Jim Florida & the Cobe Trophy

This image comes from a photograph in the June 15, 1909 Indianapolis News. This is a picture of one of four Locomobile race cars, this one driven by Jim Florida. Florida was one five drivers that competed in both the June 18, 1909 Indiana Trophy support race and the June 19 main event - the Cobe Trophy race, named after the cup donor Ira M. Cobe. The Indiana Trophy was for smaller cars with 300 cubic inch engines and the Cobe Trophy cars had 525 cubic inches engine displacement. The other two Locomobiles were in the hands of driver George Robertson who finished third in the Cobe and second in the Indiana. These races were organized by the Chicago Auto Club with American Automobile Association (AAA) sanction. The race course was over notoriously poor public roads in northwestern Indiana between Crowne Point, Indiana and Lowell, Indiana while skirting the community of Cedar Lake.