Barney Oldfield Biography - Obsessed With Speed, Chronology, Becomes An Automobile Racer, Oldfield's Legacy To The Sport - SELECTED WRITINGS BY OLDFIELD:
racing
1878-1946
American race car driver
Originally famed for his speed in bicycle racing, Barney Oldfield became one of the pioneers of automobile racing. From 1902 to his retirement in 1918, his name was synonymous with speed and daring on the road. He was the first person to drive faster than 60 miles per hour. According to his obituary in the Toledo, Ohio Blade, the inventor of the automobile, Henry Ford, said of Oldfield, "The man did not know what fear was."
Barney Oldfield
SELECTED WRITINGS BY OLDFIELD:
Barney Oldfield's Book for the Motorist, Small, Maynard and Co., 1919.
Additional Topics
Berna Eli Oldfield was born in a farmhouse outside Wauseon, Ohio, in 1878. His father, Henry Clay Old-field, and his mother, Sarah Oldfield, worked the farm and struggled to provide for Oldfield and his older sister, Bertha. The severe winter of 1889 was too much for them however, and they decided to move the family to Toledo, Ohio, where Henry could find work. He took a job at a local mental hosp…
In 1902, Oldfield raced a gasoline-powered bicycle in Salt Lake City, where he also met automobile inventor Henry Ford. Ford asked Oldfield if he would like to drive one of Ford's cars, and Oldfield agreed. When he got to Grosse Point, Michigan, where the race was to be held, neither of Ford's two cars would start. Ford sold both of them to Oldfield and his partner, Tom Cooper, for $…
Because automobiles at the time were handmade and thus very expensive, most owners were extremely wealthy. Automobile clubs catered to this clientele, with selective membership policies; most owners and drivers were millionaires. The sport was well on its way to becoming the province of the rich, much like yachting or polo. Very few drivers came from the working class, and those who did, such as f…
It doesn't thrill me a bit to drive a 1:05 clip, and though I might win races without having to drive under the minute, I just have to let it out to get another thrill. You just clamp your teeth on your cigar and get down to your work so that you know to an inch how much the car will swing on the turns, and you get more fun out of the ride than a whole stand full of people. I haven't…
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