automobiles drove out from Calexico to meet them, kicking up clouds of dust and grit as they went. The Calexico Chronicle wrote that “a real old fashioned sandstorm” added to the discomfort as it lashed the men.4 Guisto Umek led the field as he raced across the desert at a sevenminute -and-forty-second-per-mile pace, fast and relentless, seemingly unfazed by a near miss with an oncoming car on the course.5 Pete Gavuzzi followed, with Johnny Salo close behind after Amelia had once again brought him back to racing form. The flying cop tried repeatedly to pass Gavuzzi, but the Englishman stubbornly refused to let him do so.6 As the estimated time for the runners to reach Calexico neared, a city caller asked a local phone operator to place a call to the Bond Corner store on the outskirts of town to see whether the runners were approaching. The operator, however, thought the person said “onion derby,” and the effort was lost.7 The Calexico Chronicle reported that “the sturdy bronzed and hatless Italian” was the first runner to reach the city, arriving at about one in the afternoon after running for seven and a half hours in the desert sun. The first thing the citizens of Calexico saw was his trainer and pace car leading him into town. A few minutes later Guisto appeared, described by the “Overcoming the Killing Distances” • 153 Chronicle as “a clean shaven man of moderate proportions but compact and well formed.”8 His pace car parked near the finish, and his trainer, “a strapping athletic New Yorker in a...