Latest news with #AmeliaEarhart
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
In Daytona, a motorsports hall that has it all, from land to sea to air
DAYTONA BEACH — There's an Earhart (Amelia) and an Earnhardt (Dale). A Roberts (Fireball) who raced on four wheels and another (Kenny) who preferred two. A Ford (Henry) and two Chevrolets (Louis and Gaston), a France (Big Bill) and another France (Bill Jr.). A Humpy (Wheeler) and a Smokey (Yunick). The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America might not be the most famous hall devoted to the competitive motorized world, but it's certainly the most diverse — it honors men and women who competed or participated in various ways on asphalt and dirt, in water and air, in uniform or business attire. It's located, conveniently, at the World Center of Racing, just outside Turn 4 at Daytona International Speedway. But it's not just a hall of fame. It's also a museum, a showcase of machinery and artifacts highlighting competitive achievements and sheer ingenuity — from a mammoth hydroplane to a simple sewing machine. From the reigning Daytona 500 winning car to Sir Malcolm Campbell's block-long Bluebird that once lifted Daytona Beach's legend as the early-20th Century's Birthplace of Speed. A museum visit is included as part of the Speedway's daily tram tours across the entire property. Each tour ends with visitors dropped off at the museum's northeast corner, practically on the quarter-panel of the winning car from the most recent Daytona 500. That car sits there for a year, complete with any dirt, oil and confetti it gathered from its day of glory. The car — currently it's William Byron's No. 24 Chevy — sits in the shadow of a mammoth hydroplane racing boat that hangs from the ceiling just steps away. 'That's the neat thing about us here. When they get off the tram that takes them around the Speedway, they come in here and they think all they're gonna see is NASCAR,' says Don Cooper, the museum's operations manager. 'Then the first thing they see is that hydroplane. "Then they see drag cars and boats and airplanes and motorcycles … and most people who come here, the cool thing is, they've never been this close to a real race car.' The Motorsports Hall has now been here for a decade The Motorsports Hall opened in the mid-'80s in the Detroit suburb of Novi. It moved to Daytona Beach and the Speedway's ticket-and-tours building 10 years ago, replacing an interactive racing attraction first known as Daytona USA and then the Daytona 500 Experience. Some of the racing artifacts remain from the Daytona USA days, including an eye-catching replica of the Speedway's famed 31-degree banking, filled with a variety of racing vehicles. Plaques honoring the long list of hall inductees are spread across the walls. While there are other halls of fame honoring various racing disciplines — including the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte — the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America honors giants in all forms of automation. The first class of inductees, in 1989, featured some obvious racers — including Richard Petty, A.J. Foyt and Phil Hill — but also war hero and aviation pioneer Jimmy Doolittle, as well as the man who injected competition into coast-to-coast car and motorcycle adventures, Cannon Ball Baker. This year's class of nine included three men who built much of their fame in Daytona Beach, on sand and asphalt, in straight lines and with turns: William K. Vanderbilt, who was among the early beach visitors chasing the land-speed record, which he first achieved in 1904 (92 mph!); motorcycle champ Miguel Duhamel, who won five Daytona 200s; and former NASCAR champ Dale Jarrett, whose career included three Daytona 500 victories. The 2026 class, announced last month and to be inducted next March, is headlined by Dale Earnhardt Jr., and also includes sprint-car champ Sammy Swindell and powerboat legend Dave Villwock. Daytona Museum offers a wide range of displays and racing machinery For the race fan, hardcore or casual, the museum is the attraction. Many of the exhibits are on loan — drag-racing god Don 'Big Daddy' Garlits, part of the inaugural hall class in '89, has donated several cars from his own museum's collection in Ocala. The displays often rotate in and out. A current one pays tribute to hall inductees who also served in the armed forces. Another honors the late Don Panoz, a pharmaceutical giant who along the way became a major player in sports-car racing. A small replica of Big Bill France's old Main Street filling station is an original display that remains, as is the Bluebird and a relative newcomer, one of Tony Stewart's sprint cars. Also on the floor are a pair of Paul Newman's old race cars — reportedly the only two not owned by podcaster Adam Carolla. Newman, who won road-racing championships in his spare time, was a 2024 inductee. A Josef Newgarden Indy car, looking very much like it could double as a rocket ship, is part of the main floor display, and serves to remind you that those cars look so much bigger in person than they do on TV. And speaking of fighter jet-inspired automation, one of Panoz's old DeltaWing racers ('an odd duck,' Cooper says), which entered three Rolex 24s, sits in a rear showroom that will soon transform. 'We're gonna make a new open-wheel exhibit in here,' says Cooper, who then points to several old wooden doors leaning against a wall. 'Those are sets of original Indianapolis garage doors from Gasoline Alley in the '40s and '50s. We'll make a mini-garage in here,' he says. Want some Daytona 500 on-track action? There's now a simulator for that The museum recently installed a modern racing simulator, which allows 'racers' to get a real feel for taking laps around Daytona — at speed and in traffic. For the non-gamer, it'll probably take some time to literally get up to speed. 'It's a professional-grade machine,' Cooper says. The next major change will transform a relic from the old Daytona USA days. A back room is still filled with 'gondolas,' which seated visitors in front of a large movie screen and gave them a feel for racing around Daytona, complete with bounces and side-to-side movement. They'll soon be gone. 'That room, we're gonna take that and make it a research area,' Cooper says. 'It'll be filled with historic materials, pictures, everything. It will be open to the public for anybody doing research.' Only by appointment, however. The Speedway says the museum sees between 100,000 and 110,000 visitors a year. Daily tram tours, which last about an hour, begin at 9:30 a.m., with the last departing at 3 p.m. Prices are $24.42 for juniors (ages 5 to 12) and $29.97 for others, with free admission for kids 4 and under. It's rare, but some visit the museum without taking the Speedway tour. Those tickets are $8.88 for ages 5 to 12, $14.43 for others, free for 4 and under. Allow an hour or more for a proper tour of the museum, which closes at 5 p.m. This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: In Daytona Beach, a motorsports hall of fame covers earth, water, air
Daily Mail
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Shocking 'truth' about Amelia Earhart and her marriage revealed by explosive new book
Amelia Earhart's publishing tycoon husband pushed her to ever more dangerous public relations stunts to further his own ambitions, an explosive new book has claimed. The aviation trailblazer was married to George P. Putman for six years when she disappeared on her infamous flight around the world in 1937. While their marriage was cut short, a new book alleges that during their time as a couple Putnam acted as Earhart's publicist and pushed her to the brink to sell books. 'The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon,' by Laurie Gwen Shapiro takes a deep dive into their complex relationship, revealing how Putnam was pulling the strings. 'Putnam, the so-called "PT Barnum of publishing" was a bookselling visionary—but often pushed his authors to extreme lengths in the name of publicity, and no one bore that weight more than Amelia,' Shapiro wrote. 'Their ahead-of-its time partnership supported her grand ambitions—but also pressed her into more and more treacherous stunts to promote her books, influencing a certain recklessness up to and including her final flight.' Earhart's pioneering achievements earned her global celebrity, including when she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as a passenger in 1928. One of those coordinating this flight was Putnam, who was married to his first wife at the time. He interviewed her ahead of deciding she would be the passenger selected. Shapiro claimed in her book Putnam fell in 'love at first sight' because he saw all of Earhart's potential for commercial success. According to Purdue University, after that first flight across the Atlantic, Putnam offered to help her write a book about her experience, following the formula he had established with Charles Lindberg. Earhart moved in with Putnam while she wrote her book and during that time Putnam and his first wife divorced in 1929. The aviation icon and Putnam wed in 1931 and one year after that she became the first woman to pilot a solo flight across the Atlantic - and on the same flight she broke the record for the longest flight by a woman, and the shortest time to cross the Atlantic. Earhart was invited to the White House by Franklin D Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor, with the pilot offering the latter a trip in her plane. In the following years, she planned a number of further record-breaking flights, many of which came to fruition. Shapiro claimed it was during their first meeting to decide if Earhart should join the flight that Putnam fell in 'love at first sight' because he saw all of her potential for commercial success On June 1, 1937, Earhart took to the sky in her Lockheed 10-E Electra with the aim of becoming the first woman to fly around the world. She and her navigator Fred Noonan left Oakland, California then flew to Miami, down to South America, across to Africa and then east to India and South Asia. A few weeks later they departed Lae in Papua New Guinea and planned to stop on Howland July 2, 1937 to refuel. But Earhart and Noonan lost radio contact and were never heard from or seen again.
Axios
15-07-2025
- Science
- Axios
Purdue's plan to find Amelia Earhart's plane
A research team supported by Purdue University is spending its summer preparing for a fall expedition to bring Amelia Earhart's long-lost aircraft home. Why it matters: The disappearance of the iconic Boilermaker and her plane, the Electra, on July 2, 1937, remains one of the aviation world's most captivating mysteries. But this team says it may have cracked the code. Driving the news: On the 88th anniversary of Earhart's disappearance, Purdue Research Foundation (PRF) and the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI) announced a joint effort to recover the Electra from Nikumaroro Island in the South Pacific. The operation will confirm whether a visual anomaly seen in satellite imagery in the island's lagoon is actually the remains of the aircraft. Nikumaroro is approximately halfway between Australia and Hawaii. What they're saying:"What we have here is maybe the greatest opportunity ever to finally close the case," Richard Pettigrew, ALI's executive director, said in a statement. "With such a great amount of very strong evidence, we feel we have no choice but to move forward and hopefully return with proof." Flashback: Purdue president Edward Elliott recruited Earhart to work at Purdue in 1935 after growing concerned that women enrolled at the university were not completing their studies. Earhart lived in the then-new women's residence hall, served as a counselor and advised Purdue's aeronautical engineering department. Earhart planned to give the Electra to Purdue for further scientific research after piloting it to set a record for the longest-distance flight, but she never returned. Zoom in: The team is working on "a vast amount of circumstantial evidence" collected over the past 40 years that supports the idea that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, did not crash at sea as originally believed. Instead, they think the pair landed and ultimately perished on the uninhabited island. Among the evidence is a 2017 analysis of human bones discovered on the island in 1940 that determined Earhart's bone lengths were more similar to the discovered remains than 99% of individuals, supporting the conclusion that they belong to her. What's next: The expedition is slated to embark from Majuro in the Marshall Islands on Nov. 5, spend five days on Nikumaroro inspecting what they believe are pieces of the plane, and return to port on Nov. 21.
New York Times
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Amelia Earhart's Complicated Legacy and Horrible Husband
THE AVIATOR AND THE SHOWMAN: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage That Made an American Icon, by Laurie Gwen Shapiro In June of this year, The New Yorker posted an Instagram image promoting the magazine's excerpt from Laurie Gwen Shapiro's new biography, 'The Aviator and the Showman.' The headline — 'Was Amelia Earhart's Career a Publicity Stunt?' — was obvious clickbait: Of course Earhart's career wasn't a stunt. In her book, Shapiro, a journalist, lists at length Earhart's many landmark accomplishments, all of which required immense courage. She was the first female aviator to traverse the Atlantic Ocean. The first woman to fly nonstop solo from one North American coast to the other. And the first person to fly solo across the Pacific. That said, Shapiro reveals in painstaking detail that Earhart's storied career did indeed involve many reckless and publicity-seeking adventures, largely thanks to the near-depraved ambitions of her husband and Pygmalion-like manager, the publisher George P. Putnam. For many readers, the burning question isn't whether Earhart was a fraud, but whether Putnam essentially killed his wife, who disappeared in 1937 during an effort to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Wall Street Journal
14-07-2025
- Wall Street Journal
‘The Aviator and the Showman' Review: A Marriage in the Clouds
In April 1933, a year after becoming the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart was invited to dinner at the White House. Halfway through the meal, Earhart suddenly offered to take Eleanor Roosevelt and several other guests on a night flight over Washington, D.C. After the group was whisked off by car to an airfield near Baltimore, Earhart delighted in showing Roosevelt how the Capitol's illuminated dome looked from the cockpit of a twin-engine biplane. As the first lady told a reporter that evening: 'It does mark an epoch, doesn't it, when a girl in evening dress and slippers can pilot a plane at night?' Earhart, who disappeared during an attempt to fly around the world in 1937, has long been admired as a trailblazing feminist. But as Laurie Gwen Shapiro, a journalist and filmmaker, shows in 'The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage That Made an American Icon,' this free spirit owed much of her success to the complicated ministrations of a man. Putnam, a top executive in his family's publishing empire, plucked Earhart out of obscurity in the spring of 1928 when she was toiling away as a Boston social worker. While Earhart had received her pilot's license in 1923, she was still only a fledgling aviatrix. But as the publicity-savvy Putnam understood, if she were willing to accompany a male pilot on a flight across the Atlantic, he could likely turn her into a bestselling author, as he had done with Charles Lindbergh a year earlier. Putnam's plan worked spectacularly well. That fall, a mere few months after her nearly 21-hour trans-Atlantic flight touched down in Wales, the ghostwritten book by the first female passenger to fly across the pond became a sensation. Putnam then helped Earhart relocate to Manhattan, where he got her a job at Cosmopolitan as the author of ghostwritten columns. While Earhart appreciated his efforts to boost her profile, she was also embarrassed by the sudden flurry of media attention. As she quipped about her widely celebrated 1928 flight: 'I'm just baggage.'
