two miles a minute
In 1906 Oldfield was skeptical of the 250 horsepower car A.G. Vanderbilt planned to bring to the Ormond-Daytona tournament:
“I will be on the Florida beach as a spectator, and if Mr. Vanderbilt’s 250 horse-power car shows up for the races I will never get closer to the beach than the Daytona railway station. It will be safer for me.”
In 1922 Oldfield had retired from the racing game, but he hadn’t retired from storytelling:
“I conceived the idea after the Grosse Point race that I could go a mile a minute on that track if I waited until the track got hard. In Dec. 1902, I tried it. The first curve I hit sent me spinning around like a top. Some Detroit fellows came up and asked me if I would let them make up a pool to insure my life, provided 25 per cent would go to my wife…Those fellows in Detroit haven’t collected yet on that 1902 life insurance policy.”