Sure, the drivers in this month’s Indianapolis 500 are the best of the best, but more than a hundred years ago, Barney Oldfield was the man in racing — so much so that he once was banned by the American Automobile Association for his “outlaw” maneuvers.
Born Berna Eli Oldfield in Ohio in 1878, the young man left school after eighth grade and focused on working small jobs — as a kitchen helper in the mental health facility where his father worked and as a bellhop at a hotel (where he began to go by “Barney”). He used his tips from the hotel to finance his first bicycle.
With that purchase, Oldfield’s need for speed was stoked. At 16, he began racing bicycles, and eventually, he was sponsored by Syracuse, New York-based Stearns to race on its team. Through cycling connections, he met Henry Ford, who at the time was just beginning his auto manufacturing career. Ford asked Oldfield to test one of his early racing models; Oldfield traveled to Michigan for the attempt, but the car wouldn’t start. Regardless, that relationship launched Oldfield’s career in auto racing.
Over the next several years, Oldfield participated in dozens of exhibition races, and his list of accomplishments is extraordinary. In 1903, he became the first driver to run a 1-mile track in a minute flat. In 1909, he won first place in a race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a Mercedes-Benz, then purchased one of the vehicles and named it the “Blitzen Benz.” A year later, he set the world speed record by hitting 131.724 mph; that feat earned him the nickname “Speed King.”
And 1914 was a very big year for Oldfield: Not only did he race a Fiat against a biplane in 35 exhibitions across the country, he also finished fifth in the Indy 500. And that November, he was one of 20 racers in the Cactus Derby, a multi-day race from Los Angeles to Phoenix, with stops in Needles, California, and Prescott.
As noted in the Prescott Courier: “As [Barney] Oldfield swooped over the hill and neared the scratch, there was a mighty cheer from the throats of all who were in line.”
Oldfield won, earning him yet another title: “Master Driver of the World.” He returned to Arizona a few times later in life — and even narrowly escaped death when his car overturned on the highway near Winslow in 1929.
Oldfield retired from racing in 1918 and died of a heart attack in 1946. He’s buried in Culver City, California.