On Friday morning, July 21, 1911, two automobiles lined up at the Swartz corner in Crown Point, Indiana, pointed south, and set off down the block as slowly as their drivers could make them go. Guy D. Clark drove a Stoddard-Dayton. Edwin Laws drove a Cadillac. They had met at the appointed time and place, the Lake County Times reported, “to settle the discussion which machine could run slower.”
“Slow Auto Races Now the Fad,” the Lake County Times, Hammond, Indiana, July 22, 1911, page 1. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.
A city block in 12 minutes
A crowd came out to watch. “The race itself was a revelation to many people who had no idea that an automobile could crawl along at a snail’s pace,” the Times said. The two cars took about 12 minutes and 10 seconds to creep one city block toward the corner of South Street.
Going slow was the hard part. Creep too gently and the engine could choke and die, and a car that stopped was out. Clark lost when he pressed his brakes “a little harder than the machine would stand for,” and his car stopped for a split second. That was enough. Laws won. The Times called the race an innovation, “requiring the cleverest kind of manipulation to run slow without the least perceptible stop,” and its headline declared slow auto races the new fad.
A town that knew fast cars
Crown Point had seen the other kind of race. In June 1909 the Cobe Cup road race ran on the roads around town, and Clark was one of the local men who claimed the best spots along the home stretch and sold places to people who came to watch from their automobiles.
The race took all day. On June 19, 1909, Louis Chevrolet, at the wheel of a Buick, “shot under the wire a winner of the Cobe cup race,” the Lake County Times reported. The second car took 8 hours, 2 minutes and 44 seconds. Two years later, two Crown Point men spent 12 minutes on a single block, and the Times thought it one of the most novel races seen in town in years.
“‘Dare Devil’ Matson the Dane Winning the Indiana Trophy Yesterday”: a Chalmers-Detroit racing car crosses the tape in front of the grandstand at the 1909 Crown Point road races. The Lake County Times, Hammond, Indiana, June 19, 1909, page 1. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the picture to see it full size.
Slow racing at the fair grounds
The Times heard that a slow race would be arranged for the county fair. A week later one turned up on the program for the Lake County Odd Fellows’ picnic at the Crown Point fair grounds on August 5. The slow automobile race “is no child’s play but calls for all the generalship and resourcefulness at the driver’s command,” the Times promised on July 27.
The printed program made it event No. 16. Any automobile could enter. The course was a sixteenth of a mile, no driver could stop his engine or his car, and the “last to reach judges’ stand wins.” First prize was a gentleman’s umbrella from Schlemmer Bros., the dry goods store. Second prize was a folding cot from A. F. Heide’s general store.
Event No. 16 on the Odd Fellows’ picnic program, the Lake County Times, Hammond, Indiana, August 1, 1911, page 2. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.
On picnic day the Times noticed that few people rode the Erie train to Crown Point, and guessed that quite a few had come by automobile instead. The paper never said who won the umbrella.
A fad that spread
Slow racing did catch on. In July 1913 the village of New Paris, Ohio, a few miles east of Richmond, Indiana, put a slow automobile race on its Fourth of July program. The Richmond Palladium was there. “This race caused merriment because of the desperate attempts to keep in the race without choking the motors,” it reported. Clyde Ashman beat four other drivers.
“Slow Auto ‘Race,'” the Richmond Palladium, Richmond, Indiana, July 5, 1913, page 6. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.
In 1909 Crown Point watched racing cars roar over its roads for eight hours. In 1911 its people stood on the curb for 12 minutes to watch two neighbors cross one block, each trying hard to lose, and the town’s newspaper treated it as front-page news.
Sources
- The Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), July 22, 1911, page 1 (“Slow Auto Races Now the Fad”), July 27, 1911, page 1 (“Oddfellows Over County to Picnic”), August 1, 1911, page 2 (the picnic program) and August 5, 1911, page 2 (“Few Go by Train”).
- The Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), June 12, 1909, page 1 and June 19, 1909, page 1 (“L. Chevrolet Wins Cobe Cup” and the race photograph).
- The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram (Richmond, Ind.), July 5, 1913, page 6.
- Newspaper images from the Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Published 1909 to 1913, public domain.
- Cover: “First turn in Lowell, Ind., bet. the brick buildings, Western stock chassis race for the Cobe Trophy, June 18-19,” real photo postcard, 1909 (cropped), Steven R. Shook collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Scan by Steve Shook, CC BY 2.0.
