We could struggle along close to the ground trying to get a little altitude and our passengers would have the time of their lives, waving at the people below, but let the motor start to miss, although the plane might be several thousand feet high, with several large fields in sight, and they would glance nervously back at the pilot wishing that they had never considered taking a ride in an airplane. The International Air Races were to be held, that year, at New York during the first part of October and, since our fair contracts were over by the last of September, we decided to enter in the “On to New York” competition, which was for civilian planes only, and was decided by points given for distance, speed, number of passengers carried, and the size of the engine used. We had our motor overhauled at Denver and expected to fly from there to San Francisco for the start. Some of the repair parts for the engine were delayed and we were several days late in leaving Denver. Even then it was only through night work and leaving a number of things undone that we got away. A fifty-gallon center section gasoline tank had been installed which, in addition to the regular fuselage tank, gave us a capacity of one hundred and seven gallons. We installed the engine one night and idled it for several hours before daybreak in order to work in the bearings; then we took-off for San Francisco. Our first stop was at Rawlins, Wyoming, where the highest field on the transcontinental air mail route is located. We refilled at Rawlins and made Evanston that night. At Evanston we were starting the engine preparatory to taxi-ing over and tying down for the night, when our carburetor caught fire. In the haste to get started we had neither put a fire screen on the intake, nor a drain pipe down from the bowl. The engine was covered with oil and the gasoline overflowing from the bowl carried the flames down around it. Soon the entire nose of the ship was ablaze and although we shovelled earth over the motor, it appeared that the wings would soon catch fire. If the fabric began to burn, the ship was gone. I had just finished removing all loose equipment from the cockpit when a small hand extinguisher arrived and with its aid the fire was soon put out. All of the ignition wire insulation was burned off but otherwise very little damage had been done. We were delayed twenty-four hours rewiring the engine and cleaning out the dirt shovelled on in the attempt to put out the fire. After Rawlins we stopped at Salt Lake City, and from there we flew over the Great Salt Lake Desert to Battle Mountain, Nevada, where we spent the night.