Land-speed tractors: Oldfield v. Jenkins

When I read a long time ago in William Nolan’s “Barney Oldfield: The Life and Times of America’s Legendary Speed King,” about Oldfield’s land-speed runs on the back of an Allis-Chalmers tractor, I shared in Nolan’s assertion that this was simply another grandstanding effort on Oldfield’s part. He made the runs in 1933, at the age of 55 and well after he’d raced his last, so the tractor runs were just publicity stunts, complete with the number 999 painted on the hood – a blatant reminder of Oldfield’s past racing glory.

Granted, he ran an average of 64.2 miles per hour, using special Firestone high-speed tires, but the event failed to amount to much, other than an historical curiosity.

Or so I thought until I recently spotted the above photo on the AHRF website of Ab Jenkins making a land-speed run on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1935, which brought to mind Gordon Eliot White’s “Ab & Marvin Jenkins: the Studebaker Connection and the Mormon Meteors,” which we mentioned a few years ago. I delved into that to find out more, and discovered that Ab also raced Allis-Chalmers tractors at the same time Oldfield had – starting on October 17, 1933, in Dallas, and continuing at county fairs in 1934. However, White enumerates a number of Jenkins’ further record attempts in 1935 and 1936 on the salt flats, during which Jenkins set a 68 MPH record. Afterward, White writes, “Jenkins likened his tractor record run to ‘riding a frightened bison.’”

Interestingly, neither Nolan nor White make mention of each other’s subjects in their accountings of the tractor runs. Did Allis-Chalmers back the runs? Or maybe Firestone? (Some of Jenkins’ 1933 runs were on Harvey Firestone’s farm in Ohio.)

Instead, the answer lies in a couple tractor books, Randy Leffingwell’s “Tractors: Icons of the American Landscape” and Michael Williams’ “Farm Tractors.” Both relate how Firestone and Allis-Chalmers developed a pneumatic tire for tractors, but found a difficult time selling farmers on the concept, so Allis-Chalmers’ Harry Merritt hired Oldfield and Jenkins to race the pneumatic-tire-equipped tractors to enthrall farmers and convince them of the benefits of the tires. (The Northern Automotive Restoration Club has a more detailed account.)

The scheme worked, obviously. Now, has anybody challenged that record in the 75 years since?

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