09/29/2026
Visiting venues to learn about the history of Daytona’ s beach racing is a must, when you come to stay
Before there was a speedway, the fastest people on Earth were racing on a Florida beach. 🏁
In the early 1900s, the hard-packed sand between Ormond and Daytona became a natural racetrack. At low tide, the beach was flat, smooth, and miles long, and wealthy guests at the grand Ormond Hotel realized it was perfect for testing their new machines.
The old photographs from those years are pure magic: crowds in straw hats and long skirts lining the dunes, parasols up against the sun, and strange, cigar-shaped cars roaring past with drivers in goggles and dusters. In 1903, Alexander Winton and Ransom Olds staged one of the first famous speed contests on the sand. 📸
Then in January 1906, Fred Marriott drove a Stanley steam car nicknamed the Rocket to about 127 miles per hour. At the time, no human had ever traveled that fast on land. Think about that: a steam-powered car on a Florida beach, faster than any train or plane of its day. 🚗💨
That is how the area earned its nickname, "The Birthplace of Speed," decades before stock car racing made Daytona world famous.
If you could ride along in one of those early beach racers, would you hold on tight or ask them to go faster?
