These files are a mix of events from different points in Barney Oldfield's career.

Oldfield Scuffles with Taxi Cab Driver

This articles offers a personal insight into Barney Oldfield. It is a story of how Oldfield, while visiting New York, got into a scuffle with a taxi cab driver who hurled a monkey wrench at him and struck his knee.

Los Angeles - 1910
The Playa Del Rey board track was the first of the great wood plank automobile speedways. For years bicycle and motorcycle races were conducted on wooden velodromes, but Playa Del Rey brought the concept to events for race cars. This speedway was designed by Jack Prince, the most renowned designer of board track facilities. Board tracks rose in popularity through the 1920’s largely due to their relatively inexpensive start-up costs, but proved excessively expensive to maintain. Blindingly fast, their appeal was self evident. The opening of Playa Del Rey came in the spring of 1910. Caleb Bragg made a big statement in his breakthrough victory over Barney Oldfield and the Lightning Benz in a best of three match race. Ralph De Palma also appeared at the track. This folder contains 10 files on the topic from the Barney Oldfield scrapbook.

Bragg Stuns Oldfield

This is a package of more clips from Barney Oldfield's personal scrapbook. It includes a selection of articles on events at the Playa Del Rey (Los Angeles) board track, the first in the world, as well as Daytona Beach.
Oldfield Writes About Record Run

This package includes an article written by Barney Oldfield describing his perspective behind the wheel of his "Lightning" Benz when he made his record run at Daytona. Also, there is an interesting image of cars circulating the Playa Del Rey board track in Los Angeles. Other articles include a lot of color from the events at the christening of the board track. These articles were published in March and April 1910.
Playa Del Rey Records Chart

This collection from Barney Oldfield's scrapbook contains some interesting images from the Playa Del Rey board track in Los Angeles. Also, there is a good overview article and a useful chart summarizing the records that were established at the meet. These articles were published in April 1910.
World Records Lowered

From Barney Oldfield's scrapbook, here is an account of the record shattering drives of top drivers at the new board track at Playa Del Rey in Los Angeles in April 1910.

Carl Fisher and James Allison’s Prest-O-Lite Corporation marketed compressed gas canisters initially used to fuel the first viable automobile headlights. Fisher and Allison founded the company with Percy Avery in 1904 and eventually sold the company in 1917 for millions of dollars.

Prest-O-Lite Explosion - December 1907

Prest-O-Lite was the breakthrough product that propelled the fortunes of Indianapolis Motor Speedway founders Carl Fisher and James Allison to elite levels.
Prest-O-Lite Explosion - June 1908

The attachments below contain articles concerning the third explosion and the third strike for Prest-O-Lite as Indianapolis city officials forced the company to locate its operations outside the metropolitan area. Also see Prest-O-Lite explosions December 1907 and August 1907. 
 

Five files from the Barney Oldfield scrapbook documenting the 1906 Broadway Play starring Elsie Janis.
The Broadway Play - 1906
Barney Oldfield was also featured as he developed a special effect perfect for the play. It involved a pair of treadmills, two of his race cars, and his longtime partner, Tom Cooper. Oldfield and Cooper drove their cars on the treadmills and together with scenery props rotating on a carousel in the background and bags of dirt kicked up by their wheels; they were able to simulate an auto race. Janis was only 17 years old at the time of the play’s opening.

Oldfield's Expensive Tastes

This content was lifted from the Barney Oldfield scrapbook. Like most of the material from that source, the name of the newspaper that originally published it, as well as the date, was snipped from the clipping. The main article is very hard to read because the quality of the photocopy of this 100 year-plus newsprint article was poor. However, you can read almost every word if you have patience. I think the article has a lot of good information for anyone exploring Oldfield's life.
Oldfield Earns $1K a Week

This content was lifted from the Barney Oldfield scrapbook. Like most of the material from that source, the name of the newspaper that originally published it, as well as the date, was snipped from the clipping. The main article is very hard to read because the quality of the photocopy of this 100 year-plus newsprint article was poor.
Broadway Barney

This content was lifted from the Barney Oldfield scrapbook. Like most of the material from that source, the name of the newspaper that originally published it, as well as the date, was snipped from the clipping. This is a collection of eight articles and all appear to be from 1906.