Cars > Blogs > Official Motortopia Blog > The Longest Auto Race
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The Longest Auto Race
Oct 9, 2008 | Views: 1,001
In 1908, the New York Times and the Paris newspaper La Matin sponsored a car race that ran from New York to Paris. The race covered over 22,000 miles, and after 169 days, it was won by the Thomas Flyer driven by George Schuster, Sr., of Buffalo, NY. Over 100 years later, his record still stands. (The picture above shows the crowd of over 250,000 people at the start of the race in 1908.)
Fast forward to 2008: Luke Rizzuto, a die-hard Chevy enthusiast, has long had a dream to participate or replicate part or all of that race. With the centennial of the race occurring this year, Rizzuto is finally able to put together the Longest Auto Race Centennial celebration.
Starting in Times Square in New York City on October 18, the event will follow the same historical route of the American leg of the original race to San Francisco. Luke will be driving a 1918 Chevy D Series, and Jeff Mahl, the great-grandson of George Schuster (winner of the original race) will be riding shotgun.
The cars are expected to arrive in San Francisco on November 8. And here's the best part: you can participate! The event is open to all cars and there are no entry fees (you are of course responsible for your own expenses.) You are welcome to join and depart the event at any place along the route.
If you're interested, check out The Longest Auto Race Centennial website. To see the planned route waypoints, click here.
Fast forward to 2008: Luke Rizzuto, a die-hard Chevy enthusiast, has long had a dream to participate or replicate part or all of that race. With the centennial of the race occurring this year, Rizzuto is finally able to put together the Longest Auto Race Centennial celebration.
Starting in Times Square in New York City on October 18, the event will follow the same historical route of the American leg of the original race to San Francisco. Luke will be driving a 1918 Chevy D Series, and Jeff Mahl, the great-grandson of George Schuster (winner of the original race) will be riding shotgun.
The cars are expected to arrive in San Francisco on November 8. And here's the best part: you can participate! The event is open to all cars and there are no entry fees (you are of course responsible for your own expenses.) You are welcome to join and depart the event at any place along the route.
If you're interested, check out The Longest Auto Race Centennial website. To see the planned route waypoints, click here.
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- Oct 9, 2008 at 5:26 pm
- October 18th? The original race started in the middle of winter in what has been described as near blizzardlike conditions! It was so bad that one of the entries didn't even cover 100 miles before dropping out.
The Thomas Flyer was clearly the class of the field. It was so far out in front that it made it to Seattle only to find that the orginizers of the race had divirted the rest of the cars to San Francisco to board ships to Japan instead of driving up through Alaska and across the frozen Bering Strait to Russia. The Thomas crew had to drive south to San Francisco to catah a later ship, putting them to the back of the field. Further, the German Zust team had shipped their car several hundred miles by rail due to a catastrophic part failure that could not be repaired en route.
Arriving in Japan, they found themselves several weeks behind the two remaining teams, the Zust and one fielded by the Protos company. The race proceded west through Asia and the Middle East, entering Europe along the Mediterranian. The Protos entry had fallen by the wayside too by then. The Zust team arrived in Paris first to a Hero's welcome, but their celebration was short-lived: The organizers penalized them a week (as I recall) for the railroad incident. The Thomas team arrived in Paris barely two days after the Zust... and nobody noticed! No parade, no champagne, no confetti, no celebration.
The modern effort has it much easier - For instance, they actually have PAVED ROADS! If it does happen to snow, there are now snow plows to take care of that. A part breaks, they can get it by mail-order, and the USPS will have it to them overnight by Expres Mail. They won't have to camp out, of course - that's what Motel 6 is for. If all else fails, help is always a quick cell phone call to AAA away.
- Oct 9, 2008 at 4:40 pm
- Across country in a 1918 Chev!
Hope they do a mechanical restoration before they leave, and carry some spare parts!
- Oct 9, 2008 at 3:42 pm
- Too cool. Think he will bring me some East Coast Pizza?? Pizza sucks out here on the West Coast!
Cars > Blogs > Official Motortopia Blog > The Longest Auto Race
