A Special Character
Humble would accurately describe Barney Oldfield's beginnings. He was born in 1878 as Berna Eli Oldfield in a log cabin north of Wauseon, Ohio. His farming parents were Henry Clay Oldfield, a Civil-war veteran, and Sarah Yarnell, daughter of the town’s blacksmith.
In 1889, the family relocated to Toledo for better work. It was in Toledo that young Berna caught the cycling bug. Bicycling was a major phenomenon by the 1890s, and along with the cycling phenomenon came bicycle competitions, some of which took place on hippodrome board tracks designed especially for cycles.
Oldfield on a Stearns racing bike in 1894. Imagine that—a bicycle trading card!
Into this cauldron jumped Oldfield at the age of 16, who almost won in his first competition while racing on the streets of Toledo on May 30, 1894 with a borrowed bike. He immediately pawned his second-place prize for trip money to compete at Belle Island on the Detroit River, and one race followed another in rapid succession. Persevering earned him successes and racing contracts with Dauntless and Stearns by the end of his first season of professional racing.
Oldfield racing on a board track in Utah. image courtesy The Henry Ford
Braver Than Anyone Should Be
Oldfield was a toughie and a self-promoter. He learned valuable racing skills, such as hooking with handlebars, cornering with elbows out, and beating off blows with forearm parries, common practice in close competition. Skills he learned in bicycle racing served him well when he transitioned to motorcycle competition, which he fell into after a mining venture out West with his buddy Tom Cooper failed. Oldfield would again find himself scrapping on board tracks, but this time it would be in Utah with competitors like Ab Jenkins of Indian Motorcycle fame.
Cooper had gone back to Detroit, and once again he lured Oldfield into another cockamamy idea, this time refurbishing two speedsters that Henry Ford had developed but given up on and sold to Cooper. These were very basic open-chassis racers, 1100 cubic inch behemoths with tiller steering and rear-only brakes. One was mysteriously named "999." No one could yet handle the cars.
Except for Barney.
After Cooper and Oldfield had tinkered with the two cars and got them to perform, Henry Ford realized that he now had a serious chance for some self-promotion. So Ford hired Cooper and Oldfield and challenged Alexander Winton to a match race on a dirt horse track
Oldfield and 999, Henry Ford standing. image courtesy The Henry Ford
This was Oldfield's golden opportunity, and he knew it. With Barney at the tiller, a roaring crowd of hundreds cheered on Oldfield and the hometown Ford racer as 999 roared around the Grosse Point Shores dirt track on October 25, 1902 and soundly beat Winton's Bullet racer.
Oldfield’s entry into the world of racing was uniquely pivotal; up to then it had been an exclusive domain of the idle rich who had money to waste. People like William K. Vanderbilt, who cruised the Continent looking for adventure and thrills, staged the Vanderbilt Cup races on his private roadway on Long Island, and offered a solid silver trophy to the winner.
Oldfield came from a completely different background, a dirt-poor blue collar boy hungry for prize money who sensed that it was out there for the taking. He saw the opportunity for notoriety, and he went for it with gusto.
Oldfield must have heard the sound of money in the cheers of the hometown fans who had come to witness Henry Ford's race versus Winton. Competitive racing was live action and a major event in the early 1900s, and the possibilities of fame and fortune certainly impressed Oldfield. This one event would shape his future for a decade.
A Showman's Showman
He was the right man at the right place and the right time. Dirt-track fairgrounds and board track ovals were plentiful in the U.S., and Oldfield was already familiar with competition on them using bicycles and motorcycles. Oldfield possessed a ton of nerve, and this stood him well as he concocted barnstorming stunts and match races to create his career and pad his pockets with hard-earned dollars. Cooper was a worthy partner in these escapades.
Cooper had named his crimson steed “The Arrow”, and its twin was Oldfield’s 999. Together they competed at several events in 1902 and 1903, including tromping a Peerless before a crowd of 6,000 at the Empire horse track in Yonkers, NY. Local reporter and magazine writer Theodore Waters reported on Oldfield at Empire on that day and described the 999 as
Four wheels and a frame, on which was mounted an engine,
a cooler, and a seat. No oiling system, no muffler, no
crankcase, no differential gear, no reverse, no rear springs,
no governor. Nothing but the ability to make records.
This was state of the art for 1903!
A Racer's Racer
First with Cooper, and later with other partners, Oldfield would tour the small towns of the Midwest and South where folks had heard of auto racing but had not yet witnessed it. On county dirt horse tracks Oldfield would stage races and speed shows to amaze the crowds and earn himself and others a fat gate at the end of the day. Of course, this barnstorming was done outside of the purview of the AAA Contest Board, an organization that controlled all legal racing in the United States. And of course, Oldfield would periodically get sanctioned for his actions and banned from AAA-sponsored competitions.
Nevertheless, it wasn't all fakery and stunts, as Oldfield was a professional driver who honed his skills while also making a good living.
Ernie Moross in a Christie V-4 track car in 1908. Note the right front wheel is doubled for cornering purposes. 900 cubic inches, 100 horsepower, and a million pound-feet of torque! Oldfield would own and drive a later model of Christie, also a beast.
Oldfield had mastered the 999 by devising a technique called “diamonding the track”, a cornering trick still used successfully by NASCAR and dirt-track racers. Again, with journalist Waters eyewitnessing and reporting:
Barney was clinging to his crossbar like a steersman on
a fire truck, and his homemade machine was making
diagonally across the track toward the outer rail. Just
as he was about to collide with the fence, he suddenly
threw himself upon his bar and the machine swerved
sharply left. The effect was startling. The front wheels
skidded or slid fifty feet, raising a cloud of dust that
obscured the machine and left the Grandstand in doubt
as to whether it had overturned. During that brief interval
a sound very like a groan rose from the people. But it
changed to a hysterical cheer as out of the cloud shot
the daring chauffeur, actually taking the curve at full speed.
Oldfield perfected this intimidating maneuver and later used it with great competitive success during his AAA racing years from 1905 to 1918. Although he was AAA National Champion in 1905 and competed at the Indianapolis Sweepstakes in 1914 and 1916, his AAA racing career was repeatedly interrupted due to repeated suspensions due to just being Barney.
Barney Oldfield with mechanician George Hill at the 1914 Indianapolis Sweepstakes 500. image courtesy IMS
1914 Indy 500 article with principal contender sketches.
The third and last ban was in 1918 because Oldfield decided to race in a promotional event despite a government ban on gasoline usage due to wartime fuel shortages. He was a rebel through and through!
America loved Barney Oldfield as their own, especially at his popular county fair events. After giving his trademark shout-out over the trackside mike or megaphone—"Hey! You know me—I'm Barney Oldfield!"— the crowd would holler approval and the show would go on.
Oldfield would put on a three-part race event, narrowly winning the first heat, after which one of his star drivers would beat him in the second race to even up the score and establish the dramatic tension. In the third and final heat, Oldfield would miraculously pull out ahead on the final lap and win to the roar of thousands of approving fans.
In this era before radio and television, unsanctioned fairground racing was the hottest thing since roller skates. Oldfield would buy whatever car was the fastest and then go race the stink out of it, at county fairs, on board tracks, Ormond Beach—you name it!
Oldfield and his Lightning Benz. He bought it because it was the fastest racer at the time.
Oldfield was the P.T. Barnum of barnstormers, a Babe Ruth of the racetrack. He was a larger-than-life character at a time when heroes were forged in the cauldron of racing
One More Great Day in the Sun
Mark Dill's book, "The Master Driver of the World," gives life to a desert race that took place between Los Angeles and Phoenix in November of 1914. Known as the Cactus Derby, this annual event would pitch teams of drivers and their cars on some of the most brutal terrain in the Southwest. Keep in mind that this was before the time when roads between cities largely did not exist!
The Master Driver of the World book cover.
Barney Oldfield decided that his sturdy Stutz racer and his riding mechanic, George Hill, were the best weapons in his arsenal to conquer this challenging event. After all, they had earlier placed fifth at the Indianapolis Sweepstakes in May, the first American team after four European competitors had already crossed the finish line.
Dill graphically describes the event, the terrain, and the characters who braved the Cactus Derby contest. In addition, onlookers, fans, naysayers, ne'er-do-wells, and even racing officials are brought to life and plugged into the plot as it moves along from one calamity to another. Cars are wrecked, people get hurt; even Oldfield's mechanic suffers a grievous wound, but he soldiers on as Oldfield's trusted mechanician until the race's end.
And—guess what? Oldfield, Hill, and the sturdy Stutz prevailed. What a story!
Recommended!
************************************ *** ************************************
Hats off to Mark Dill, who wrote this tale and made Barney Oldfield come alive in it. You can find this book at markgdill.com/books. Go check it out!
Mark Dill's website, The First Super Speedway, is where you also can find all sorts of material relating to early racing. That site address is www.firstsuperspeedway.com.
Spring is coming... go drive that speedster!
Barney Oldfield sitting in his famous racer, the Golden Submarine.