Riding Mechanic
Murphy began his racing career as a riding mechanic, back in the days when racing cars carried a driver and a "mechanician." He rode in winning driver Eddie O'Donnell's (no relation) Duesenberg at the 1916 Corona road race, their car achieving an average speed of 85 miles per hour (137 km/h), a truly terrifying speed for those early days.
Murphy rode with some of America's greatest drivers of the time, including Ralph DePalma, Harry Hartz, Eddie Rickenbacker and Tommy Milton. During a short stint in the Army during World War I, Murphy was convinced by Air Ace Eddie Rickenbacker to try his hand at driving once the war was over.
Read more about this topic: James Anthony Murphy
Famous quotes containing the words riding and/or mechanic:
“I was at work that morning. Someone came riding like mad
Over the bridge and up the road—Farmer Rouf’s little lad.
Bareback he rode; he had no hat; he hardly stopped to say,
“Morgan’s men are coming, Frau, they’re galloping on this way.”
—Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894)
“He may have seen with his mechanic eyes
A world without a meaning, and had room,
Alone amid magnificence and doom,
To build himself an airy monument”
—Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)