Mysterious scoreboard

The French online digital library called Gallica gave us this puzzle.


QUESTION: This certainly looks like some kind of a scoreboard. But what's the game?

ANSWER: In 1912, this scoreboard was erected in an open field at Versailles, alongside a big muddy puddle. An automobile, backed up against the scoreboard, would be driven off in a roar, whereupon the mud that splashed up onto the scoreboard would measure the quality—or rather, the lack of efficiency—of the car's rear mudguards.