Santa Monica Road Races to be relived Friday night

Santa Monica will relive the historic 1911 Santa Monica Road Races this Friday, July 17 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows, which is sponsoring the event to benefit the Santa Monica History Museum.

Admission is free and includes a rare opportunity to see an original 1911 Santa Monica Road Race car owned by Brian Blain, which also raced in the first Indianapolis 500. The evening includes a feature presentation of the history of the road races in Santa Monica, film and photo display by motoring historian and author Harold Osmer.

A unique auction will be held for an overnight stay for two at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows, dinner for two at the FIG Restaurant and Spa Therapy at Exhale along with rides in the original racecar.

In 1909, the automobile was just coming into being. The City of Santa Monica was struggling to maintain its independence from Los Angeles and decided to stage road races to attract and increase its population. This worked. The biggest names in racing were there.

The start/finish line was on Ocean Avenue. The course went uphill along Wilshire Boulevard (then called Nevada Avenue) to the Old Soldier's Home (Veterans' Center today) then back down toward the ocean on San Vicente.

An estimated 50,000 people turned out on July 10, 1909 to watch two dozen entrants run the inaugural race. The first winner did the 8.4 miles course at an average speed of 55 mph. The American Grand Prix and Vanderbilt Cup Races were held at Santa Monica in 1914 and 1916. Had it not been for these Road Races and other enterprises that brought attention to the area, Santa Monica might have been annexed by the City of Los Angeles.

Interestingly, the Fairmont Miramar is located precisely on the southwest turn of the course where racers came barreling down San Vincente and turned left on to Ocean. That corner was known (for some obvious reasons that Harold Osmer will delve into during his presentation) as "Dead Man's Curve".

Osmer's fascinating and true story mixes some of the best-known racers of the day Barney Oldfield, Ralph DePlama, Teddy Tezlaff, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Earl Cooper with stars of the stage and screen like Douglas Fairbanks. It was a glamorous era and the "California" that we know now was just being born.

The Fairmont Miramar Hotel is located at 101 Wilshire Blvd (at Ocean Ave).