RACE DAY AT THE BEACH : Opening of Daytona Speedway in 1959 Ended This Tradition

Stock car racing historians would have us believe that the Speed Weeks tradition of this Atlantic Coast resort town began when big Bill France ran out of gas here one day in 1934--and decided to stay.

It was France who began promoting races hereabouts in 1938 that led to the formation of NASCAR, the highly successful sanctioning body that controls major league stock car racing in this country.

But it wasn’t the start of Speed Weeks.

They began in 1902--seven years before France was born--on a sandy beach that stretched 23 miles from the Ormond Hotel on the north to the Ponce inlet south of Daytona Beach.

Off and on, for more than 30 years, that slender, straight line of packed sand was raced over by the fastest cars in the world. Fourteen times, the world land speed record was broken.

Stories were carried to newspapers around the world with the Daytona Beach, Fla., dateline, earning the city its reputation as the “World’s Most Famous Beach.”

The race isn’t on the beach anymore, it’s about three miles inland in the house that Bill France built, the Daytona International Speedway.

But the thought prevails. Today’s 29th Daytona 500, crown jewel of Speed Week ‘87, is enough to justify the city’s old slogan.

The Ormond Hotel, now a decaying relic overlooking the Halifax River, is where it all started. The hotel was at the southern end of the railroad line that brought the rich and influential folks to Florida from the north.

One February afternoon in 1902, two young tycoons in the embryonic automotive industry--Alexander Winton and Ransom E. Olds--got to arguing about who had the fastest machine in town.

“How about a race on the sand,” a friend suggested. So Winton, in his Bullet, and Olds, in his Pirate--the original Oldsmobile--lined up side by side on the beach and, at the wave of a hat, roared off down the sand.

Onlookers clocked them at an outrageous 57 m.p.h. after racing so closely that the match was declared a dead heat.

The excitement generated by Winton and Olds was not lost on the city’s promoters. By the next February, the Florida East Coast Automobile Assn. had been organized to promote a series of beach races.

The promoters called the racing period Speed Weeks.

Only the wealthy could afford horseless carriages, so the roster of drivers included such financial giants as John Jacob Astor, William K. Vanderbilt and Henry M. Flagler, owner of the Ormond Hotel.

Vanderbilt brought a 90-horsepower Mercedes to the sand in 1904 and set Daytona’s first world speed record by driving a mile at 92.30 m.p.h. That broke the record Henry Ford had set a month earlier in his 999 on frozen Lake St. Clair in Michigan.

Vanderbilt had shipped the Mercedes by boat from New York, but the skipper, leery of this newfangled machine, demanded that the gasoline be drained.

Vanderbilt knew there was no gasoline in Ormond, but he also knew that the skipper wouldn’t know the difference, so he drained the radiator instead. The skipper was satisfied.

Early Speed Weeks weren’t limited to straight-line, single-car record attempts.

For side-by-side racing, a huge stake was pounded into the sand at Granada Boulevard, a short stroll from the Ormond Hotel, to mark the start-finish line.

Twelve and a half miles down the beach, another stake was put in place, making a 25-mile lap.

Cars rumbled down the beach, made a U-turn and roared back up the course on the same stretch of sand. The width of the road was determined by the tide. The sand nearest Atlantic Avenue on the west was soft and dangerous, so cars heading south tried to keep as close to the ocean as possible--until they saw a car coming back toward them, edging away from the lapping water.

On an overcast day, with sand and saltwater blowing across the beach, it was almost impossible to tell if the car you saw looming ahead was one you were following--or if it was coming at you.

The most important man at Speed Weeks was the one who foretold the tide’s behavior. Just knowing the tide tables wasn’t enough. If the winds were blowing a certain direction, it rippled the sand, creating a washboard surface that shook machines apart.

Race schedules fluctuated with the weather’s whims.

Men, too, were vulnerable. There were neither kidney belts nor shock absorbers.

And there were no repair shops, either.

Henry Ford brought his 999 to Daytona in 1904, apparently in hopes of regaining his speed record, but when an axle was broken in transit, he left without making an attempt.

That incident, and others involving less famous figures, caused Flagler, the man who was a major developer of Florida’s east coast, to build a garage to house and repair the racing machines.

It was the original Gasoline Alley, built six years before the first Indianapolis 500.

The Ormond Garage, located on Granada Boulevard between Flagler’s hotel and the sand, burned down a few years ago and is marked by a plaque where the Sun Bank mall stands today.

The Ormond Hotel, a five-story Victorian frame building, may be in its final hour, too.

Built in 1887 and enlarged in the early 1900s to accommodate the flood of wealthy Northerners who wintered in the South, it was turned into a retirement home when Las Vegas-style hotels began to line the narrow peninsula between the river and the ocean.

Now it is closed.

The circular John D. Lounge, named for its most famous patron, John D. Rockefeller, is boarded shut. The shuffleboard courts are overrun with crabgrass, the paint is cracked and peeling and the old outside fire escapes are rusting.

A sign in front of the hotel announces that it will be up for auction March 11-12.

Inside, old pictures of the glory days still hang, dust and cobwebs obscuring the images. One can still stroll around the second floor veranda that looked down on the Halifax--and on the plain folks on the street below--but its wooden floor is rickety, and pieces of the carved balustrade are strewn about.

It seems as out of character in today’s high-rise world as one of the old buckboards would be racing along the beach.

One wonders, in an America filled with nostalgia, what will happen to the Ormond on the auction block.

It deserves better. H.L. Bowden, the first American to surpass 100 m.p.h. with a run of 109.75 down the beach, stayed there. So did Barney Oldfield, the Stanley brothers of Stanley Steamer fame, Ralph DePalma, Tommy Milton, Frank Lockhart and the titled Englishmen, Henry Segrave and Malcolm Campbell.

The cigar-chomping Oldfield brought Daytona Beach into the national focus in 1910 when he took his Blitzen Benz, nicknamed Lightning, over the sand at an almost incomprehensible 131.72 m.p.h. This was more than 20 m.p.h. faster than the recognized record.

Oldfield, who barnstormed around the country with the record-setting car, popularized the sport of speed, taking it out of the hands of the rich and bringing it within reach of every man.

He also proved to be a poor prophet when he said: “A speed of 131 m.p.h. is as near to the absolute limit of speed as humanity will ever travel.”

It wasn’t long before that became a forgettable statement.

Bob Burman purchased Lightning from Oldfield, brought it to Daytona and tacked 10 more m.p.h. to Barney’s “absolute limit.”

The sand was quiet for eight years, until Ralph DePalma, who had replaced Oldfield as America’s racing hero, quartered his 12-cylinder Packard in the Ormond Garage shortly after the end of World War I. The charismatic DePalma increased the speed record to 149.875 m.p.h. in 1919--the first time an American driver, in an American-made car, had held the record since Fred Marriott and the Stanley Steamer Rocket in 1906.

Tommy Milton and Jimmy Murphy, two young drivers who were to go from the beach to win the Indianapolis 500, took turns breaking DePalma’s record in 1920 with the same twin-engine Duesenberg. Murphy, who won at Indy in 1922, did it first over a measured mile at 152 m.p.h. Murphy had been Milton’s mechanic, but Milton wanted the record so he fired Murphy and drove the Duesey himself, hitting 156.046.

Milton then won the Indy 500 in 1921 and 1923.

Around 1920, interest in high-speed racing shifted from Daytona to Indianapolis, with its 2 1/2-mile oval track and thousands of bleacher seats.

It wasn’t until 1927, when Maj. Henry O.D. Segrave, a red-haired Irish-born Britisher, came across the ocean with the announced intention of being the first driver to surpass 200 m.p.h., that interest in racing on the sand was revived.

The course had moved south from Ormond’s Granada Boulevard into Daytona Beach, with a starting line at the Ocean Pier. There were 13 miles of sand from there to the Ponce inlet, plenty for a 200-m.p.h. attempt.

On March 27, 1927, with a crowd estimated at 15,000 lining the course, perched on the sand dunes or watching from their boats just beyond the waves, Segrave fired up his Sunbeam, known as Mystery S, and accomplished his goal.

The mysterious red Sunbeam weighed four tons and was powered by twin aircraft engines that produced 1,000 horsepower. It reached a speed of 203.792 m.p.h., breaking the record of 174 that Sir Malcolm Campbell had set on the perilous Pendine Sands in Wales a year earlier.

The news also brought Campbell and his Bluebird to Daytona to get the record back. The Bluebird was the first car built specifically for record-breaking attempts.

Campbell, a millionaire speed enthusiast, had a Napier aircraft engine, all 1,464 cubic inches of it, packed into his Bluebird.

He arrived in 1928 but it turned out to be a bad year for the sand. The normally smooth strip from Ocean Pier to the inlet was rough. Puddles could be seen when the tide washed out, not what a driver wanted to see before a record attempt.

But Campbell was impatient. He groused about the conditions, claiming that the sand was not what he had expected. Nevertheless, on the morning of March 7, almost before daylight, he announced that he was going for it.

Two rows of colorful flags marked the course and the American Automobile Assn., official sanctioning body for land speed attempts had the course measured for a flying mile.

Campbell roared down the beach, the Bluebird bouncing crazily from ripple to ripple, seemingly out of control, but somehow the British daredevil kept it moving forward. Leery of getting into the water, Campbell edged closer to the dunes. Toward the end of the run the deep, soft sand caught the Bluebird and turned it sideways.

Undaunted, Campbell kept the power on and slid sideways across the line with the record he had sought: 206.96 m.p.h.

There was failure, then tragedy, on the beach that year, too, as well as accomplishment.

Frank Lockhart, who had won the 1926 Indianapolis 500 as a rookie, brought a small Stutz Bearcat to Daytona in hopes of regaining the record for the United States.

His first attempt ended when the Bearcat careened toward the ocean, got caught in a wave and soared into the air like a miniature airplane before it splashed down. Somehow, Lockhart managed to get out of the sinking car without drowning.

Before the season was over, Lockhart returned, the Bearcat repaired, for another effort. After clocking 198 m.p.h. on his first run, Lockhart turned around and headed back.

With the record in his grasp, according to AAA observers, Lockhart was nearly through the measured mile when a tire blew out, sending the car tumbling down the sand for 1,000 feet before flinging the already dead Lockhart out onto the sand.

Lockhart had been criticized for bringing such a small car to do such a large task, so another American, J.M. White, showed up with a triple-engined monster called the Triplex. It had three 500-horsepower Liberty engines and its nose was built like a chisel--to carve its way through the air, claimed its owner, a Philadelphia inventor.

White was too old to drive, so he set out to find someone who thought he could tame the Triplex.

His first choice was Cliff Alley, an Indianapolis veteran. When Alley was asked if he wanted to try for a record, he said, “Hell’s bells, no, not in that thing.”

Ray Keech, a dirt track driver from Philadelphia, agreed to try and took the Triplex across the sand at 207.55 m.p.h., just enough to break Campbell’s record.

Then it was Britain’s turn in what had become an international contest as fiercely fought as the America’s Cup.

The challenger was Maj. Segrave, an old favorite in Daytona. He had a new Golden Arrow, powered by an 800-horsepower Napier engine.

A few moments before Segrave strapped himself into his streamlined machine, he was confronted by a reporter.

“What are the hazards of driving a world’s record car?” he asked.

Segrave outlined a number of them, but the reporter was not satisfied. Segrave had not mentioned death.

“Isn’t there one you may have forgotten?” the reporter insisted.

“Ah, yes, there is,” Segrave said slowly. “I might catch the measles in the middle of the measured mile.”

Segrave didn’t catch the measles, but he got his record, 231.36 m.p.h., in the Golden Arrow.

Back came White and his Triplex, but he had lost his driver. Keech was in Indianapolis, preparing for the 500, which he was to win.

Lee Bible, a Daytona mechanic, tested the car on the sand and White gave him the ride. As did many of those before him, Bible shied away from the lapping waves and found himself in the soft sand of the dunes. The Triplex tore itself to death, taking Bible and a Pathe News photographer with it.

The photographer had set his camera in the dunes at the north end of the run. When he saw the Triplex coming at him, he ran, leaving the camera on its tripod.

Although the photographer was killed, the camera and the tripod were untouched and the film of the tragic ride was shown a few nights later at a local theater.

The Great Depression and the growing threat of war in Europe reduced Speed Weeks to an occasional appearance by Campbell during the 1930s. The Bluebird kept increasing the record until it stood at 272.108.

All that remained for Campbell was the 300-m.p.h. barrier.

In 1935, with a new 30-foot long Bluebird, powered by a 2,500-horsepower Rolls-Royce V-12, Campbell was ready.

The sand wouldn’t cooperate, though, and the best he could do was 276.816, the last land speed record set on the beach--but not 300.

Ab Jenkins, the mayor of Salt Lake City, was at Daytona for Campbell’s final run. He was touting the superiority of a dry lake in Utah called Bonneville.

It was at Bonneville, later that year, that Campbell finally attained 301.13 m.p.h.

Bill France was also at Campbell’s last run.

He had lived a year in Daytona Beach and had driven in a few local races.

In 1936, when the city fathers realized that the Utah salt flats had ended Speed Weeks as they had known it, they decided to hold a race using part sandy beach and part highway.

It turned out to be a loser and the city, after trying a second time in 1937 and losing $22,000, gave up.

France, who was running a gasoline station, decided to promote it himself.

“We made $200 and I thought we put on a good show,” France recalled. “I was encouraged to try it again.”

France also won the race.

After promoting 12 more races on the beach course, before and after World War II, France gathered some friends together in 1947 to form a stock car racing organization.

It was named, redundantly, the National Assn. for Stock Car Auto Racing. Today it is simply NASCAR, a copyrighted title.

The organization meeting was held in the Selden Bank building. Today it’s a beer joint, Hootin’ Nanny’s.

The first NASCAR race ever run was on the beach course, won by Red Byron in a ’39 Ford. They ran 10 more races on a variety of courses, all of which combined the sand and the narrow highway, until the beach began to get too crowded and NASCAR began to attract large crowds at tracks such as the one at Darlington, S.C., the first superspeedway.

Drivers like Junior Johnson, Fireball Roberts, Marshall Teague and Lee Petty made their names on the beach, then later made the transition to the big ovals.

Paul Goldsmith won the last beach race in a spectacular finish, beating Curtis Turner. Goldsmith, who also won two Daytona 200 motorcycle races on the beach course, hit a soft spot in the sand, spun in front of Turner and still beat him to the finish by a car length.

With the opening of Daytona International Speedway in 1959, the World’s Most Famous Beach would have no more races on its sand.

Still, nearly 30 years later, there are reminders everywhere of racing pioneers.

Segrave Street and Campbell Street are important thoroughfares in downtown Daytona Beach. Bill France Boulevard leads into the speedway.

Sections of the speedway’s grandstands are named for Oldfield, DePalma, Campbell, Segrave and Keech.

Cars still run along the 23-mile stretch of sand between the high-rise hotels of Atlantic Avenue, where the sand once blew from the dunes, and the rolling waves.

Speeds are limited to 10 m.p.h., however, and cars are permitted on the beach only in daylight.

Even so, on occasional moonlit nights, thrill seekers sneak onto the sand down near the Ponce inlet and roar along the beach, calling one another Barney, or Malcolm, or Fireball.