Oldfield vs. Beachey
Following the first successful motorized airplane flight by Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903, the American public became fascinated with the rapid development of the aviation industry. There was also considerable interest in the motor car-by 1903, 33,000 automobiles were already on the road, seemingly destined to revolutionize transportation. It was inevitable, perhaps. that someone would promote a race between a motor car-a vehicle designed to travel on land-and an airplane-a machine that flew in the air, to determine the element in which man could achieve the greatest speed.
Such a race took place in Emeryville in 1914, a year when the maximum speed of a high-powered automobile and an airplane in level flight was about equal. Consequently, in 1913 and 1914, Barney Oldfield and Lincoln Beachey competed in a series of races around the country, Oldfield driving a race car and Beachey piloting an airplane, for the speed championship of the world.
Oldfield and 999
Berni (nicknamed Barney) Oldfield was born January 29, 1878 in Wauseon, Ohio. He raced bicycles and motorcycles as a youth and acquired the reputation as a “man who lived for speed.” Oldfield began his automobile racing career in 1902 at the age of 25, when the auto manufacturer Henry Ford asked him to drive a new highspeed race car named 999 after a record-breaking railroad steam engine.
Ford had built 999 for publicity reasons. A stripped-down rudimentary vehicle, the 999 race car had a steel-plated wooden chassis but no body, windshield, transmission, or suspension. It was powered by a massive 18.9- liter 4- cylinder, 75 horsepower engine that at full throttle turned only 800 r.p.m. Although he had no experience with automobiles, Oldfield won his first race in 1902 driving this beast. The same year he drove 999 around a dirt track in Indianapolis, averaging a record 60 m.p.h., a speed that astonished the automotive world.
Oldfield won many races at the wheel of 999 and decided to pursue a career as a race car driver. He successfully raced another speedster named the Green Dragon, and by 1904, having set several dirt track records, he held the title of “World Champion Automobilist.” In 1910, Oldfield set a new world’s land speed record of 131.7 m.p.h. driving a German built “Blitzen” Benz 21.5-liter chain-drive monster. The victorious Oldfield was now ready to challenge the kings of the air, the barnstorming pilots of the early twentieth century, for the speed championship of the world.
Lincoln Beachey
Lincoln (Link) Beachey, a fearless aviator who had only contempt for the limitations of land-based vehicles, accepted Oldfield’s challenge. Born in San Francisco in 1887, Beachey acquired a knowledge of aviation as a young man by flying dirigibles and ascending in balloons. In 1910, he joined the Glenn Curtiss exhibition team and mastered the basics of stunt flying. After Beachey finished his training as a pilot, aviator and aeronautical engineer, Glenn Curtiss remarked, “I consider Lincoln the most daring and skillful aviator under any and all conditions that I have ever seen.”
After graduating from flying school, Beachey became a freelance pilot, demanding as much as $5,000 for a performance. Rejecting conventional aeronautical attire, in flight he wore a pin-striped suit, a tie, and an English golfing cap which he reversed just before takeoff.
“On the ground,” noted Curtiss’ biographer, “Link Beachey appeared as sedate as a deacon and was always neatly attired, with a celluloid collar and a jeweled stickpin. In the air he was a wild man.”
As a freelance pilot. Beachey set the world’s high-altitude record at 11,642 feet. In 1911, he flew above Niagara Falls, plunged into the gorge, and guided his frail craft under a suspension bridge. His most spectacular stunt was to fly to a high altitude, shut off the engine, and drop vertically for several thousand feet. He would level off just short of crashing to earth-a breathtaking stunt that caused many female spectators to faint. Beachey’s acrobatic flying attracted large crowds, yet the daredevil pilot became convinced that his fans only wanted to see him crash.
Oldfield vs. Beachey
Will Pickens, Oldfield’s agent, had the idea to promote a sensational race between a motor car and an airplane, with Oldfield at the wheel of the motor car and Beachey piloting the airplane. Pickens predicted that spectators would readily pay to see the Land Speed King battle the Master Birdman for the speed supremacy of the world. This bizarre contest attracted considerable attention and was so successful financially that the two daredevils toured the country racing against each other. On one day, the race car would surge across the finish line to victory, while in the next race, the airplane won the contest. The proceeds from these races were equally divided among Pickens, Oldfield, and Beachey.
Speed King of the World
One of the most famous of these races took place in Emeryville at the California Jockey Club horse racetrack on January 10, 1914. The January 7, 1914 Oakland Enquirer newspaper announced:
“The speed king of the world will be decided next Saturday and Sunday when Barney Oldfield, the speedway king, meets Lincoln Beachey, the czar of the air, in a race for supremacy.
Beachey has defied Oldfield, and has further declared that he will not only travel faster than the great racer but that he will loop the loop in the air during the progress of the race.
The defy was wired to Oldfield and his manager came to Oakland immediately. Shortly after the arrangements were completed and Oakland was assured of staging the greatest race the world has even [sic] known.
This Beachey person may be able to do things in the air that the birds cannot do,’ declared the manager last night, ‘But when he talks speed he is talking to Barney Oldfield. For the last eleven years Barney has kidded himself that he is the only living man who has traveled faster than anything except a rifle bullet. Beachey is the king of the air, we admit that all right, but when he talks about traveling faster than Barney Oldfield, he simply makes me laugh.”
Curtiss Biplane vs. Simplex Race Car
For the Emeryville race, Beachey flew a 40-horsepower pusher-type Curtiss biplane with a 28-foot wing span. The wings and tail consisted of cloth stretched over a wooden frame, and the entire contraption weighed only 1,140 pounds. The pilot sat totally exposed to the elements on a bicycle seat near the front of the airplane, with the engine mounted behind him.
Oldfield drove a new Simplex, a two-seater racing machine with a top speed of 75 m.p.h.-comparable to that of the Curtiss biplane. The huge four-cylinder, 9.7- liter engine, with two spark plugs per cylinder, was rated at only 50 horsepower but in reality developed about 75. The Simplex racer had a four-speed transmission connected to a double chain-drive mechanism that transmitted power to the rear wheels. It was equipped with a 40-gallon rear mounted fuel tank and a 13-gallon oil tank for long distance racing.
On January 10, 1914, a crowd of 4,000 watched the duel between Oldfield and Beachey at the old California Jockey Club racetrack in Emeryville. The contest consisted of several events. In the first event Beachey flew his Curtiss biplane around the track ten times and demonstrated his ability as a stunt pilot by “imitating the flight of birds in dips, curves, and glides.” Barney Oldfield next drove his Simplex racer around the one-mile dirt track five times, and by sliding around corners, he averaged about 60 miles per hour. The crowd waited in anticipation for the third event of the day, a five-lap race around the one-mile track between Beachey in his Curtiss biplane and Barney Oldfield in his Simplex.
The battle between Oldfield’s racer and Beachey’s biplane must have been a spectacular sight, because the aircraft flew close to the ground and both machines were always in close competition. According to a newspaper account of an Oldfield-Beachey duel:
“Oldfield’s auto seemed like a frightened rabbit scurrying away from the big bird of prey directly above it. At times this seemed scarcely more than a few inches of clear sky between the fearless motorists’ head and the wheels of the plane.”
Oldfield won the Emeryville race by only twenty feet, having covered the five-mile distance in four minutes and 53 seconds, at an average speed of more than 60 miles per hour.
A Nosedive to the Ground
Unfortunately, the fourth event ended in disaster. Beachey attempted the dangerous stunt of flying upside down around the track, while Oldfield, accompanied by a photographer in the passenger seat, drove his racer underneath the airplane so the cameraman could photograph it. In the meantime, one of Beachey’s mechanics, afraid that Beachey had failed to fasten his seatbelt, motioned to the aviator that something was wrong. Beachey saw the warning and prepared to land on the track, unaware the racer was beneath him. At the last instant Beachey realized the danger, and in order to avoid a collision, nose-dived the biplane into the ground “and turned a complete backward somersault burying the aviator beneath it.”
Spectators rushed to the scene of the accident expecting to find a corpse in the wreckage, but the intrepid aviator surprised everyone by surviving the crash. After recovering from his injuries (wrenched tendons in his right leg and left shoulder), Beachey continued to fly. The newspapers declared Beachey a hero because he had deliberately wrecked his airplane in order to avoid hitting Oldfield.
The Oakland Tribune reported the accident in a front page article.
“More than 4000 people. crowded along the track and the grandstand, saw the deliberate dip by the aviator to prevent crashing into the machine driven by Oldfield and occupied by the racer and the photographer. There was a gasp from the crowd when it was seen that the aeroplane would stick its nose into the ground, and when it struck and turned a complete backward somersault, burying the aviator beneath it, throngs disregarded every barrier and crowded around the crushed machine, expecting to see the lifeless body of Beachey extricated from the ruins. Beachey was stunned by the fall and the injury to his shoulder and legs by the pressure of a bent plane against them rendered him unable to walk and he was carried from the track and back to his hotel (Hotel Oakland), where Dr. Hemlin was called and pronounced the aviator’s injuries not serious.
It was virtually a misunderstanding that caused the accident. Beachey had risen from the ground for the third time and was to make his famous upside-down flight. He was strapped, as is necessary, but after he had left the ground his mechanician remembered that the life-belt around Beachey’s hips had not been fastened. Fearing that the aviator would fail to notice this and be killed in a fall from the machine when he turned over in the air, the mechanician and his assistants made frantic motions for Beachey to re-land. Believing from the actions of those on the ground that some part of the machine was breaking, Beachey shut off his engine and glided for the track. Oldfield and the photographer had been circling the track for the purpose of obtaining pictures of the upside-down flight and were slowing down directly on the spot that Beachey had selected for a landing place.
When Oldfield realized that the aviator was descending on him, he attempted to speed up his car and shoot ahead, but it was too late to get out of Beachey’s way for a safe landing. The aviator saw the danger and deliberately turned the nose of the machine into the ground, striking less than 10 feet behind Oldfield’s machine. Had he not done this, the 1140-pound aeroplane would have fallen on the two men in the car and killed them. The strength of the supports holding the engine in the aeroplane saved Beachey’s life, as the weight of the engine falling on him would have fatally crushed him. W. H. Pickens, Beachey’s manager, was the first to reach his side, and later announced that today’s program would be carried out as advertised. The front wheel frame of the machine was shattered, the radiator bent, the skids broken and many of the wire supports snapped, but the engine was uninjured.”
“Hats off to Beachey”
Beachey lived for only one year after his spectacular Emeryville crash. The Master Birdman’s last flight took place on March 15, 1915 at the Panama Pacific Exposition. While stunt flying above San Francisco Bay, he went into a perpendicular drop from an altitude of 3,000 feet; when he attempted to pull out of the dive the wings of his German monoplane collapsed, and he crashed into the bay and drowned-a tragedy witnessed by 50,000 spectators. Beachey’s mechanic stated after the accident that the aviator had exceeded the design limits of the plane.
“After he was well started on that last drop he gathered speed so fast that I felt sure he would never be able to right the machine when he was ready. He was dropping too fast. No man in the world could have righted that machine, and no machine in the world could have stood the strain.”
When the monoplane was retrieved from the water, according to a newspaper account, the men in the crowd honored Lincoln Beachey by removing their hats. “Hats off to Beachey” was the hushed signal that went through the crowd, and instantly almost every man in the great, packed mass of humanity bared his head…”
Lincoln Beachey was only twenty-seven years old when he died. Barney Oldfield, “The Master Driver of the World,” had better luck. He retired from racing in 1918, after a career that had spanned sixteen years. He died peacefully in bed on October 4, 1946 at the age of 68.
This story originally published in 1996 for the Emeryville Centennial Celebration and compiled into the ‘Early Emeryville Remembered’ historical essays book.
