The July 4, 1925, race at Rockingham Motor Speedway in Salem, New Hampshire, was a 100-mile non-championship event sanctioned by the AAA and run on the venue’s original 1.25-mile dirt oval before the track was later converted to a high-banked wooden board surface for championship races. This Independence Day contest attracted a holiday crowd eager to see top drivers compete on the loose, dusty surface, which limited sustained speeds compared to the blistering board-track events that defined much of the 1925 AAA season.
Ralph DePalma, the 1915 Indianapolis 500 winner and one of the era’s most accomplished racers, started from the pole in a Miller Special and delivered a dominant performance, completing the distance in approximately 1 hour, 18 minutes, and 7.6 seconds while averaging 76.8 mph. Contemporary newspaper accounts confirm the podium as Ralph DePalma in first, Leon Duray in second, and Phil Shafer in third, with other notable finishers including Earl DeVore in fourth and Peter DePaolo in fifth; the field consisted of 11 starters, with eight completing the race.
While exact margins of victory are not widely preserved in secondary sources due to the event’s non-championship status, DePalma’s front-running drive from pole suggests he pulled away convincingly, consistent with his reputation for precision and control on varied surfaces. This dirt-oval race served as an early showcase for the newly motorsport-focused Rockingham venue and highlighted the transitional nature of 1920s American racing, where traditional dirt competition coexisted with the emerging high-speed board-track phenomenon that would soon dominate the AAA National Championship schedule.
July 4, 1925
July 4, 1925
July 5, 1925