1914 Photo Scrapbook - Early Motor racing Grand Prix

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1914 Photo Scrapbook - Early Motor racing Grand Prix This auction is for a very neat scrapbook. This is a typical scrapbook. It has the linen cloth covers in brown. T are two eyelets with string used to keep the scrapbook together. The scrapbook measures 7" x 11" and is about 32 pages long. When you open the scrapbook, the first couple of pages just have a hand written note describing what's to come. The first page has been torn in half, and you can only make out a portion of it. You can see a little bit of the National Race information. On the second page it is written that some of this was taken in Mitchell, South Dakota on June 17 & 18th, in 1914. So this is a scrap book about automobile racing just several years after the modernization of the motor car ! For the next 6 pages we have all sorts of newspaper articles describing the Davenport Grand Prix race that the National #9 Car took place in and won ! Then following these articles are a number of photographs of the race in Davenport race, including shots of some of the other race cars. Then as you flip through the scrapbook it turns into a personal look at the family that I believed owned the National, W.H. Horn. T is even a shot later on of the National with the family in it out for the Sunday drive. Seems strange that this car was the winner of the Indianapolis race of 19 12. As you continue through the scrapbook you see lots of photo's of the family, with most being identified. As you near the end, t are some vacation photo's of the Alton Bay area of New Hampshire. Lots of shots of the lake. T are a total of 81 photographs in this album, and by far the best ones of are the Davenport Grand Prix. If you collect early vintage racing memorabilia, this scrap book will make a nice addition to your collection. 1912 Indianapolis 500The 1912 Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, or International 500-Mile Sweepstakes Race, the second such race in history, was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Thursday, May 30, 1912. In the aftermath of victory by Ray Harroun in the single-seat Marmon "Wasp" in the first 500-Mile Race the year before, new rules make the presence of riding mechanics mandatory; maximum engine size remains 600 cubic inches (9.83 liters) displacement. At $50,000, the race purse is nearly double that of 1911. Out of 29 original entries, 24 qualify for the race by sustaining a speed faster than a minimum of 75 mph (120.7 km/h) for a full lap, an increase from the quarter-mile qualifying distance of the inaugural year. David L. Bruce-Brown runs fastest at 88.45 mph (142.35 km/h), but starting positions are again determined by entry date. Lining up five cars to the first four rows and four to a fifth, a change from the previous year's starting method is movement of the pace car, a Stutz, from the inside of the first row to out in front of the field. Upon wave of the then-red starting flag, Teddy Tetzlaff takes the lead in a Fiat from the third starting position in the center of the first row, and leads for the first two laps before being overtaken by the grey # 4 Mercedes of Italian-born Ralph DePalma. DePalma's domination of most of the event is total, as he builds an eventual five-and-a-half lap, eleven minute advantage over second, and leads uncontested for the next 194 laps...before suffering one of the most confounding mechanical failures in motorsport history at the beginning of lap 197, as his Mercedes begins misfiring, and slowing on the mainstretch at the conclusion of the lap. Nursed on the 198th lap by DePalma at reduced speed, the car finally loses all power at the end of the backstretch on lap 199, as a broken connecting rod rips a hole in the crankcase. With the car's momentum carrying it around to the fourth turn, DePalma and riding mechanic Rupert Jeffkins then enter themselves into motor racing lore, as well as inspire the cheers of the more than 80,000 in attendance, as they climb from the vehicle and begin pushing it down the five-eighths of a mile mainstretch toward the... read more

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