Racing in Newport


After his marriage, Willie K was an independent adult and ready to embrace another passion, automobiles. In 1900, he purchased, at the cost of $10,000, one of the first racing cars imported in the United States, a 28-hp Daimler nicknamed the White Ghost. On September 6, 1900, Vanderbilt and his society sporting friends gathered at a half-mile Aquidneck Park horse track near Newport, Rhode Island, for a series of automobile races. Vanderbilt won three of the featured five mile races with an average speed of 33.7 mph. The following year, he returned to compete in the Aquidneck Park winning both the five-mile and ten-mile races in his 35-hp Mercedes Red Devil.