Travel It’s early on a Saturday morning and a crowd of onlookers has drifted down from the nearby Ormond Hotel at Granada Boulevard. Owned by railroad magnate Henry Flagler, the hotel attracts the wealthy who are here to escape the cold winters of the north. The ladies are dressed in their finest long skirts with fashionable matching hats and gloves...for this is a special occasion. Holding their colourful parasols high to shade the sun, they watch their men wearing university blazers and straw boaters, gathered around a magnificent machine − Otto Nestman’s “Stevens-Duryea Spider” which, today, will attempt to break the World Land Speed Record on the hard-packed sands of Ormond Beach. Against a background of Atlantic waves washing ashore and seagulls screaming above, the Spider starts with an angry roar and, to the cheers of all, it slowly starts its run down the five-mile course towards the pier on Daytona’s shore. Later in the day, the announcement spreads through the community that SPEED ON THE SAND Travel writer Dave Hunter explores the early days of Florida beach racing. Dateline: January, Ormond Beach, Florida * Photos courtesy of the Halifax County Historical Museum Ormond Garage * Overhead shot of the first road/beach course * 28 | www.snowbirds.org
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