Description


Topdog Presents: Always Interesting Stuff!

Offered here is an original, official program from the "Fall Classic" National 250-Mile Championship race held at the Altoona Speedway on Labor Day, Monday, September 1, 1924. The cover, printed in orange and black with a checkered-flag border and a starter waving the green flag over an early race car, advertises "Fastest Track, World's Famous Drivers" at a original price of 25 cents.

The Altoona Speedway, located in Tipton, Pennsylvania near Altoona, was a 1.25-mile high-banked wooden board track that operated from 1923 to 1931 and hosted AAA Championship Car (the precursor to Indy Car) racing during the golden age of American board-track racing. This particular race carries real historical weight: the field included four past Indianapolis 500 winners — Tommy Milton, Jimmy Murphy, Joe Boyer, and Peter DePaolo — competing in front of a massive crowd. Jimmy Murphy, known as "The King of the Boards" and winner of the 1922 Indianapolis 500 and 1921 French Grand Prix, won this race, but it proved tragic: fellow Indy 500 champion Joe Boyer, driving the very Duesenberg he had won Indianapolis in earlier that year, crashed into the outer guardrail near the finish while chasing Murphy and died from his injuries hours later. It was one of three fatalities of Indianapolis 500-winning drivers at this speedway during its short life (Howard "Howdy" Wilcox in 1923, Joe Boyer in this 1924 race, and Ray Keech in 1929).

Fittingly, this very program includes a memorial tribute page to Howard Samuel "Howdy" Wilcox, the 1919 Indianapolis 500 winner who had been killed in the track's inaugural 1923 "Fall Classic" the year before, with his portrait and dates of birth and death. The program is packed with wonderful period motoring advertisements and content typical of a 1920s racing program, including a full-page "Firestone Gum-Dipped Cords Win 1923 and 1924 Races" ad touting Jimmy Murphy's Indianapolis and Altoona victories, an "Independent Gasoline" ad featuring a signed letter and photos of Jimmy Murphy, a Willard Threaded Rubber Battery ad featuring both Eddie Hearne (1923 AAA National Champion) and Murphy, local Altoona business advertisements (Schaeffer's Art Lamp and Gift Shop, Brumbaugh auto bodies, the Altoona Advertising Service), and a striking full-page vintage Gulf Gasoline "Orange Disc" advertisement.

Condition: this is an original period piece showing honest, expected wear for a 100-plus-year-old paper program that was handled and carried at a race event. There is noticeable edge and corner wear throughout, some tears and small chips along the cover and page edges (as pictured), separation at the spine/staple area with pages loosening, and general toning and soiling consistent with age. Please review all photos closely, as they are the best representation of condition. Complete and fully intact as a reading piece despite this wear.

An exceptional piece of early American motorsport history, tied directly to one of the most consequential and tragic races of the board-track racing era, and a must for collectors of AAA Championship Car racing, Indianapolis 500 history, or board-track memorabilia.

 

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