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General Racing History:
The first automobile competition
was actually a 90-mi (145-km) reliability run (testing run to establish
the reliability of the vehicle's performance) undertaken in France from
Paris to Rouen in 1894. In 1895 an endurance race was run from Paris to
Bordeaux, France, and back—a distance totaling 732 mi (1178 km). France
continued to lead in development of both cars and motor sports with a series
of one-day speed races on existint roads beginning in 1897. The world's
first closed-circuit race was run in 1900 at Melun, outside Paris, on temporarily
closed roads spanning 45 mi (72 km). The first formal closed-circuit race
venue was the 53-mi (85-km) Circuit des Ardennes, opened in 1902 in Ardennes,
Belgium. City-to-city racing effectively ended in 1903 after several accidents
at what was then a high speed of 65 mph (105 km/h).
In the United States auto racing began
similarly. The first race was a reliability demonstration from Chicago
to Waukegan, Illinois, and back—a distance of 92 mi (148
km)—in November 1895. This
was followed by a more formal reliability race later that month, on Thanksgiving
Day, from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, and back—a
distance of 52.4 mi (84.3
km)—and won at an average speed of 5.1 mph (8.2 km/h). True American road
racing began in 1904 with the Vanderbilt Cup races, run over a
28-mi (45-km) course in Long
Island, New York. These races continued to be run until 1916. Other major
road races were run in Savannah, Georgia, beginning in 1908 and in Elgin,
Illinois, in 1910.
The first American oval-track
race, held at the Rhode Island State Fairgrounds in Cranston in 1896, was
won at an average speed of 26.8 mph (43.1 km/h). In 1907 the
first European track race
was held at the Brooklands Motor Course, near Weybridge, England. Brooklands
was a well-regarded, concrete 2.75-mi (4.43-km) banked
course, with a long straightaway.
Racing in the United States gained prestige two years later with the opening
of the 2.5-mi (4-km) brick-surfaced Indianapolis
Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Although Americans participated
in and became important sponsors of early road races both in the United
States and in Europe, closed-circuit racing was favored in the United States
almost from the start. There were many reasons for this preference, including
better safety control for spectators and the ability to charge spectators
for viewing the racing. Horse-racing and harness-racing tracks served as
the earliest automobile-racing sites in the United States, but soon
specialized dirt tracks were constructed, followed by
paved ovals. Banked courses
capable of supporting high speeds found great favor in the United States.
The first such high-banked
board speedway was opened in Playa del Rey, California, in 1910. It was
soon followed by more than 20 similar speedways of 0.5 to 2 mi (0.8 to
3.2 km) each, built between
1915 and 1926 across the country. The popularity of board-track racing
peaked in 1926, but in 1930 the last major board-track race was
held at Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Because wood deteriorated and splintered, these tracks were notoriously
difficult to maintain. The major historical importance of board racing
came in the technological innovations that it prompted. Cars that raced
the boards were specially designed rather than adaptations of production
cars that were the norm before the rise of board tracks. They were designed
to have balloon tires (tires inflated by air as opposed to being made of
solid rubber), four-wheel brakes, four-wheel drive, and superchargers,
which are devices to improve the power output of engines. In addition,
they added tetraethyl lead to gasoline to improve engine performance (most
racing cars still use leaded gas), and were streamlined to increase speeds.
Thus, the open-wheeled car designed specially for racing evolved from the
board-track car. While flat (only slightly banked) dirt tracks and paved
speedways became the American standard by the 1930s, road courses returned
to favor in the 1960s, although tracks and speedways continue to be the
dominant form of racing in the United States.
By the 1980s many automobile races were
televised in entirety, and by the 1990s automobile racing ranked as one
of the major spectator sports in the world. Today automobile racing is
a major sport in most large nations.
The biggest problems in automobile
racing both in the United States and internationally are caused by the
costs of racing competitively. Drivers receive large sums of money from
team owners, and the cost of building a car capable of winning is often
enormous, up to several hundred thousand dollars. To win a racing
series, such as the Indy car championship or the Winston Cup, requires
several million dollars—for salaries; construction; engine-rental, and
maintenance payments; and other related costs. With revenues from large
corporate sponsorships, the sale of television broadcast rights, and
the selling of public stock
and other financial procedures, creating a team capable of winning is possible.
But, in recent years, operating profits for series and
racecourses have diminished,
with increasing operating costs, increased costs of meeting government
regulations on insurance and environmental codes, and
higher taxes in such forms
as local levies on ticket, parking, and concession sales. Corporate sponsorships
are threatened by the condition of the overall economy.
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