Before NASCAR: The Corporate and Civic Promotion of Automobile Racing in the American South, 1903–1927. Drive!: Henry Ford, George Selden, and the Race to Invent the Auto Age. Garden City Publishing Co.įord Motor Company. Journal of Sport History, 2, Summer, 18, 224–240.įord, H. Ocean to Ocean by Model T Henry Ford and the 1909 Transcontinental Auto Contest. Following his early flirting with racing, from 1901 to 1913, Henry Ford primarily acted as a major car manufacturer, utilizing racing only to further the interests of developing, manufacturing and selling automobiles.īillington, D. This was also the period in which Model T sales began to dominate the American automobile market.

The 1901 race, the only event in which Ford raced himself, marked the start of Ford’s 12-year long direct involvement in motorsport, which ended in 1913, the same year that the moving line production was established at the Ford Motor Company’s Highland Park plant. This event, together with a 1902 race in which Ford’s 999 racer (driven by Barney Oldfield) again defeated Winton at Grosse Pointe, skyrocketed Ford’s fame and helped him secure funding for establishing the Ford Motor Company.

That year, he created a stir when he defeated accomplished racer Alexander Winton in a race at Grosse Pointe, MI. Although Ford had experimented with automobile manufacture since the mid-1890s, it was not until 1901 that Henry Ford became directly involved in car racing.

This chapter revolves around Henry Ford’s involvement in and influence on early motorsport in the United States.

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