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The Sportsman
"Two Grand Old Names -- Barney Oldfield and Mercer"
1960 oil painting on wood, artist unknown



Ascot Park Speedway, Los Angeles, 1917. The Golden Submarine has an inspection. This photo was provided through the courtesy of Tony Harman, who found it in 2008 in a scrapbook he inherited from his great-grandfather. The scrapbook writing says 1918, but Barney drove the submarine on an exhibition lap at Ascot on Nov. 11, 1917, which is probably when this picture was taken.



Glenbow Museum Archives, above and below
Barney racing at Shepard, Alberta, around 1913



Glenbow Museum Archives
Lethbridge, Alberta, 1912



Glenbow Museum Archives
Barney and crew at Winnipeg, Manitoba, Sept. 2, 1912



Motor Age reports on the 300-mile race at Venice, Calif., on March 17, 1915

Read the whole article.
Entry fees.


Cigarette Card, 1926. Actual size: 1.5x2.5"




From Leslie's Weekly, Aug. 6, 1903

Barney Oldfield sets a one-mile record at Empire City Race Track in Yonkers, N.Y., covering the distance in 55.54 seconds




National Magazine, April 1904
Barney and William Graham, Winton Bullet drivers, probably at Ormond Beach, Fla., 1904








From Leslie's Weekly, Jan. 26, 1905









This is a signed print of a painting by Peter Helck entitled:

1910: Barney Oldfield in a One-Mile Exhibition Assault



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From The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Aug. 21, 1910



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Daily News
Barney Oldfield in the Peerless Green Dragon, probably 1904

.Click here to see a George Eastman House archival photo of Barney in the Green Dragon.
From "Carchitecture" by Fredric Winkowski and Frank D. Sullivan
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Barney Oldfield
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This medal is owned by Wayne Carroll Petersen, Barney's great-great-nephew, who has provided Rumbledrome with these photos and many others shown below.
The back of the medal reads as follows: "The Possessor of the Medal Has Won The Los Angeles to Phoenix Road Race, Thereby Proving Himself to Be The Master Driver of the World."

ThThe race was run on Oct. 10, 1914.

For an account, please click here.
Sculpture by Jeff Gamble of Tucson, Ariz., depicting Barney's rescue from a wash by a mule team during the 1914 Cactus Run. That's Barney's medal on the right. Photo courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen


From The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, Oct. 3, 1915



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Photos courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
Medal presented to Barney by the Speedway Park Association in Chicago. The back reads as follows: Barney Oldfield - Master Driver - This Medal of Merit and Appreciation Is Awarded in Recognition of His Many Preeminent Accomplishments and Years of Strenuous Loyalty to the Sport of Motor Racing
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From The New York Herald, Dec. 13, 1914. Car No. 4 is the race winner, Eddie Pullen, and No. 9 is Harry Grant, who placed 13th.
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Photo courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
Barney (sporting his Chicago medal), the Golden Submarine, and (possibly) Harry Hartz.
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Photos courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
Medal presented to Barney by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The back reads: To Barney Oldfield, Establishing Lap Record, May 26, 1916, Car Christie, Time 1:27.70, Average 102.623 M.P.H., Compliments, Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
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Barney's Indianapolis pins.
Photos courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
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Photo courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
You know me, Barney Oldfield.
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Photo courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
Date and place unknown, possibly Briarcliff in 1908, but it's Barney Oldfield
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Read about the Briarcliff race.
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A 1908 San Diego Newspaper Clipping

The text reads as follows: No less an authority than Barney Oldfield, boss of the dare-devils, is authority for the statement that the freak track racer is buried in oblivion. “Hereafter racing will be confined to stock cars, capable of being used after they are through racing,” says Oldfield. “We let the foreigners come over here and show us that stock cars, properly built, could accomplish more than our racing cars built especially for one event. We learned the lesson at last. I am through with the circular tracks and hereafter will confine myself to road races and cars that will not have to go to the junk pile after each event.”
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Souvenir postcard, about 1904.
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Barney in his famous 1917 "Golden Submarine." Below, the restored car as displayed on the Vintage Race Cars web site.
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Photo courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
Barney's earilest racing successes occurred in 999 at Grosse Pointe, Mich.
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Photo courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
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Barney's great-great-nephew, Wayne Carroll Petersen, with 999 at Laguna Seca, Calif., August 2003.
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Issue of July 26, 1903
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Yonkers 1911
North
Where Barney Set the Record

Above, a map from 1911 showing the Empire City track in Yonkers, N.Y. Central Park Avenue runs horizontally across the map and comes close to the edge of the western turn of the race track. Although it was a "trotting club track," thoroughbreds also raced there and it was the scene of one of the great victories by the famed Seabiscuit. Below is a current map of the area. When the New York State Thruway was built, parallel to Central Park Avenue, a portion of the Empire City race track property was taken over. The track itself was reduced from one mile in length to a half-mile, and it is now the Yonkers Raceway and still a trotting track.
Yonkers Today
North
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Yonkers Raceway (formerly the Empire City Race Track), March 28, 2004
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Rumble

It’s late at night, it’s early morning,
3 a.m. again, I’m driving back and
there it is, that little shaking in the
road, a sort of rumble, listen, feel it?

And it’s right near Yonkers Raceway,
just a mile or two from home, along
the Thruway, and it happens every
night, I feel it, and I think of dad.

He never heard of Yonkers Raceway,
it was something else back then, he
maybe called it EC on his pocket chits,
he had his fairy tales and I have mine.

But EC, Empire City, had a zing to it,
a something building in the east, the
proving ground for Seabiscuit, he
showed ’em, c’mon baby, bring it home.

I thought the rumble underneath me
on the Thruway was an echo of the
fastest horse that ever lived and I’ll bet
dad was smiling that night on the train.

But wait a minute, there it is again, and
that’s no horse, it’s Oldfield, Barney
Oldfield! world record, can’t beleeeevit!
Empire City race track, nineteen three.

A mile a minute, dad, remember?
Racers are the real McCoy, he said.

r.e.s. 2.24.02
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Barney in a Knox, right, wins at Syracuse, probably Sept. 20, 1909.
Below: the same race?



Barney Oldfield driving a Fiat to 4th place in a 400-miler. Milwaukee, Oct. 5, 1912
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Milwaukee County Historical Society
Milwaukee, about 1910. Below a postcard photograph from the Dainler-Benz Museum.
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Photo courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
Barney with his friend, the boxing champion Jim Jeffries.
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Library of Congress
At Overland Park, near Denver, date uncertain.
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Photos courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
Inaugural meet, Playa del Rey, Calif., the world's first board track, April 1910
A trophy, yes, but . . . read on
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Barney may have received this trophy for winning a 10-mile race for cars with stock chassis and large engines on Friday, April 15, 1910.
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This card is postmarked Aug. 31, 1910, four months after Barney was defeated at Playa del Ray, but Barney was what the sender remembered. The postcard sold for $51.01 on eBay, July 6, 2005.



Indianapolis Motor Speedway Photo
Indianapolis, 1914. Barney started 30th in his Stutz Wisconsin and finished 5th.
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From a Stutz sales catalog, 1914.
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Photo courtesy of Wayne Carroll Petersen
Barney and a skidding Jim Parsons, Venice, Calif., March 17, 1915. Barney won the race, a 300-mile event, which was run on a dirt track, although the turns were reinforced with boards.

Previous information in this space about the race being in Tacoma in July 1915, was incorrect. The error was reported by Mark Godfrey of Brown Fox Books, publisher of "Barney Oldfield: The Life and Times of America's Legendary Speed King."
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Motorsports Hall of Fame

Talladega, Alabama
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Illustration in a 1963 Standard Oil Company magazine ad depicting Barney Oldfield in the Ford 999 at Grosse Pointe, Mich.
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