The first Auto Race

 The first Auto Race
Most people think that Henry Ford was solely accountable for the development of the automobile in America, however Henry Ford didn't produce the first American automobile. No, the primary American-created automobile was constructed by Charles and Frank Duryea. The Duryea brothers were bicycle mechanics who created the primary American "horseless carriage" in their workshop in Springfield, Maryland, in 1893.

This 1st American-made automobile had a 1-cylinder, gasoline engine and a 3-speed transmission, and it absolutely was mounted on a second hand horse carriage. It could travel at the wonderful (high) speed of 7.5 miles per hour.

The following year, 1894, Frank Duryea engineered a second horseless carriage that had a two-cylinder engine, and this was the car that Frank Duryea drove in the primary American automobile race on Thanksgiving Day, 1895.

The different entrants in the race were 2 electrical cars and three gasoline-powered Benz machines from Germany. The course ran a complete of fifty four miles from downtown Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, and back. The race was sponsored by The Chicago Time-Herald newspaper.

It took 10 hours on that snowy Thanksgiving Day in 1895, but once varied breakdowns and repairs, Frank Duryea crossed the end line 1st and won the first American automobile race with a median speed of seven.5 miles per hour.

There have been some changes created to auto racing in the ensuing 213 years, to say the smallest amount. Street racing is now not legal in any state, and the typical speed of the winning car driven by Hélio Castroneves at the 2007 Indianapolis 500 was 151.774 miles per hour.

Automobile racing has become huge business. I'll bet that Charles and Frank Duryea never even dreamed of a horseless carriage that might travel five hundred miles in under 3 and a 0.5 hours!