Chevrolet Wins Atlanta 200

This photo was originally published in the November 10, 1909 Indianapolis Star. The image is of Louis Chevrolet in his Buick racer and supported an article about the Swiss-American driver's victory in the 200 mile race on opening day of the Atlanta Speedway, a crushed gravel two-mile oval.
 
Chevrolet set new American speed records for distances throughout the race despite having to stop to extinguish an oil fire under the hood of his racer.  Atlanta Speedway was seen at the time to be a strong rival to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway which was undergoing a transformation from crushed stone and "taroid" to a brick paved surface. The old records Chevrolet demolished had been established at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's first automobile race meet in August. Neither Atlanta nor Indianapolis were as fast as Brooklands, the high-banked concrete course in England.
 
One word of caution on this image. I noted that another photo supporting the same article was of Johnny Aitken in his National. Aitken won a 10-mile sprint race at the same Atlanta meet. The issue is that the photo was taken at Indianapolis, not Atlanta. Because of that it is hard to know if any of the photos supporting the Atlanta Speedway meet were actually taken there or were on file at the newspaper and re-used.

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