Cheyenne Man Helped Win-First Auto Race Around The World

Before there was ever an American highway system, there was a road race from New York to Paris. WAIT! How is that possible?

The 1908 New York to Paris Automobile Race (known as "The Great Race") was a grueling 22,000-mile endurance contest. They drove across America, Asia, and Europe.

The leading American car, the legendary Thomas Flyer, rotated drivers across different rough stretches of the American West.

Harold Swinney Brinker was an early American auto racer from Denver. He lived and operated an auto agency in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He played a memorable role in the famed 1908 New York to Paris "Great Race".

Brinker took over the driving chores from Cheyenne to Ogden, Utah. That made sense. He knew the region well. He took the wheel at Ogden, steering the Thomas Flyer across the harsh deserts and rugged terrain of Nevada and California, successfully driving it into San Francisco on March 24, 1908.

Following his Great Race fame, Brinker maintained tight connections to Cheyenne.

He lived in Cheyenne for a period where he opened up a local automobile agency.

He continued to race locally, driving a Cadillac "8" at the four-mile dirt track during Cheyenne's 1915 Frontier Days racing celebration.

In 1911, local newspapers revealed that Brinker had secretly become a "bird-man". He spent a year hidden away in a shed on the Cheyenne Frontier Days grounds building a custom Curtiss-style biplane powered by a Hall-Scott engine.

This race changed the perception of automobiles. It was now understood that there was a future for them. We learn things when we push the limits.