Birthplace of Speed
Written by Keith Fudge

In the early days of auto racing, cars were not much more than carriages attached to an engine and primitive running gear; however, the problem in these early days was not necessarily finding out how to make the cars run faster, but instead was finding a good place to race them. Roads were not what they are now as they were made of dirt and greatly suffered from bad weather. In addition, there were no asphalt tracks to ensure safety and a “clear path” for racing. However, in 1903 all that changed as the first time trials were held in Ormond Beach , Florida , on a 23 mile strip of hard-packed beach. Finally, racers had the freedom to truly “turn ‘em loose” to see just how fast that their cars would actually run. For those reasons, Ormond Beach has become known as “The Birthplace of Speed” and last March, Dennis Gage was on hand for the 100 th anniversary of this historic location.

Dennis spoke with Dan Smith, Event Coordinator for the celebration, who gave him the lowdown on the weekend and told him that the first race here was a showdown between Alexander Winton's Bullet and Ransom E. Olds' Pirate . Also on hand that day was Oscar Hedstrom's Indian motorcycle and all three vehicles broke U.S. and world speed records! Dan went on to tell Dennis that this centennial event has had a tremendous turnout with more than 40 vintage cars and several vintage motorcycles that will be recreating the early days of racing. In fact, there was even a recreation of that famous first race! Dan also estimated that there were more than 10,000 spectators on hand to join in the fun!

Next, Dennis made his way to some of the folks that had brought these legendary cars to the beach. First, he spoke with Don Meyer who was there with one of the four legendary Green Dragons originally built in 1904 and used by Barney Oldfield. Next, he found Tom Mittler who was there with his Wisconsin Special , a racer that held five speed records and that was unofficially clocked at 160 miles per hour! Powered by a World War I, Wisconsin aircraft engine we could easily see why!

The power of beach racing held fast for several decades, but in the l950s it began to fade with the growing popularity of stock-car racing and the birth of NASCAR. Venues created solely for racing such as tracks and strips, took racers off the sand and put them on the brickyards or asphalt. But, without the early pioneers of racing who made their marks on Ormond Beach , the popularity of racing might have been longer in coming for all of us. With those thoughts in mind, it is easy to understand why Ormond Beach , Florida , is known as “The Birthplace of Speed.”

For more information on the Centennial celebration visit www.birthplaceofspeed2003.com . Future event information can be found here: www.ormondbeach.org .