Racing Through Time: Long Island’s Hidden History and the Legacy of Marty Himes
When you think of Long Island, New York, your mind might jump to beaches or suburbs, but would you have guessed it was once a massive racing mecca? In a recent episode of Travel in Time with Dan, I spent some time at Bay Shore, Long Island, exploring the Himes Race Car Museum (also known as the Nostalgia Museum), and now we’re going to dive deep into the high-speed history of American automobiles.
A Brief History of Speed
Auto racing didn’t start on professional tracks. For centuries, people raced horses on public streets. This kind of racing was both dangerous and common. When automobiles arrived, they followed suit, often sharing the roads with pedestrians and horses. Again, this was very dangerous for all parties. Eventually, for safety, racers moved off the streets and onto horse racing tracks, beginning first with the horses and later the cars.
A pivotal moment for the U.S. auto industry occurred in 1895 during a 54-mile race promoted as a “Moto-Cycle” race, which they hoped would ignite the U.S. auto industry. Traveling at an average speed of 7.5 miles per hour, an American Duryea Motor Wagon won. This was the first American car in history to defeat international competitors. This victory, achieved despite poor weather, signaled what many predicted to be the “end of horse-dependent transportation.”
As the sport evolved, it moved to:
- Board Track Racing: Inspired by bicycle velodromes, these tracks featured curved upward board banks at the corners that allowed for higher speeds. However, because the boards were flammable, most of these tracks burned down within a few years.
- The Bootlegging Era: In the 1920s, Appalachian moonshiners “souped up” ordinary-looking cars, known as stock cars, with bigger motors and better suspensions to outrun the law at night through all those curvy hills and mountains. These audacious and skilled drivers eventually brought their “thinking outside the box” style to professional racing after prohibition ended. The need to run from the law was gone, but the need for speed was still there. So, why not take it to the race tracks to see who was the best driver?
Long Island’s Racing Roots
Long Island played a starring role in this evolution. It was home to the Motor Parkway and the Vanderbilt Cup races, which featured the first road in America specifically designed for race car driving. When races weren’t held, the road operated as a special toll road for the public.
The Man Who Saved the History: Marty Himes
The heart of this story is Marty Himes, a longtime racer who dedicated his life to ensuring racing history wasn’t lost, especially in Long Island. Marty turned his entire home and all of his yard in Bay Shore into a museum, filling every inch of both with full-size race cars, ticket booths, and hundreds of thousands of pieces of memorabilia of anything you can imagine, and even some that you can’t imagine.
Remarkably, Marty acquired most of his collection for free. Other racing enthusiasts donated their prized possessions because they shared Marty’s fear that this era of history would be forgotten.
A Leadership Lesson: Passion over Profit
Sadly, Marty Himes passed away in October 2023. While he hoped a benefactor would help house the collection in a massive museum, that dream didn’t materialize. Since his passing, the museum’s doors have closed, and the contents are being sold through a series of auctions.
Despite this bittersweet ending, there is still a powerful leadership lesson from Marty’s life: Passion over profit. Marty didn’t build his collection to get rich; in fact, it cost him significant time, money, and “elbow grease.” He and the donors who gave him their racing memorabilia were fueled entirely by a love for the sport and its history, wanting to preserve that joy to share with future generations.
If you find yourself in Bay Shore, you can still visit the site of this historic house to pay your respects to a man who lived for the thrill of the race and the preservation of its legacy. If you so choose, you might even be able to attend a future auction and take home a small piece of racing history for yourself.
*Understanding Marty’s museum is like looking at a time capsule buried in a backyard: it may not be in a fancy building, but every item inside tells a story of where we’ve been and the speed at which we got here.
Uncovering History. Inspiring Leadership. The Travel in Time Show is where travel, history, and leadership intermingle with history teacher, author, and speaker Dan Blanchard
*Check out Dan’s book, “Travel in Time in the Northeast: https://www.amazon.com/Travel-Time-Northeast-Timeless-Leadership-ebook/dp/B0FZBQ2FHS/
*Watch Dan’s YouTube video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvY-10QGBYg
Listen to Dan’s podcast on this episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4YstQlK4u7ShxVTaUq5PHQ?si=MUdCjspYRtewoF38N5mPgA
*See Dan’s Interview with Marty Himes: (Coming Soon)
*Learn more about Dan: https://granddaddyssecrets.com/