AAA Contest Board

Book Review: Thunder at Sunrise, A History of the Vanderbilt Cup, the Grand Prize and the Indianapolis 500, 1904-1916 by John M. Burns

March 18, 2024 by Leave a comment

In the beginning of international auto racing, there was the Gordon Bennett Cup. Established by American ex-pat James Gordon Bennett, Jr., millionaire owner of the New York Herald, in 1900 it revealed in stark terms how uncompetitive American automobiles were. The races were between national automobile clubs or nations and ...

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The Crisis in Auto Racing

January 6, 2024 by Leave a comment

Auto racing is inherently dangerous. The 1955 Championship racing season was particularly bloody and brought things to a head for the AAA Contest Board, which was the sanctioning body not only for championship racing but also for sprint cars, run on one-half mile tracks, midgets run on one-quarter mile tracks, ...

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Book Review: The Marvelous Mechanical Designs of Harry A. Miller by Gordon Eliot White

January 5, 2024 by Leave a comment

Die hard Indianapolis 500 fans will recognize the name of Harry Miller. Sad to say but when he died in 1943, his creativity and mechanical genius in creating an engine that dominated championship racing for more than fifty years had been forgotten. The Miller engine over the years became known ...

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