This immediately reminded me of the early days of steam when, very similarly, at Rainhill a one mile test track of railway was constructed and people were invited to compete their different locomotives. The winner was Stevenson's rocket which amazed the large crowd by travelling at a heady top speed of 30mph.
An "also ran" was the amusing cycloped, the only non-steam entry, a horse on top of a treadmill walking the carriage forward.
There's an excellent book on the start of the railways "Fire and Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain". It's very interesting and full of side stories about how people adapted to the start of the steam age.
For example the one of the first railway lines was more like a toll road. A company built the tracks, and then other companies paid to run their locomotives on them. This lead to chaos where two locomotives would meet on the single track, neither was willing to back up, and so the passengers would often get out and fight each other over it.
An "also ran" was the amusing cycloped, the only non-steam entry, a horse on top of a treadmill walking the carriage forward.