THE GREAT CACTUS DERBY OF 1914

The 1914 Cactus Derby was a great and The 1914 race route was 132 miles longer than the previous years' races via San Diego and Yuma.

This necessitated three days instead of two, with two night control points at Needles, California and Prescott, Arizona.

The nearly a mile elevation difference between those two points was a breaking strain for cars and drivers.

Roads and Motor Travel were Rough But Fun in Those Days significant event for the people and machines involved.

The outcome of the 1914 Derby was of major importance to Barney Oldfield and Louis Chevrolet, two major figures in automotive history. Not the least but certainly the most unfortunate fact for documentarians is the absence of photographic evidence of the Great Race, due to rain, sleet and mud, conditions which made on-the-spot photography almost impossible for the cameras and films of that day.

At four o'clock the whistles on the Southern Pacific machine shop shrieked the news that the racers had reached Goffs, forty miles west of town. In an instant, the entire population of Needles, California, was galvanized into activity. Never had the desert railroad town been the center of such a momentous sporting event as the Cactus Derby of 1914. Schools and railroad shops closed, storekeepers shut their doors, and the entire able-bodied population of 1,200 souls converged along the route, despite a drizzling rain, to view the finish of the first day's running. Soon two mud-spattered cars separated by only seconds careened down the unpaved streets and sloshed to a halt at the compound, or corral. There they would be impounded for the night under guard to prevent the crews from making repairs.

Of the first two drivers to arrive, the crowd had eyes only for the one in the once-white racing Stutz who chewed on the stump of a battered cigar. The grizzled Barney Oldfield, the grand thirty-six-year-old once-great of automobile racing, was on the comeback trail. The arrival of the other cars almost went unnoticed as the throng, led by the gregarious Barney, marched to the railroad depot to meet the "Howdy Special," a trainload of boosters following the route of the racers to Phoenix in alcoholic comfort. Barney went to collect his bet that he would beat the train into Needles.

When the Special, with the noisemakers of its occupants going full blast, ground to a cacophonous halt, the citizens of Needles witnessed a sight only previously surpassed in those parts along the Colorado River by Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale and his caravan of camels in 1857. This was the descent of the Howdyites themselves to the station platform dressed in their "Yama-Yama" costumes of red and black with cap to match each cap labeled "Howdy." They quickly formed in a line and joined a nondescript local Indian band in singing "I Love You, California." Then they marched off to meet the other drivers at the compound.

The Cactus Derby of 1914 combined all the elements of a Legion convention and a Moliere drama. It was conceived by the Automobile Club of Southern California to publicize the need for improved roads in the southwestern United States. To the promoters of the Arizona State Fair it was a surefire attendance getter, for the finish line was on the fairgrounds. It drew as its participants some of the greatest names in early American automobile racing, who for a variety of motives left $50,000 worth of racing hardware strewn along the mountain passes and desert lava beds between Los Angeles and Phoenix for a chance at winning a meager $2,500 first prize and a bronze medal inscribed "Master Driver of the World." It was the medal that did the trick. Seeking this glory besides Oldfield were two previous winners of the Cactus Derby: Olin Davis and Louis Nikrent. Other notables were Clifford Durant, Louis Chevrolet, who was testing his own creation, Ted Baudet, and Billy Carlson.

At the turn of the century there had been two divergent views represented among the membership of the Automobile Club of Southern California: the sportsmen and the utilitarians. The latter group realized the usefulness of the automobile to society, while the former saw it exclusively as a sporting medium. For a time there was the possibility that the proponents of these two opposite viewpoints might go their separate ways, but fortunately for the club's existence a happy compromise that pleased both parties was arranged: The Los Angeles to Phoenix Road Race. For the sportsmen an automobile race overthe rugged terrain and primitive roads of California and Arizona would be the ultimate in motoring daring-do. To the utilitarian, calling attention to the wretched condition of southwestern roads would be a boon to the "Good Roads Movement," which had been a rallying cry for the club since its inception and a motto that still emblazons its club symbol.The first race was held in 1908 and followed a course to Phoenix approximating today's Interstate 10, crossing the Colorado River at Ehrenberg, Arizona. To the disgust of gasolineengine aficionados it was won by Colonel F. C. Fenner in a White Steamer at a breathtaking average speed of 17.6 m.p.h. The next five races alternated between a northern route, via the Ehrenberg crossing, and a southern route, through Yuma, Arizona. The last three of these races had used the southern approach, but in 1914 it was moved north again. That year the national prestige of the race had grown, as also had the winners' purses. Improvements in automotive technology brought more powerful cars to the race, increasing the speeds and hazards, as there was no corresponding improvement in the roads. The reputations of the greatest names in automobile racing were involved, as well as that of fledgling automobile manufacturers such as Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac. The prestige of winning the Cactus Derby was an advertising coup equal to winning today's national stock car races. The Franklin Company used Ralph Hamlin's win in 1912 as a mainstay for its advertising program the following year. Tire and accessory interests also were involved. The Prescott Courier described "Firestone Smith," the leader of the Howdyites Band: "He carried a a broom as the weapon of the drum major and on his forehead in bright red was the inscription, 'Non Skid,' meaning that the tires he represented could not slur even in Arizona mud."

As the day for the great race drew near the Los Angeles newspapers began to wax poetic. One Associated Press correspondent carried away by the occasion wrote: "Straight into the sun as it comes over the San Bernardino peaks the drivers will race, and all day these motormen of speed will ride in the scorching rays which will make the desert a gigantic dazzling stove lid." Unfortunately for poetry, it had rained constantly for five days prior to the time of the race. Desert temperatures were nightly hovering around the freezing mark, this spiced with sleet, rain, and snow flurries. The gigantic stove lid had turned into a quagmire.

Twenty drivers assembled before dawn in a drizzling rain at Eastlake Park, Los Angeles, on November 10th for the start of the race. Ted Baudet, driving a Paige, was the first to careen down the slick pavement at 5:30 a.m. Oldfield was flagged away fifth at 5:38 a.m. There were many who doubted that the wire wheels of the Stutz would withstand the punishment of the route. By six-thirty the first casualty was reported: J. F. Pink in car number 18 had slid into a ditch. Pink was hospitalized and his mechanician (as mechanics were called) managed to manhandle the big Thomas a hundred miles farther before dropping out from exhaustion. This was not a reflection on his mechanician's physical condition, but an admission of how valuable the number two men were who rode beside the race drivers and performed a multitude of vital tasks from handpumping gasoline into the engine to making the frequently needed repairs along the road. Before the end of the day, heavy rains and streams of water rushing across the road would knock five more cars from the race.The racing cars left the pavement at San Bernardino and began the long climb up forty-three-hundred-foot Cajon Pass

BERNA ELI (BARNEY) OLDFIELD,

The people's idol of the raceways had suffered a bad year in 1914. The Stutz Bearcat (the same one he raced in the Cactus Derby) placed 5th behind four European entries. Sports writers were rough on "the grand old man of racing." "He's flat washed up," wrote one. Desperate for a big win, Barney decided to enter the "race track" wirewheeled Stutz in "700 miles of potholes and sage." After the Phoenix win he again had his fair share of public acclaim, going into the record books again in 1916, as the first driver to lap the Indianapolis Speedway at over one hundred miles per hour.

CONTESTANTS IN LOS ANGELES-PHOENIX RACE

12. Alco; W. E. Taylor and A. L. Rex, drivers.

14. Metz; W. H. Snow and Bob Kendall, drivers.

15. Buick; Ellis Brothers, drivers.

16. De Dietrich; P. C. Sprague, driver.

17. Stutz; Jack Burns, driver.

18. Thomas; H. J. Pink and Thomas Eley, drivers.

19. Cadillac; W. W. Bramlett, driver.

20. Chevrolet; R. Lawrence and D. Durant, drivers.

21. Cole; C. M. DuBois and J. Caminetti, drivers.

Start on El Monte road at Los Angeles City Limits, about one mile beyond Eastlake Park. First car sent away at five o'clock on morning of the 9th remainder at two-minute intervals. Route of Course Los Angeles via Foothill Boulevard, to San Bernardino; Cajon Pass to Victorville; National Old Trails Road to Needles (first night control); Needles to Kingman. Seligman, Ash Fork and Prescott (second night control); Prescott to Wickenburg, to Phoenix, finish. Total number of starters - Twenty. Total Purse $6750. 1st Prize, $2750; 2nd, $2000; 3rd, $1500; 4th, $500. Total Length of Course 696 miles.

LOUIS JOSEPH CHEVROLET, Swiss-French born automotive genius. The designer of the Chevrolet motor car, first produced in 1912. Early in 1914, he relinquished his interest in the com-pany to W. C. Durant, and returned to racing. Already recognized as one of the world's greatest drivers, he chose the Los Angeles-Phoenix race for his comeback, entering two Chevrolet Specials. Cliff Durant drove car number two. After Phoenix, Louis produced his famous line of Frontenac racers, the only designer to build two different cars to win two Indianapolis Internationals in succession in 1920 and 1921.

Barney Oldfield in Maxwell Special after winning Tucson "100 Plus," March, 1915.

The famous Stutz Bearcat model: winner of the 1914 Cactus Derby.

From the ARIZONA GAZETTE — November 12, 1914

When Barney Oldfield, the world's best known automobile driver checked in at the Fair Grounds yesterday afternoon, winner of the seventh annual Los Angeles-Phoenix race, the hardest auto race ever staged, he was almost unrecognizable, possessed of several pounds of mud caked on his face and body. He had driven the fiercest battle of his life.

One of the eight finishers who made an exceptionally great drive was Clifford Durant who is only 24 years old.

He was accompanied by Louis Chevrolet, an old time driver who returned to auto racing in order to take part in the Phoenix race. “Durant is some driver,” said Chev-rolet who rode with Durant after his Chevrolet went out of the race near Seligman. Durant had never drove in any race before. Up to the time he broke a wheel he gave Oldfield the run of his life.

when he was suspended by the A.A.A. for his unsanctioned race against heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson, who was also an automobile buff, he had suffered a number of humiliating defeats and misfortunes. To make a living he had been forced to race on the county fair circuit, staging fake races that he always won against his hired drivers. In 1911 he opened a large saloon in downtown Los Angeles which catered to the local celebrities and later catapulted Barney into a clash with the Women's Temperance League. For the racing purist, his ultimate degradation was his 1912 movie done for Mack Sennett entitled, “Barney Oldfield's Race for Life.” In this typical Sennett pot-boiler, Mabel Normand, chained to the railroad tracks, was rescued by Barney, who outraced the Los Angeles Express and whisked Mabel from the tracks in the nick of time.

After his reinstatement by the A.A.A., late in 1912, his racing fortunes did not improve. He lost the three-hundred-mile Santa Monica “Free for All,” cracked up at Corona, California, and broke down outside of Yuma, Arizona, in the 1913 Los Angeles to Phoenix race after setting a long-standing speed record between Los Angeles and San Diego. Many were whispering that the great Barney was through.

On November 12th the racing cars skated out of Prescott for the final day's run with slick mud adding to the hazards of their downward run. Today's travelers effortlessly drive their cars between Prescott and Phoenix, descending easily from the pines of the high country to the saguaro forests of the desert floor. In 1914 what passed for a road nervously took off from Prescott searching for any excuse to descend from the heights. In desperation it settled on a route through Copper Basin, a circuitous old wagon trail that snaked its way down towards the Hassayampa, until it finally announced its intention of turn Going to Phoenix at the town of Wickenburg, fifty-seven miles to the northwest.

Within minutes after the start, Olin Davis in his Simplex toppled over the Copper Basin Grade. His car was hauled back on the road after loss of considerable time. Later he drove into a mud bank, breaking a chain and putting himself out of the race. Bill Bramlett, driving the Cadillac, was the next victim of the grade, executing a barrel-roll in the air and miraculously landing on all four wheels without injuring himself.

With grim determination Barney Oldfield carefully nav-igated the twists and turns of the mountain road with all the instincts of an old Arizona mule skinner. When he reached the desert floor, he had managed to avoid the catastrophes that had befallen his fellow racers, and he and mechanician Hill began to sense that victory might soon be within their grasp. Unfortunately, their luck ran out. At New River they found a torrent of water raging through the once-dry river bed. After skirting the river bank for a few yards, Oldfield gunned the Stutz into the water at a likely looking crossing, only to have the motor cough to a stop in midstream as the large flywheel on the racer had splashed water on the plugs and carburetor. A feeling of helplessness and frustration seized Oldfield and Hill. Further humiliating them was the appearance of Nikrent in his Paige. He easily navigated the stream, waved to the stranded pair, and raced off, taking the lead to Phoenix. Nikrent was quickly followed by Bill Bramlett, who repeated Nikrent's performance and added a few choice taunts.

Next to appear along the bank, and a sight that cheered Oldfield and Hill, was a team of mules. They were quickly hitched to the mired Stutz, and the marooned pair was hauled to dry land. After cleaning the carburetor and plugs, the car still refused to start. It was necessary for a band of spectators to push the car up a grade and let it coast down to the other side a a number of times before it began hitting on a few of its cylin-ders. A few cylinders were enough to get them haltingly on their way again with Hill muttering "De Palma" to remind Barney of Ralph De Palma, his arch rival, who in the 1912 race at Indianapolis, with a twenty-mile lead, had his engine go out two miles from the finish line.

The end of the race was an anticlimax, with Nikrent cross-ing the line first, but Oldfield winning on his elapsed time record, besting Nikrent by thirty-six minutes. The drama that won the admiration of the crowd at the Phoenix Fairgrounds, however, was furnished by Bill Bram-lett. A few hours after barrel-rolling his Cadillac outside of Prescott, he became stuck in quicksand. After being pulled out, he made up for lost time by throwing caution to the wind and recklessly dashing for Phoenix. Nearing Glendale, he skidded into a fence and completely destroyed his steering mechanism. Still not ready to count himself out, he and his mechanician ripped up two fence posts and placed them inside of each front wheel, guiding the car in the desired direction by moving the posts in unison. It was in this manner that they gamely con-tinued the race and finally veered their way around the fair-ground track, limping across the finish line in fifth place, a vicStory in itself, as only seven out of twenty cars that started had managed to finish the punishing ordeal. That evening, in the lobby of the Adams Hotel, Barney Oldfield emerged from the elevator and stepped into a throng of admirers who, according to the Arizona Republican, heaped accolades on him such as: "You're better the older you get," "Oh, you Master Driver of the World," and "Good old Bar-ney." The female reporter covering the event detected a new humbleness in Barney that was reflected in his dress: "I do think his taste is a bit more refined than when he was here before. He only wore one ring with two large diamonds that was at all unpleasant. His suit was dull, dark blue with a fine white stripe, and he wore a perfectly sweet black and white shirt and black tie with a lavender motif. His Oxfords were black with silk ties and his socks were black silk. Not even a scarf pin!!!"

At the award banquet, in the same hotel, General George Purdy Bullard, attorney general of Arizona, made the presentation of the diamond-studded medal proclaiming Barney Oldfield "Master Driver of the World." In addition, he received the winner's purse of twenty-five hundred dollars. Much oratory was expended that night extolling the "Motormen of Speed" and the emergence of a new era when the southwestern United States would someday be crossed with dependable all-weather macadamized roads. There was even muttered a wild utopian prediction that the automobile would pass from being a plaything of the rich or the professional automobile driver to become a standard everyday fixture in most southwestern homes.