Ormond Beach & The Birthplace of Speed is truly a unique and special place.  The ocean front park commemorates the first automobile race held on the adjacent beach in 1903. It is hard to believe that over a century ago cars even existed. The park has a few plaques, a deck built onto a sand dune, picnic shelter, and two antique cars. It seems so cozy here that even many of the local Homeless spend the night within the park. 

Ormond Beach is known for its harder packed sands and Alexander Winton raced against Ransom E. Olds. These of course are two automobile pioneers. If you do not know where Ormond Beach is its about 5 miles north of Daytona.  Ormond Beach was the site of racing for 3 decades until it was moved on over to Daytona which I talked about on our Daytona Beach Prologue Page.

Many famous names may ring a bell when you hear about Ormond beach names like Barney Oldfield, Eddie Rickenbacker, Sir Malcolm Campbell, and even the Stanley Brothers Of Stanley Steamer. 

In 1903 the speed record was a mere 47 mph and just 32 years later a very fast 300mph which is quite amazing. At times however as much as you enjoy racing and automobiles you must also consider that in one century the global warming has caused hurricanes to hit these shores at a much larger scale. But one thing that is beautiful is feeling free being able to go faster then your legs can carry you hair blowing back, wind flowing threw your body, and your adrenaline pumping. 

Ormond Beach does not get as much publicity as Daytona its a much smaller community with less hotels. Ormond Beach is still the place of many festivals that have many antique cars to help celebrate the past history of beach racing. One of those festivals has over 200 antique cars and some beach races to help celebrate the Birthplace of Speed. At one time their was even a Birthplace of Speed Museum which was eventually moved.

The cars that are in the park today are actually full size replicas from the race that occurred in the 1903 race. We sat in them to give you an idea of size and what we would look like if we were racing them lol.  You can still drive on the beach today but no racing unfortunately lol.

Ormond Beach is home to many other haunted hotspot we checked out like Bulow Plantation, Tomoka State Park, The Casements, Pilgrim's Rest Cemetery and many more. Ormond Beach like most of Florida's east coast has a long history of the Timucuan Indians fishing off its coast.

I felt this was a proper investigation and not every place we go has to involve ghost. One of our investigators Jasmine told me a UFO story that happened to her as she seen an object hovering out over the ocean one night. She said all of sudden in shot straight up and over her. She also told me others seen it as well. She also told me about her brothers friend who was killed right in front of a park by a vehicle it was an instant fatality and very brutal death as nothing was left of him after he was hit. Sadly this is the reality of most places we visit their is always a tragic story.

As many that raced on these beaches a century ago their is no doubt that many of them also died in failure trying to surpass records. I would not say the beach is a strange place maybe gloomy I mean our first investigation we found a very odd bone that washed up on shore so indeed its a place of mystery and history. In conclusion I think I would rather stick to hockey but on the other hand nothing does beat a race near the open water.

© By

Rick-AngelOfThyNight

 

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