$80.00 CAD
| /
Set of two photo postcards of the race course for the Savannah Georgia Grand Prix Auto Race in 1908. Parts of the 25 mile course were on country dirt roads. The average lap speed was 66 mph.
Photos by George Raymond Foltz of Savannah. Written on the negatives:
"Savannah Auto Course" "Foltz Photo"
Card #1
“S” Turn LaRoche Ave.
Card #2
Whitefield Ave
‘AZO’ photographic paper
Both unused
In 1908, the Savannah Automobile Club, with several Isle of Hope representatives on its Executive Committee, hosted the annual championship races of the Automobile Club of America. The Grand Prize race, whose course is shown by this map, was truly an international competition with German, French, Italian and American entries among the twenty teams.
One of the reasons Savannah was selected as the race site was its splendid roads and beautiful scenery, especially along the circuit of roads in its waterfront suburbs, including Isle of Hope. These roads formed the 25-mile course that the racers would lap sixteen times with a winning average speed of 65 mph. The course included straightaways where speeds reached 100 mph. However, the stretch at Isle of Hope, from Skidaway Road to Parkersburg Road to Bluff Drive to LaRoache Avenue, had several sharp turns that greatly reduced the speed to 37 mph. One race car of team Italia ran off the course at Isle of Hope and did not finish
Louis Wagner won the closely contested race in his Fiat finishing less than a minute ahead of Victor Hémery's Benz. Wagner's average speed for the race was 65.111 mph, Ralph DePalma set fastest lap in his Fiat, with an average speed of 69.80 mph.
WIKIPEDIA
