Hemmings Blog: “Miller Club to celebrate Milwaukee Vanderbilt Cup centennial”
Hemmings Blog reported today that the Harry A. Miller Club will recognize the 1912 Vanderbilt Cup Race held in Milwaukee at their 2012 annual meet:
Miller Club to celebrate Milwaukee Vanderbilt Cup centennial
First off, the flat paved one-mile speedway at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds in West Allis is the oldest continuously operating track in the United States. The Milwaukee Mile, as it’s known, hosted its first race for motor vehicles in 1903 and was promoted by luminaries including J. Alex Sloan and the Marchese brothers.
A staple of the Mile’s current schedule is the annual Millers at Milwaukee meet, which will be held July 6 and 7 in 2012. The event is organized by the Harry A. Miller Club, which will expand the event in 2012 to also recognize the centennial of the Vanderbilt Cup race hosted outside Milwaukee.
These photos of the 1912 Vanderbilt Cup come from Howard Kroplick, who operates the historic website VanderbiltCupRaces.com. The supremely dangerous Milwaukee race ran over 400 miles on crudely graveled local roads. New York driver David Bruce-Brown and his riding mechanic were killed in a practice crash, and Ralph DePalma was hospitalized for nearly three months after flipping violently while attempting to pass eventual winner Caleb Bragg. Some estimated the crowd at 400,000, but the race was a financial loser because the mob overran the fences with few actually paying for tickets
Links to related posts on VanderbiltCupRaces.com:
Archives: 1912 Vanderbilt Cup Race, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Comments
The eventual race was held on the second choice of roads. According to the Milwaukee Journal, June 2, 1912, the first planned choice of the route was to be Beloit Road to Lincoln Ave to 60th, south to Forest Home Avenue, west to 92nd Street, north to Beloit Road, east to Lincoln Ave. These are the current names of the roads on the planned path.