The Glendale Grand Prix

At first glance, you are probably thinking I’m referring to cars traveling on Glenoaks Boulevard on any Saturday night when competing local street racers drive dangerously fast. But in fact I’m referring to an international Grand Prix road race, very similar to the Monaco Grand Prix or the Long Beach Grand Prix, that took place on the streets of downtown Glendale in 1915, over 100 years ago.

Auto racing was a hot ticket in those early years when the technology of automobiles, and thus speed, was progressing by leaps and bounds. Los Angeles was a leader in auto sales and racing victories sold cars. Glendale (and Montrose) was becoming a center of racing technology, so it seemed natural that a race should take place there. Many growing cities in the Southland were holding street races, including even Beverly Hills.

The Glendale Elks Lodge sponsored the race and the Auto Club sanctioned it. Prizes of $3,000 in total were put up. The sponsors were initially only allowed four entrants. They wanted to exclude any drivers that were considered too slow or too dangerous. (Among the four initial entrants was Huntley Gordon, the great grandfather of NASCAR driver Robbie Gordon.) A great howl of protest was put up by a whole host of other racers who wanted a shot at the purse. The Auto Club ruled that the sanctioned race had to be open to any racer who was not deemed dangerous.

Twelve cars were eventually entered in the road race. The various makes of the cars entered is interesting in itself. Besides the familiar brands we know today, such as Ford, Chevrolet and Renault, there were other makes we no longer hear about such as Duesenberg, Isotta Fraschini and Alco. Huntley Gordon drove a car made especially for him called a Gordon Special. Guy Ball drove a Marmon. Ball has been written about in this column before because of a lurid divorce. In 1916, Ball’s pretty young wife was discovered in the arms of another man at the Pasadena Mountain Club, a bar and whorehouse in what is today Whiting Woods. The famous auto racer Barney Oldfield was said to “hunt deer” in Whiting Woods during that era. We can probably assume that was a euphemism.

The course was laid out in the heart of Downtown Glendale. The starting line was on Brand Boulevard near Colorado Boulevard, where a grandstand was erected. The cars traveled south, turning left on Colorado, which was then called Sixth Street. Traveling east they turned left again on Glendale Avenue, and left again on California, then called Second Street. After traveling west on California, they turned again onto Brand for the high-speed straightaway to the grandstands near Colorado. This was just under two miles. The cars would make 53 circuits of the course for a total of 100 miles.

The streets by then had been paved with macadam, or asphalt as we call it today. The tight left turns were banked up with hay bales to stop cars that couldn’t make the “high-speed” turns. And what was “high speed” back then? The course was estimated to be a 75 mile-per-hour average course.

The prizes were to be $2,000 for first place with diminishing prize amounts down to sixth place. It was estimated that 25,000 spectators would be there.

The race was set for Saturday, Jan. 30. There would be the main event at 2 p.m. followed by a shorter amateur race in which locals could race any car they owned. On Jan. 27 drivers were allowed to practice on the course and spectators were given a good show of speed. All was looking good for a great race.

But on the night of Jan. 29, the clouds opened up and poured rain on the course. The next morning, with 3,000 spectators lining the course, officials declared the flooded course too dangerous and delayed the race until Feb. 4. It was hoped that, with the extra days of practice, the drivers would turn in even higher speeds on race day.

Next week, blow-by-blow coverage of the 1915 Glendale Grand Prix.