SEATTLE NOW & THEN: THE SEATTLE SPEED BOWL

After the high bridge over Fremont was dedicated in 1932, Aurora Avenue became the centerline for a wide and long swath of car culture with auto dealers, parts stores, drive-ins for burgers, drive-ins for movies, and more than one racetrack. By the figuring of both collector Ron Edge, who lent us this subject, and the by now legendary racer Mel Anthony, this is the first day of racing at the Seattle Speed Bowl. It opened in 1936 and that’s the date penned on the print. Anthony, posing in the “now” at the uncannily fit age of 87, first raced here as an adolescent on his big tire bicycle. He snuck onto the track – the gate was open – and boldly pumped passed a slow-moving grader, only to be swallowed and upset in one of the track’s steep turns by sticky bunker oil applied moments earlier. The operators of both the grader & the oiler enjoyed his fall and laughed… read more >