During the 1930s, the National Air Races were generally held at Cleveland. Occasionally, however, the event was moved to other venues when attendance or local interest began to wane in its hometown. In 1933 and 1936, for instance, the races were held in Los Angeles. In 1930, they were held in Chicago. Most of the time, however, a change of venue was not necessary. Most years, the crowds would line the roads leading from the city out to the Cleveland airport for the opportunity to glimpse the lightning-fast racing planes as they thundered by.

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“To anyone who fought and bumped his way out of Cleveland’s post-race traffic on a Labor Day afternoon, it was no news that this year’s National Air races were more popular with the public than ever,” Aviation magazine told its readers in 1938.

“Industry groups may sit about with bored yawns at stunting routines and at familiar military demonstrations, but thousands of housewives, bond salesmen, and insurance brokers were nursing sunburned tonsils and taking aspirin after the echoes of the last signaling bombs had died away.”

The exciting and popular sport of air racing soon developed its own pantheon of starts, and none was more famous than Jimmy Doolittle. Second only to Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle was the personification of aviation in his day. Born in California in 1903, Doolittle began his career in aviation as a military flier after joining in the U.S. Army during World War I. In 1925, while still in the Army, Doolittle attracted nationwide fame when he won the prestigious Schneider Trophy seaplane race for the United States against a tough field of foreign government-supported international teams.

This fame followed Doolittle when he left the Army in 1929 to become a civilian air racer, working for the Shell Oil Company promoting its aviation fuels at the nation’s air races. In 1931, Doolittle won the first Bendix Trophy Race by flying his Laird “Super Solution” between Los Angeles and Cleveland in 9 hours, 10 minutes and 21 seconds. Doolittle then continued on to Newark, N.J., to set a new transcontinental record of 11 hours, 16 minutes and 10 seconds.

The following year, Doolittle, flying the accident-plagued Gee Bee R-1, proved himself to be equally adept at closed-course racing by winning the Thompson Trophy Race. Doolittle retired from racing shortly after his 1932 victory. Nonetheless, his career as an aviator was far from over. During World War II, Doolittle returned to the Army and won his greatest fame by leading his famed carrier-based B-25 bombing raid on Tokyo early in 1942.

No less famous than Doolittle and infinitely more flamboyant was the California-based air racer Roscoe Turner. Famous for his flying uniform, which consisted of a canvas flying helmet, a sky blue blazer with a large set of wings over the pocket, fawn-colored breeches and riding boots, Turner was certainly the sport’s greatest showman. His wide, toothy smile and large handlebar mustache made him the consort of movie stars and the darling of the newsreels. Turner’s showmanship didn’t detract from his accomplishments as a flier, however. During his career, he won the Bendix Trophy in 1933 and the Thompson Trophy three times, to become the only multiple winner of the event.

The unlimited racing planes of the day were not, as a general rule, the products of large aircraft companies. Instead, they were the creations of small firms or even the work of individuals. Generally, air racing was a sport for those who faced the danger in hopes that the fame and prize money resulting from the racing events would help establish them in the aviation industry.

Among the most successful of the racing planes of the 1930s were those built by famed air racer and designer Jimmy Wedell. Himself the winner of the 1933 Thompson Trophy, Wedell built three planes in a hangar in a sugar cane field in the one-street town of Patterson, La. The record for those three planes included three victories in the Bendix Trophy Race and two victories for the Thompson Trophy.

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