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Motor racing was started in France, as a direct result of the enthusiasm with which the French public embraced the motor car. Manufacturers were enthusiastic due to the possibility of using motor racing as a shop window for their cars. The first motoring contest took place on July 22, 1894, and was organized by a Paris newspaper, Le Petit Journal. The Paris–Rouen rally was 126 km (78 mi), from Porte Maillot in Paris, through the Bois de Boulogne, to Rouen. Count Jules-Albert de Dion was first into Rouen after 6 hours 48 minutes at an average speed of 19 km/h (12 mph). He finished 3 minutes 30 seconds ahead of Albert Lemaître (Peugeot), followed by Auguste Doriot (Peugeot, 16 minutes 30 seconds back), René Panhard (Panhard, 33 minutes 30 seconds back), and Émile Levassor (Panhard, 55 minutes 30 seconds back). The official winners were Peugeot and Panhard as cars were judged on their speed, handling and safety characteristics, and De Dion’s steam car needed a stoker which the judges deemed to be outside of their objectives. In 1900, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the owner of the New York Herald and the International Herald Tribune, established the Gordon Bennett Cup. He hoped the creation of an international event would drive automobile manufacturers to improve their cars. Each country was allowed to enter up to three cars, which had to be fully built in the country that they represented and entered by that country’s automotive governing body. International racing colors were established in this event. The 1903 event occurred in the aftermath of the fatalities at the Paris-Madrid road race, so the race, at Athy in Ireland, though on public roads, was run over a closed circuit: the first ever closed-circuit motor race. In 1904, many national motor clubs banded together to form the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR). In 1922 the Commission Sportive Internationale (CSI) was empowered on behalf of AIACR to regulate Grand Prix racing and other forms of international racing. Since the inception of Grand Prix racing, competitions had been run in accordance with a strict formula based on engine size and vehicle weight. These regulations were virtually abandoned in 1928 with an era known as Formula Libre when race organisers decided to run their events with almost no limitations. From 1927 to 1934, the number of races considered to have Grand Prix status exploded, jumping from five events in 1927, to nine events in 1929, to eighteen in 1934 (the peak year before World War II). During this period a lot of changes of rules occurred. There was a mass start for the first time at the 1922 French Grand Prix in Strasbourg. The 1925 season was the first season during which no riding mechanic was required in a car, as this rule was repealed in Europe after the death of Tom Barrett during the 1924 Grand Prix season. At the Solituderennen in 1926 a well thought-out system, with flags and boards, giving drivers tactical information, was used for the first time by Alfred Neubauer, the racing manager of the Mercedes-Benz team. The 1933 Monaco Grand Prix was the first time in the history of the sport that the grid was determined by timed qualifying rather than the luck of a draw.