"Where They Raced" featured 1911 National race car at LA Auto Show 2013

Los Angeles CA, Nov 20 2013 - "Where They Raced" featured the oldest car in the LA Auto Show -- a 1911 National race car that ran at the 1st Indy 500. Then she moved to L.A. where she ran on the 1st board track in America and then at the Santa Monica Road Races.

Manufacturer – National Motor Vehicle Company
Number built – Only 3 Factory Team Race Cars
Engine – “T” Head, 4-cyl, 460 cu. in. – 100 H.P. (est)
Transmission – 3 speed non-syncro with leather cone clutch
Frame and Chassis – Steel and wood
Wheels – Wood
Body – Aluminum

History – National built cars from 1900 to 1924 in Indianapolis, originally powered by electric motors. Electricity was phased out as power source in 1906 when Arthur C. Newby Became company president. Newby was one of the four founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where National won the 500 mile race in 1912 with an average speed of 78.2 mph. National still holds the record for the largest engine ever to win the Indy 500. That four cylinder engine displaced 490 cu. in!

This Car – is one of three team cars raced by the national factory in the 1911 Indy 500, where it finished 7th driven by Charlie Merz. The National team cars were “stock” cars with shortened frames, higher gearing and highly modified engines. In later years this car was converted to the “Cody Special”, a further shortened car with narrowed bodywork that ran in the 1916 Santa Monica Road Races driven by movie stunt man Bill Cody. Its professional racing career ended of the “Speederettes” in the first women’s professional racing series, promoted by Indiana where it was modified into a touring car, its racing heritage known only by a few people. It was restored to its original racing configuration in 2011 to participate in the Centennial Celebration of the Indy 500.

1911 National race car at Sonoma Historical Motorsports Festival

Sonoma Historical Motorsports Festival 2013 Participant

Other 1911 races included:
Santa Monica Road Races, California
Pan-Pacific Race, Oakland, California
Elgin Trophy Race, Illinois
Pablo Beach Race, Florida
Los Angeles Motordrome

About "Where They Raced":

Speed Demons in the City of Angels tells the story of a pre-gridlocked Los Angeles... a time ripe with orange groves, movie stars, year-round sunshine and more auto racing and innovation than anywhere else in the world. This documentary film is told with hundreds of vintage photos, lost archival films and revealing interviews that reunite the ghost tracks of Los Angeles with the cars that raced on them to give these fading memories a victory lap.

Winner of the Motor Press Guild "Best of the Year" Award 2013 for excellence in automotive journalism.

Photos by Randy Berg