Triumph and Tragedy Lead to the Birth of Long Island Motor Parkway
The 1904 Vanderbilt Cup Race, tracking a 30-mile course through winding public dirt roads in Nassau County, was the first international road race held in the U.S. The race was the brainchild of then 26-year-old William K. Vanderbilt Jr., the millionaire son of one of America's wealthiest families. It attracted entries from major European auto-producing countries including France, Germany and Italy. The inaugural race featured seventeen vehicles, and George Heath was the first car over the finish line with a clocked time of six hours, 56 minutes, and 45 seconds.
The race drew an estimated 25,000 to 50,000 spectators, who stood “dangerously close” to the speeding cars throughout the course. Only after a spectator fatality in 1906 did it occur to those involved that fast cars (that probably didn't handle that well!) on dirt roads filled with innocent bystanders was a really bad idea. Vanderbilt decided to construct the first highway designed for automobiles - the Long Island Motor Parkway - where races resumed in 1908. There were even more fatalities, however, and the race then officially relocated to Georgia, Wisconsin, and California.
Look how close these people are standing to speeding cars - on lumpy twisting roads! Crazy.
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