The Speed Kings was a Keystone Film Company production starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, and Mabel Normand. It was filmed during the 1913 Santa Monica Road Race, with real racing drivers, Barney Oldfield, Earl Cooper, and Teddy Tetzlaff, playing themselves!
The anti-clockwise track started and finished on Ocean Boulevard, where the huge grandstands faced the road and the Pacific Ocean. Turn 1 was a left turn at today’s Wilshire Boulevard, then named Nevada, for Senator John P. Jones, Santa Monica’s founder. The cars followed Nevada east until the Old Soldier’s Home, and then turned back through Brentwood on San Vicente, until reaching the final turn at Ocean Boulevard, and completing an 8.4 mile loop.
The Santa Monica Road Race was held in 1909, 1911-1916, and 1919.