T hirteen and a half days had elapsed since President William Howard Taft pressed a golden telegraph key at the White House, simultaneously opening the World’s Fair in Seattle and signaling for New York Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. to fire a gleaming revolver from the steps of city hall, starting the ocean-to-ocean automobile race for the Guggenheim Cup. Now it was June 14, 1909, and the members of the Shawmut team were alone in front, clinging to an unlikely lead in southern Wyoming,