Page 30 - The Ormond Beach Chamber of Commerce 2018 Visitor Guide and Membership Directory

C elebrating THE BIRTHPLACE OF SPEED
On Friday and Saturday following Thanksgiving, Ormond Beach will once again pay homage to the automobile and the city’s substantial place in its evolution. The owners, who bring
their gleaming machines to
the annual “Birthplace of Speed” celebration, consid- er themselves true custodi- ans of historical treasures. Original cars and those that have been painstak- ingly restored are sure to spark memories of the by- gone eras.
This area’s long association with racing began on the hard packed sand of Ormond Beach in March of 1903. For eight years the small seaside community was the world’s center of racing. During those formative years, inventors with
names like Olds, Winton, Ford, Chevrolet, Stanley and Packard came to test their machines on the only reliably flat track in the United States.
Eventually, the quest for speed moved south down the beach and finally to Daytona International Speedway, but the importance of what happened on Ormond's beach can- not be measured. The ideas and collabora- tions that were formed there helped move the world toward being a motorized and mobile society.
At 7 p.m. on Friday, one of the finest, if not the finest, antique automobile gaslight
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