The World Race 2011 commemorates The Great Auto Race of 1908 – an epic test of man and machines! That race was won by the American Thomas Flyer driven by George Schuster Sr. of Buffalo, N.Y.
Times Square, February 12, 1908 with over 250,000 cheering the start of the race to circle the globe from New York to Paris by automobile!
It would become the longest auto competition in history, often with no roads & during a bitter cold winter. The Around the World Race covered 22,000 miles in 169 days. Teams from Italy, Germany, France and the United States ultimately proved these new “horseless carriages” could travel long distances, and teh automobile industry boomed.
Upon return to the U.S., a hero’s welcome and ticker tape parade greeted George Schuster, driver of the American built Thomas Flyer which won this epic event. The winning record still stands…over a century later.
Twenty-one or more cars will be leaving the Crowne Plaza Hotel Times Square in the heart of New York City bound for Paris on April 14th, 2011. They will be traveling west, through the United States with memorable stops at Buffalo, Sandusky, Detroit, Warsaw, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Dodge City, Denver, Gateway, Salt Lake City, and Reno.
On April 26th, they arrive in San Francisco where the cars will be loaded onto a ship bound for Beijing, China for the Asia-Europe leg of the Race. Racers rejoin their cars on June 4th and continue driving through China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, and Switzerland.
On Thursday July 21, it will be a triumphant entry into Paris with a victorious finish at the Eiffel Tower.
