Vanderbilt Cup Races

David Fluhrer, Newsday's classic car columnist, has posted a review of VanderbiltCupRaces.com on the auto resources page of his new website Inthedriveway.com .

Enjoy,

Howard Kroplick

Vanderbilt Cup Races:  Website worth a Trophy

Despite taking time out for something as trivial as a First in Class trophy at this year’s Pebble Beach Concours, Howard Kroplick never disappoints with his award-winning Vanderbilt Cup Races website.  His historical knowledge and unusual photos often amaze readers who want to learn more about the Long Island auto races that took America by storm in the first years of the 20th Century and paved the way for some engineering firsts.

Kroplick, of East Hills, New York, has gathered more than 25,000 images of the Vanderbilt Cup Races, as well as a growing collection of racing memorabilia.  He peppers the site with historical “mystery photos” of both race-related landscapes and vehicles. He documents races of the early 20th Century in detail, with photos and commentary of the contests, the drivers and their cars. 

There’s a separate section devoted to Long Island’s Motor Parkway, the first parkway built exclusively for the automobile and part of the courses for the 1908-10 Vanderbilt Cup Races.  (Kroplick is both a noted historian of the parkway and an important force in preserving what's left of it.) There’s also an events calendar that often lists dozens upon dozens of  Long Island car shows in a region that Hemmings has called a "hotbed" of classic cars.

Rounding out the site are sections on two of Kroplick’s extraordinary vehicles: the Alco “Black Beast,” a restored racer that appeared in the first Indianapolis 500 and won the 1909 and 1910 Vanderbilt Cup Races, and a 1937 Imperial C-15 Town Car that Walter P. Chrysler commissioned for his wife, Della.  Kroplick rescued the Imperial from a museum garage, treated it to a full restoration and rolled it onto the Pebble Beach lawn recently to accept top honors for American closed cars.

If you care about everything automotive, Vanderbilt Cup Races is a site you will want to bookmark and visit often.  Don’t miss it.