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Article ID: CBB933761604

Racing on Runways: The Strategic Air Command and Sports Car Racing in the 1950s (2013)

Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology
Volume: 19
Pages: 193-215
Publication date: 2013
Language: English

URI: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23788125

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Technology and culture Technology and sports Aircraft; airplanes Automobiles Recreation; play 20th century, late United States Sports Car Club of America

After World War II, a newly affluent middle class America enjoyed a rapidly growing pastime: sports car racing. The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) began to sanction road racing in 1948. They wanted to galvanise the surge of enthusiasm for European two-seater performance cars. By 1952, sports car racing in the United States outgrew the original street courses, especially in regard to providing a safe environment for spectators. U. S. Air Force Gen. Curtis E. LeMay offered the use of the runways of Strategic Air Command (SAC) air bases to the SCCA, which reflected his own enthusiasm and would raise money to improve living conditions for his personnel. Soon, sports cars raced down the same runways used by SAC bombers and fighters. LeMay and SAC provided the venue for sports car racing to grow. A case study of the SAC sports car racing program illustrates how deeply play, sports, and leisure were interwoven with the automobile and American culture in the 1950s.

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