We are pleased to announce that we have a truly fascinating speaker on a fascinating topic for the April 16 MASCDCS meeting. He’s the spark plug of an ongoing automotive venture that dates to 1903 (even older than the Chowder Society)!

Robert Selkowitz runs a thoroughly modern series of fun rallies which in part duplicate the route of an endurance event that he calls the “dawn of automobiling.”

But it all began this way 121 years ago: Imagine flogging completely open cars for 800 miles on primitive roads from today’s Lincoln Tunnel site through upstate New York and on to Pittsburgh in a rally testing the endurance of man and machine. C’mon now: Their vehicles didn’t have cup holders, much less GPS, HVAC, fuel injection, windshields, and effective brakes. And only a 20-mile stretch of the 800-mile route was (sort of) paved.

Robert, head of Historic Automobile Endurance Runs, will tell us about the 1903 auto run and the continuing rally program (four rallies this year) that he has created to memorialize it. The events traverse scenic byways in New York state and Vermont, covered bridges, forests, the Saratoga Automobile Museum, and more. These are noncompetitive tours, but a ton of fun and open to all makes for an admission price of not much more than the cost of a tank of gas!

For a look at classic and recent rally history and the cars and people who made history, go to 1903autorun.com.

Bonus: Chowderhead Jeff DeMarey will be making the trip down from the hinterlands of Massachusetts to honor us with his presence. He will be talking about the annual Wilberham Hill Climb coming up on May 11th and will have a slide presentation and a video for us to oooo and ahhhh over.

It should be a fun lunch.