1954 Watkins Glen

The 7th running of the fall races at Watkins Glen, N.Y., was held at the Interim Course, a 4.6-mile, 9-turn circuit on public roads, up the hill from the village, in Dix Township—the second year for that course. People would later call it “the course on the hill.” It was a beautiful course, but not nearly as popular with the drivers as the 6.6-mile circuit that went through town. As described at the time, it had “a 6,000-foot straight which is slightly downhill and punctuated with mounds and ‘thank-you-ma’ams.’” Course control was handled efficiently by Fred German’s Race Communications Association. The Elmira Star Gazette estimated an attendance of 35,000. According to driver Gordon MacKenzie, the race had been preceded by a gala Mark Twain Festival in nearby Elmira, N.Y., which hardly anyone knows is the place where the famed writer is buried.

Longtime enthusiast Chuck Hazle remembers the interim course: “I went up there with my dad after we took my sister to Cornell,” he says. “It was outside of town, in the farm country. We paid a farmer to park the car and walked up the hill past the barns and silos and fields. It was a curvy road with sweeps left and right. After an acute right around a big tree, it went over to another road and up the hill. The straightaway went over the crest of a hill and many of the cars were airborne there.”