Mystery Friday Foto #5 Solved: Mulford and Chandler winning the 1911 Vanderbilt Cup Race
Did you identify wave to the crowds?
Answers to Mystery Foto questions:
- The race and date
1911 Vanderbilt Cup Race held in Savannah, Georgia on November 27, 1911.
- The driver, mechanician and racecar
Driver Ralph Mulford and mechanician Billy Chandler in the #8 Lozier.
- Associate the driver to the Vanderbilt Cup Races
Mulford participated in the 1910, 1911 and 1912 races.
- The driver's nickname
Gumdrop Kid and Smiling Ralph
- The outcome of the race
Mulford and Chandler won the 1911 Race.
Comments (3)
Congrats to Steve Lucas and David Miller for identifying Mulford.
Kudos to Dennis for explaining the leaning nature of this photo.
Greg O. and Howard Kroplick
Close-Up
Comments
That photo was taken at the end of the 1911 Vanderbilt Cup Race in Savannah, GA on November 27, 1911. That’s Ralph Mulford driving the #8 Lozier Racer with Billy Chandler as the mechanician waving his arms. Mulford, also known as the “Gumdrop Kid”, participated in three Vanderbilt Cup Races: 1910, 1911, and 1912. Mulford finished first in the 1911 race, thus the reason for Chandler waving to the crowd.
I can’t answer the questions but I can point out that this photo is a great example of the leaning or rolling shutter distortion that occurs with focal plane shutters. Since different sections of the photo are exposed at slightly different times, a fast moving object like our race car seems to lean. In this photo it is most pronounced in the front tires. They are closest to the camera and moving through the focal plane very quickly. Anyone interested in this phenomenon should look it up on Wikipedia. The explanation is a bit too technical for this short space.
November 27th, 1911. The Vanderbilt Cup Race in Savannah GA. The car is a Lozier driven by Ralph Mulford (“The Gumdrop Kid”)j. The mechanician is Billy Chandler. They won the race averaging 73.4 mph.