Return to Hicksville: 1909 and 1910
The Course
Note that I deliberately ended the previous paragraph with the word "courses," plural. The road to the Vanderbilt Cup changed almost annually. The race did not return to the streets of Hicksville until 1909. In that year and the next, the course was truncated to 12.64 miles, with Cup entrants driving 22 laps, for a total of about 278 miles.
www.vanderbiltcupraces.com
The northern leg of the new route was Old Country Road, the eastern leg was Broadway (the modern Route 107), the southern leg incorporated sections of the new Motor Parkway, and the western leg was (I think) along or near Glen Cove Road. The grandstand was on the southern leg, and - unlike in 1904 - the course was driven counter-clockwise.
The revised course did not cross any LIRR tracks, and there were no "controls." A shorter course meant fewer roads to close, fewer legal disputes, etc. The reason most often given for shortening the course was that having more and quicker laps offered spectators a better experience. From a single spot, people saw the cars more times and at shorter intervals; there were few lulls. Attendance each year topped one-quarter million.
