Vanderbilt Cup Races

As for my work, he suggested I see Steve Hannagan, press agent for the Raceway Corporation and for its Vanderbilt Revival in October. Hannagan wasn’t seeing artists. But a staff member offered the name of a small ad agency that was handling the program. Head man there was Anthony de Bellis. He knew my work. I agreed to do a full color sketch for a potential poster and a couple of small black and whites for the program. The program cover (seen here) had already been commissioned.

My poster sketch was approved. But as there was some indecision as to the full distance of the revived race-300 or 400-miles- I was instructed to proceed with the illustration. The lettering would be added when the uncertainties were settled. In any poster of merit, the lettering is an integral part of the design. Whoever at the last moment added the lettering or printed matter certainly had no such respect for coordinated design.

Howard Kroplick note: Although the German flag with a swastika (adopted as the sole national flag on September 15, 1935) was illustrated on the poster, no German race cars participated in the 1936 race despite Roberton's efforts to recruit Mercedes and Auto Union teams.

 More important than all this was Robertson’s use of his memo pad. Mr. Joseph Sessions of Bristol, Connecticut, owner of the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup winner, graciously loaned it to Robertson for an exhibition lap just prior to the start of the Revival. This delightful prelude linked Cup’s Racing’s past with that of the present. On finishing the tricky 4-mile lap that comprised a conglomerate of curves and esses (known as Robertson’s Pretzel), Big George, plainly fatigued, had cause to wonder how he had managed to manhandle the old 16-litre Loco for 250 miles twenty-eight years before. That his Raceway circuit was indeed tricky is best told by the Revival winner, Nuvolari, whose 65 mph pace was only one-half mph faster than Robertson’s win in 1908.