What is the foremost racing series in the world? If you said Formula One, you are in the company of most other enthusiasts. The series consists of a yearly Grand Prix in each participating country (although in a few instances, there was more than one). Even though the Formula One series was started in 1950, the concept of having a country’s premier event began long before that. The first one was held in 1906 near the city of Le Mans in France. The first in the U.S. took place in 1908.

Before that, the premier series in the U.S. was the Vanderbilt Cup. The Cup events were run according to the internationally-recognized regulations of the Association Internationale des Automobiles Clubs Reconnus (AIACR).

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Saving the Sebring race from the trash heap of history was John Bishop and the newly formed International Motor Sports Association (IMSA).

IMSA and John Bishop brought an informal atmosphere to the Sebring race that year in an attempt to make racing fun again for all participants. One of those participants was a young college student by the name of Phil Currin from Gainesville, Florida who arrived early at Sebring in 1973 with his vintage 1963 Chevrolet Corvette to do some testing prior to the 12 hour race.

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What do you think was the toughest and most difficult race ever? After reading my September 2011 history column, you might say the New York to Paris. Then there was the 1950-54 La Carrera Panamericana. But these were short-lived point-to-point contests. How about a closed circuit race? In the opinion of many who competed there, it was the Targa Florio. The first was in 1906; the last in 1977.

I am fortunate to know quite a few who were there. Three of them—Sitrling Moss, John Fitch and Brian Redman—are friends who have shared their experiences with us.

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The 60th anniversary Sebring endurance race, the opening round of the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship, was an event full of tension all the way to the finish. After covering 325 laps at Sebring International Raceway, it was the Audi team of Tom Kristensen (DEN), Allan McNish (GBR) and Rinaldo Capello (ITA) that repeated their 2006 and 2009 victories. The FIA WEC LMP2 class proved surprisingly strong with three entries finishing in the overall top-five. In the GT class, the win was not decided until the last one hundred meters, after Joey Hand (USA) barely steered his BMW past the Ferrari of Olivier Beretta (MCO).

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By Louis Galanos | Photos as credited

During the third week of March 1966 the annual pilgrimage of sports car aficionados was taking place in South Central Florida as fans of the Sebring 12-hour race descended on the aging 5.2 mile road course that was laid out over the runways and access roads of an old World War ll bomber base.

Many of the die-hard fans of America’s premier sports car endurance race had planned for months in anticipation of the event and some were already arriving at the airport facility several days prior to the race to find and secure coveted viewing spots.

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The Tourist Trophy is the oldest motor race in the world still being run. The first was in 1905 on the Isle of Man, organized by the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland. The trophy itself is given by the Royal Automobile Club to the winner.

Over the years, Tourist Trophy races have been part of the World Manufacturers Championship, the World Touring Car Championship, the European Touring Car Championship, the International Sports Racing Series, the FIA GT Championship and the British Touring Car Championship.

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Sebring International Raceway, located on a former Army Air Force base situated among the orange groves of south-central Florida, is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the legendary 12 hour endurance classic in 2012.

Sebring has always been one of my three favorite races to photograph, along with the 24 hour races at Daytona and Le Mans. At all three, the lengths of the races provide a wide range of lighting conditions that change and evolve throughout the races.

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With the minutes ticking down on the Rolex clock in Pit Row, there was an epic battle for the 2012 Rolex 24 at Daytona title taking place on Daytona International Speedway’s road course.

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By Louis Galanos | Photos as credited

The year 1966 was not a good year for Enzo Ferrari. Ford beat Ferrari with a humiliating 1-2-3 finish at both Daytona and Sebring and for the first time in six years they lost, again to Ford, at the Holy Grail of endurance racing the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

With the 1966 World Sportscar Championship (WSC) trophy solidly in Ford hands many were predicting that the ten-year dominance of Ferrari cars in endurance racing had come to an end. Many believed the much talked about and much written about three-year-long Ford – Ferrari War was being won by Henry Ford II and his mega buck program would bring Ferrari to its knees.

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Daytona International Speedway in 2012 is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the track’s first road race, a three hour event won by Dan Gurney when he coasted across the finish line with a blown engine.

The first two road races were three hour events, the third and fourth were expanded to 2000 kilometer contests, and the now-traditional 24-hour race distance was first run in 1966. It was shortened to six hours in 1972, and cancelled completely in 1974 due to an oil embargo and the resulting fuel shortage. Consequently, this year marks the 44th time the circuit has hosted a 24 Hours race, and I believe I’ve photographed at least half of them.

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January 2012 marks the Golden Anniversary (50th) of sports car endurance racing at the Daytona International Speedway (DIS) in Daytona Beach, Florida.

DIS was opened in 1959 by NASCAR founder, Bill France, Sr., after years of driving in and promoting stock car racing on the beaches of the Daytona area. From the beginning the new speedway was associated with stock car racing and to this day is well known for America’s premier stock car racing event known as the Daytona 500 or “The Great American Race.”

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By Art Evans

The first Vanderbilt Cup Race, held in 1904, amounted to pandemonium according to press reports. Newspaper and poster promotion drew a huge crowd. Estimated to be as numerous as 50,000 spectators were lined dangerously close to the entire course, some actually straying onto it. There were so many people that they became part of the spectacle.

The Vanderbilt Cup was the first contest of any real international stature held in the United States. Until then, major events took place in Europe and were dominated by cars made in Europe and driven mostly by Europeans. Because racing improves the breed, as they say, European cars were, with some exceptions, superior to those made in the United States.

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The series we now know as Formula One traces its roots back to 1906. Before the term, Formula One, was coined in 1950, essentially the same sequence of events were called the Grand Prix Series. But those words became bandied about so much that different ones were needed to describe the contest for the World Driving Championship. Nevertheless, each country’s race is still called a Grand Prix.

The very first Grand Prix took place on June 26 and 27, 1906. The venue was public roads in the vicinity of Le Mans, France near the Sarthe River, so it became known as the Sarthe Circuit.

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As I described in my July column, the first motorized-vehicle race on land is acknowledged by historians to be the 1893 Paris to Rouen. Other place-to-place races followed in Europe before the turn of the century. Many of them involved Paris as a location of origination or destination. Paris-Bordeaux-Paris followed Rouen in 1895, Paris-Marseille-Paris in 1896 and so on. The original purpose of these events was to demonstrate the viability of motorcars as a means of transportation. The first in the U.S. was the 1895 Chicago-Waukegan-Chicago. By 1907, the longest race to that date was from Peking to Paris.

The ultimate of the genre, however, was the New York-to-Paris in 1908. Wait a minute! How could there be such an automobile race when there’s the Atlantic Ocean between the two cities? Well, it depends on which way you go. To the West, there’s only the 53-mile Bering Strait separating the United States from Russia. The rest is land.

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When younger motor racing enthusiasts think of Daytona, images of stock cars on the International Speedway come to mind. But older folks remember that Daytona Beach was a site for setting early land-speed records.

The history of racing at the beach extends almost to the turn of the last century when cars themselves were in their infancy. Famous automobile personalities of yore participated including Barney Oldfield, Ralph De Palma, Ransom Olds, Henry Ford and the Stanley Brothers.

In 1970, I was sent on a photo shoot to Florida; the assignment included going to the Daytona 500. Because I had not obtained credentials in advance, I was ushered into the office of Bill France, Sr. Since I had previously raced sports cars, we had a short and interesting chat. I found him most affable and I was given a pass to go almost anywhere. Bill told me that oval races at Daytona Beach were as old as record attempts and that the Speedweek predated the Indy 500.

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Some 25 years ago, there was a vintage event like none other. It was the 1985 Palm Springs Vintage Grand Prix. Why was it so different? Would you believe 19 Formula One and Indy veterans on the same grid, all in competitive open-wheel cars? How about Dan Gurney in his Spa-winning Eagle! Or Bobby Unser in the 1975 Indy-winning Eagle! Stirling Moss in a Lotus, the twin of the car in which he won the 1962 Grand Prix of Monaco! You get the idea. Another event that weekend we called the Fabulous Fifties Reunion featured more than 50 drivers who raced during the fifties, most in the same or similar cars. Afterwards, Carroll Shelby said, “I don’t know how this came about, but it’s not likely to happen again.” Road & Track’s article stated that “It may turn out to be the most successful vintage car race ever held on this continent.”

Actually, it was my idea and I ended up as the promoter. Here’s how it developed: For quite a few years, Johnny Von Neumann, Vasek Polak and I had second homes in Palm Springs. All three of us were on the same street within walking distance of one another. So it was natural that we would get together now and then.

During the 1984 Thanksgiving holiday, we were gathered at Vasek’s celebrating with wine and tall stories, some about races we used to have in Palm Springs during the fifties.

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The occurrences at the 2011 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans brought to mind those of 1955, the race that lives in infamy. More than 80 spectators were killed plus some 120 injured in the most horrendous accident in motor racing history.

My longtime and very close friend, John Fitch, was on the Mercedes team, co-driver with Pierre Levegh, whose car caused such carnage. A few years ago, I co-authored a book with Fitch, Racing With Mercedes. He told me a great deal about the accident and surrounding circumstances. Also, I talked with some others—Ken Miles and Phil Hill—who were there as well.

The 1955 season started on a down note when, on May 26, World Champion and revered driver Alberto Ascari died at Monza. A week later, Bill Vukovich was killed while leading the Indy 500. Both were highly skilled with vast experience.

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(See History of the Indianapolis 500 – Part One)

By Leigh Dorrington

The first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, won by Ray Harroun on the Indianapolis-built Marmon ‘Wasp’, began one of the longest sporting traditions in the world. And soon the whole world was watching. The history of the race reflects a century—The American Century—that defined a nation growing into its potential.

“The Speedway’, as it simply came to be known, was built on farmland near Crawfordsville Road five miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. The property the Speedway was constructed on was connected to the city by a rail line that ran directly to Union Station in the center of Indianapolis. Reports of the first 500-mile race declared that 80,000 spectators attended, and estimated that 75,000 of those arrived by rail—this in a time when many people never travelled farther than ten miles from their homes in a lifetime.

The Midwestern state of Indiana was already a leader in automobile production and Indianapolis was its hub. With the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the success of the first ‘500’, the city found its pride.

The story of the Speedway and of the Indianapolis 500 is also the story of the individuals who made their mark—coming from backgrounds as varied as the nation itself to create the history.

The results of the races have been well documented. This is the story.

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Caracciola achieved an average speed of 101.1 km/h in the race from Brescia to Rome and back. It was the first time that the Mille Miglia – traditionally dominated by Italian drivers – had been won by a foreigner in a foreign car and the first time that a driver’s average speed exceeded 100 km/h.

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The story of the Indianapolis 500 is the story of America in a pivotal century—the beginning of the American Century. A rural nation rushing to embrace industrialization. Farm boys, fairgrounds and big city promoters. Seat of the pants courage and genuine genius. Foreign invasions—so to speak—and homeland traditions.

In 1910, the city of Indianapolis was home to 233,650 people and the 22nd largest city in America. The U.S. Center of Population in 1910 was in Bloomington, Indiana, just 52 miles southwest of Indianapolis.

Indiana was already one of the early centers of American automobile production.

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