June 1, 1918. The Italian racecar driver Ralph DePalma and mechanic in the Packard that won the Harkness Handicap at Sheepshead Bay Speedway in Brooklyn. 5×7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.
Courtesy of amphalon via Flickr.
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Those were cars. Back then driving a Packard would definitely turn heads.
Nowadays driving THIS Packard would just blow all the other cars into non-existence.
why maxima?
and where was the speedway located in sb back then?
Why Maxima? No GOOD reason. My bad reason is that when I was in HS all the kids with licenses wanted Maximas. Or rather, they wanted a Lexus, but settled for Maxima.
The Speedway was on the site of the Coney Island Jockey Club, which was in the area of Ocean Avenue and Avenue T (I believe). I’m sure Lisanne will correct me if I’m wrong.
Actually, it was located just south of Neck Road, and east of Ocean Avenue. Going south it ran down towards Avenue Z, but angled so that Jerome Avenue was it’s south point east of East 23rd Street. (Jerome ran much further at that time) The eastern point was what is now Haring Street.
There was a racetrack of some sort around Ocean and T, wasn’t there? I know I’ve read that, and I know a bunch of the houses over there were part of the field.
And some people say we don’t need a museum around here!
At Ocean Parkway and Avenue T was the Gravesend Racetrack.
And then there was the Brighton Beach racetrack south of Neptune and west of Coney Island Avenues.
Know it all.
I have maps!!!!