Barney Oldfield and Lincoln Beachey

During the 1914 racing season promoter Will Pickens worked with Barney Oldfield and the renowned aviator Lincoln Beachey to stage the "Championship of the Universe." The men barnstormed the country, playing to more remote areas at county fair horse tracks. The premise was that Oldfield would race his automobiles against Beachey's biplanes for the ultimate championship. The program was extremely successful, netting the men over $250,000 - worth millions by today's value of money.

Beachey and Oldfield at Coney Island

This 1914 article describes an aerial show that occurred at Coney Island, New York and featured Lincoln Beachey in a Glenn Curtiss biplane. One of the events was a match race between Barney Oldfield (Fiat) and Beachey, with the aviator announced as the winner. Historians do not take these races to be anything but pure entertainment as the two "competitors" alternated the role of winner from town to town during their barnstorming tours.
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