“The sham chauffeur sits at the wheel, and in the security of ignorance runs along until his machine is a wreck; he may have hours, days, or even weeks of blind enjoyment, but the end is inevitable, and the repairs costly; then he blames every one but himself,?blames the maker for not making a machine that may be operated by inexperience forever, blames the men in his stable for what reason he knows not, blames the roads, the country, everything and everybody?but himself.”
Only the time scale has changed in the last 85 years.
Tires could do it back then if the road was good enough. A '23 Duesenberg Model A did over 3,000 miles nonstop at Indianapolis Speedway with only 2 tire changes, and an average speed of 62mph. The model’s top speed was between 85 and 90 mph.
As a former map librarian, I’d recommend that the woman contact the closest large libraries in Kansas. The academic ones especially should have a collection of old state road maps. Once found, she could check the distance, the road surface, speed limit posted, and make a pretty good calculation from that. Good possibilities would be University of Kansas, KSU, Wichita State, and the State Historical Society, presumably in Topeka. If she’s not in Kansas, the librarians might be able to fax a copy (depending on the paper condition). Another possibility is to find a road guide for that area and era. Some were incredibly detailed as to road conditions (as well as room and board) along the way in those early days of touristing. Good luck.
I agree, average speeds might have been very low. Now, they have a new high speed bypass around the Valley of Mexico, (Mexico City) built and owned for the next 30+ years by Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world who wants to be richer.
The route we used to take, through Pachuca, a paved, secondary road winding and twisting, with lots of slow trucks, towns and speed bumps, I consistently averaged around 28 mph. That is so frustrating! In the US, on Interstates, with the same vehicle, we tend to average very close to 60 mph.