The Birthplace of Speed: Racing on the Sand
Near Daytona, Florida
The idea that you could race an automobile on a beach sounds eccentric today. In nineteen oh two, it was simply a recognition of what was available. Paved roads barely existed in the United States. But the sand at Ormond and Daytona Beach was something extraordinary: dense quartzite grains packed so hard and smooth that early motorists compared the surface to a concrete highway. It was five hundred feet wide at low tide, twenty-seven miles long, and absolutely flat.
In January of nineteen oh three, Ransom Eli Olds, founder of Oldsmobile, and Alexander Winton, founder of the Winton Motor Carriage Company, raced their machines down the beach in what became the first organized automobile speed trials in American history. Within a year the events were drawing wealthy competitors from Europe and across the country. Henry Flagler, who owned the grand Hotel Ormond just north of here, recognized a marketing opportunity and built the Ormond Garage in nineteen oh four, the first purpose-built facility to house racing cars during a competition anywhere in the country.
The records fell fast. In nineteen oh six, Fred Marriott piloted a steam-powered Stanley Rocket to one hundred twenty-seven point six miles per hour, a world land speed record that would stand for four years and remains the longest-standing officially recognized steam car record in history. In nineteen ten, Barney Oldfield pushed his Blitzen Benz to one hundred thirty-one miles per hour. Between nineteen oh three and nineteen thirty-five, most American land speed records were set on this beach.
The last and most famous came in March of nineteen thirty-five, when Sir Malcolm Campbell threaded his Bluebird through two measured runs to reach two hundred seventy-six point eight miles per hour. Even then, he sensed the beach was approaching its limits. Later that same year, on the Bonneville Salt Flats, he became the first person to break three hundred miles per hour.
The beach course era ended not with a bang but with a redirection. In nineteen fifty-nine, Bill France opened Daytona International Speedway. But the sand that started it all is still here, still hard, still open to traffic at ten miles per hour.
