Kleiner’s Korner: Long Beach Gets a Race in 1906 (Or Does It?)
In the early 1900's Long Beach, Long Island was developing as a summer resort community and tried to hold its own set of races run on its beach. Col. A.E. Dick, the owner of The Long Beach Hotel, at one time the largest hotel on the beach, donated a prize cup and organized an auto race to attract tourists and businesses in 1906. While it may have sounded good following the lead of Ormond/Daytona and Brighton Beach, Mother Nature had a different idea.
Art Kleiner
July 4th was set to be the initial race. (The New York Times, 6/17/1906)
Dick had interests in other hotels including in Tampa and in NYC.
A series of races were to be held, including an obstacle course. (The New York Times, 7/4/1906)
The race initially attracted only one entrant, Ernest Keeler, a driver scheduled to be in the September 1906 American Elimination Trial in advance of that year's Vanderbilt Cup Race. Four other drivers eventually showed up, but obviously not what Dick had in mind. (The New York Times, 7/5/1906)
Keeler would lead off in the Elimination Trial, however broke an axle during the second lap and came in 10th place. Probably did a bit better with no competitors on the beach!
Skepticism and Rescheduling
The New York Times, 7/7/1906
The New York Times, 7/8/1906
Race Day!
The races were rescheduled for July 21. And a separate race for women entrants was to be run. (The New York Times, 7/15/1906)
But mother nature thought differently. (The New York Times, 7/22/1906)
Miss Emily Potter with help from some friends! (The Automotor Journal, 8/11/1906)
"Get a Horse"
The race obviously didn't go according to plans once again! (The New York Times, 7/22/1906)
The New York Times, 7/29/1906
If You Don't Succeed at First . . ."
Rescheduled once again. (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 8/2/1906)
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 8/3/1906
Emily Potter tries again! (The Automobile, 8/9/1906)
Keeler and fellow American Elimination driver Le Blanc (no information found about Le Blanc, possibly mean Hubert Le Blon?) participated. As did Ralph Mongini, another Vanderbilt Cup 1905 Elimination Trial racer. (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 8/3/1906)
During the Elimination Trial.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 8/5/1906
The New York Times, 8/6/1906
Ralph Monjini has the best time for one mile.
From The Automobile, 8/8/1906
One More Go of It!
The organizers hoped to make the Long Beach races a regularly scheduled affair. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 8/9/1906)
Unfortunately the drivers didn't agree as other races took priority! And as I haven't found any more information about future races on the beach, I guess the rest is history. (The New York Times, 8/19/1906)
In 1977 a professor at Nassau Community College proposed that a Grand Prix racing track be built at Jones Beach, also on Long Island's south shore. However tempting, this also never went beyond a letter to the editor. (The New York Times, 0/4/1977)
The New York Times, 0/4/1977
Comments
I used to walk from Silver Point (Cedarhurst) to Long Beach and back (and now have skin cancer to show for it) while my folks swam it out beyond the breakers. Lets hear it for the redoubtable Potter sisters - they showed ‘em! “Hippomobile”, indeed (that one took me a while). As to the Jones Beach GP, there’s NO WAY Ocean Parkway would have ever been blocked off (especially after WKV’s stunts 70 years before). Sam, III
So much for the earmarks I put in the 1906 Automobile Topics book!
Here’s another attempt at a race course on a Long Island beach that never materialized. From the “Automotor Journal” of April 15, 1905.
This thread has been on my mind. Anyone familiar with Long/Atlantic Beach knows how precipitous the strand is - witness the steep angle of Ms. Potter’s car. Back in those days, the strand was quite narrow; the littoral drift hadn’t yet swept sand from Point Lookout and Lido Beach westward. It added 1,000’ to the beach at Silver Point just in my early lifetime. Unlike Daytona and other broad southern beach courses, Long Beach was never an appropriate venue. [The mobility of the sand is best exemplified by the need to move the gigantic Brighton Beach Hotel 600’ inland in April 1888 (on 112 flatcars pulled by 6 steam locos!); that wild story has nothing to do with the LIMP or VCR but is well worth a thread of its own.] Anything for a buck, eh, Col. Dick? Sam, III
Wild indeed! Amazing they pulled that off.