- As recently as just after World War 2, little Watkins Glen was really not known much outside this area.

Oh, we had a beautiful gorge, a cute little town of 2500.

But within a dozen years, Watkins Glen was world famous.

(bright music) - [Announcer] Production funding for "Upstate Attractions" is provided by: Franklin County Development.

Allegany County.

Oswego County Tourism.

And the Watkins Glen Chamber of Commerce.

With daily flights to Boston Logan International Airport, Massena, New York offers access to locations such as the Adirondack Mountains, the St.

Lawrence River, and destinations in Canada like Ottawa and Montreal.

Online at fishmassenany.com (bright music) - [Narrator] Like all good scavenger hunts, the treasure is sometimes hidden in plain sight.

In this episode of "Upstate Attractions," our hidden gem can be found in the midst of a popular tourist location in the beautiful Finger Lakes region.

An area offering outstanding scenic features, natural wonders, and a state park.

Juxtaposition to this natural bliss is why our featured entity is so well hidden in plain sight.

Its heart and soul is the adrenaline-fueled excitement and intensity of Motorsports.

And its genesis stems back to a legendary post-World War II European-style road race, that wound through the village streets and around the spectacular gorge at Watkins Glen State Park.

Hidden in plain sight, nestled on a quiet street in the charming village of Watkins Glen is the International Motor Racing Research Center.

A world class library and archive that is a preeminent academic destination for hundreds of scholars, journalists, authors, and film-makers from around the globe.

In the next half hour, we'll take you on a one of a kind drive through history around the original Grand Prix circuit from start to finish.

And we'll explore what makes the research center a truly unique asset to both the global motorsport community and the thriving local scene.

- I've been here for about 12 years now.

I'm just from the top of the lake here.

People don't leave because there's something special about this town.

You know, it's fire during the summer months here.

There's a lot going on all the time.

And you just develop a loyalty to the town.

- You don't have to go anyplace else.

It's basically all here.

If you're racing enthusiast, a nature person, you've got the Glen Gorge, you've got camping all over the area, you've got wineries.

- Watkins Glen has maintained that small town feel while embracing growth as it pertains especially to tourism.

It's been very beneficial for the Research Center to be located here specifically.

A great location for the center not just because of the racing history, but because of the influx of tourism to the area.

- So here's the deal.

The main feature of Watkins Glen is Gorge.

The Gorge predates everybody by centuries and centuries and centuries.

The 48 race was the first post-World War 2 road race in the entire country.

Not a lot of people are familiar with that.

This place is all about the history of racing.

So fast forward 75 years to 2023, Watkins Glen celebrates 75 years of racing.

This place is all about not only that history of which we are exceedingly proud of, but really, the history of racing as a whole.

Every size, shape and discipline of motorsports, we have information on.

That's the beauty of this place.

- [Narrator] To get a better sense of the history of the original Grand Prix circuit, we asked former Schuyler County Judge, JC Argetsinger, who was instrumental in the formation of the International Motor Racing Research Center, to take us for a spin around the course.

- And how did this all happen?

Well, there was a young fella, 27 years old, World War 2 veteran, who had an unusual vehicle.

It was a sports car.

And really nobody had seen them in Upstate New York.

And he had this dream of having a race.

He had studied the European courses, and he was able to talk the gray-haired fellows in this town into having a race right down the Main St.

starting at the courthouse.

And it was one heck of a course.

6.6 miles went around the Glen and came back down the hill to the village and came down to Main Street here.

And cars had reached 125 miles an hour.

- [Narrator] Well, that young fellow JC was talking about was his father, Cameron Argetsinger.

Sports car enthusiast, lawyer, and an auto racing executive recognized by his peers.

His vision to stage the road race ultimately changed the sleepy village of Watkins Glen into a racing mecca.

- The first post-war road race was here in Watkins Glen in 1948.

So that put us on the map almost immediately.

And as the race grew in those early years, we started gathering celebrities to the event.

This was the place to be in early October in New York State.

So, this extended the tourism season here in Watkins Glen and we continue that tradition to this day with other events.

- One of our main events is the Grand Prix Festival, which happens in September.

We partner with the Research Center for this.

They do a lot for us in order to make sure that we get some really special cars.

Depending on what the feature Mark is, and just in general everything that goes on in town is very unique to this place only.

- [Narrator] Local roots and community involvement continues to be the secret sauce of the International Motor Racing Research Center.

It was created in 1996 by local community leaders, that included Cameron Argetsinger's wife, Jean, who was a longtime library board member.

She proposed an addition to the Watkins Glen Public Library that would allow expansion of its small but excellent collection of motor racing books.

Today, that library extension is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

With a global reputation for its outstanding collections and research, all brought to life through public lectures, special events, and a welcoming approach to visitors and racing enthusiasts.

- When the place was established as an archival library research center, the goal was to collect and preserve the history of motorsports and have that available for people who may be writing a serious book and need to come in here and tap into the various resources that we have.

Were available for people that just simply do research for the sake of doing research.

I'm interested in some arcane midget series that ran in Indiana in the 1940s.

And chances are, we have information on that.

We do not have people that come in here on a day-to-day basis to do research, but we have people that come in literally from around the world.

They let us know they're coming.

We pull the various resources that we have here for something specific that they're looking for.

And they'll hold up here for two or three day periods and utilize our sources.

And that ultimately goes into the book that they're writing.

- My job title is as a research assistant.

I have a degree in museum studies, thanks to this place.

And what I do is I try and find information for people.

It can be, "Hey, my car used to run in IMSA in such and such a time.

Do you have any photos of that?"

Or, "Do you have the rulebooks?

Because my car started out in such category and then over the years went entirely different category."

And that's one of the things that I love about this place.

Because, you know, you get that variety of "Hey, John Q Public coming in has a little bit of a passion.

But you know, they'll go, and they're like, 'Oh, I didn't realize there was this much on racing.'"

Kind of like, "Ah, this is my people.'

- Okay, we're upstairs in the International Motor Racing Research Center in what would be one of the places you do reference work.

With magazines and periodicals and newspapers because we've got SpeedSport back here, all bound.

And it's it's a wonderful way to go do your research.

And if you're looking particular for a circuit, a race or a car or a driver, you know, you come up here, you open these things up, and their gold mine, I'll tell you.

- [Speaker] Bill Green is historian here on staff at the IMRRC.

Bill is a fixture here locally.

He's a known expert on road racing.

And not just Watkins Glen history.

So Bill's attended races all over.

I believe Bill was in the Army, and I believe he attended a Grand Prix in Tripoli, if I'm not mistaken.

Bill is an indispensable resource here.

- The Research Center is unique.

If you're doing a book, an article, anything at all, you will find it at the International Motor Research It's probably largest collection of information in the world.

- So our collections lend themselves to in-depth research for authors, journalists, film makers.

Over the past 25 years, we've helped numerous researchers write more authoritative books, create more in depth films.

And we're sort of a silent partner in a lot of these operations.

Authors usually cite us as a reference when they conduct their research here.

So we're very much fulfilling our mission to preserve and share all of our collections.

Early on here at the Research Center, I received a phone call from someone in Hollywood who was working on a new movie.

It became a series called "Cars."

And the producer had seen an early history of Watkins Glen racing, and needed a copy of it.

And we happened to sell it on DVD, so I immediately sent that overnight to Hollywood, to LA for their viewing.

And I'd like to think that in some small way, we helped make "Cars" a better movie all those years ago.

- [Narrator] Okay, before we tell you more about this hidden gem of Upstate New York, with it's deep research, it's Corvette festival, it's tours, and it's international symposium, let's reconnect with how all this started and take a drive through history with somebody who was there in the early years.

- Now we're approaching the start finish line right here with this line across the road.

It was so exciting.

I sold programs that first year in 1948, I was six years old.

And I remember it so well.

And there were about 10,000 people that showed up that first year.

Some of the village fathers realized that it would be very good for tourism, which generally ended Labor Day, and this was a way to extend it.

The first race was October 2nd.

We're going around the 1st curve now and up the hill.

This was a very exciting place, these S corners.

- [Narrator] While many have driven along the original Grand Prix course, few have had the luxury of a corner-by-corner commentary by a key member of the Argetsinger family.

To help track our progress along the course, here's a simple map of the old 1948 circuit hand drawn by famous cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine, Sam Cobean.

Some may say his Grand Prix map with landmarks and descriptions has become as famous as his cartoons were.

- Sure enough, 10,000 people showed up that first year, and it was a big success.

Everyone loved it, the whole community bought into it.

It was like a big bake sale.

People opened their houses and tourists came in, and they said we're going to do this next year and next year.

And this was the first race.

You've got to understand that road racing died out pretty much with World War I, so there hadn't been any significant race on the roads up until 1948, when my father designed this course.

Indianapolis was the model with the oval tracks and Syracuse, of course.

And other major cities had oval tracks, but this was unique.

So the next year, 50,000 people showed up, and the village really bought into it.

It was just a wonderful boom.

Third year, it got on the international calendar.

The FIA had endorsed it.

And there were no other races until about 1949 and '50.

Pebble Beach came along and Bridgehampton.

But Watkins Glen was the first, and it was the race that people wanted to win.

Now we're going by the White House corners.

- [Narrator] Just beyond the White House S configuration, also nicknamed Cobean's S', is the famous railroad underpass.

This landmark became famous due its narrow chute for speeding vehicles and as a close to the action perch for fans.

- Now we're on the straight here, and probably the cars are doing 150 miles an hour.

And we're coming up into the Collier Curve.

Now, Sam and Myles Collier were... Collier County, Florida is named after them.

They're the major land owners down there.

Myles had won in 1949 and his brother Sam was driving a Ferrari.

And he was in the lead after the second lap.

And he came into this curve and there was gravel on the road.

And I'm going to pause here so you can see the memorial we have.

And Sam, tragically, was killed.

He was up to win the race.

His brother won the year before.

And I still get goosebumps talking about it.

- [Narrator] Located approximately 2.3 miles from the start/finish line, a memorial stone was erected at the site where Sam Collier left the road, commemorating the fatal crash on September 23, 1950.

The combination of fast vehicles and the open roadway led the state legislature and the insurance companies to become quite concerned.

- As you can see, it's all private property and there was no way to control the spectators who would stand very close to the road.

You look at the old films, it is kind of terrifying to see just how close the spectators were.

And now we're going down to a very exciting part of the track my father used to like to terrorize visitors when they come down, and I'm about to terrorize you here down into Stonebridge.

We might want to pause down here.

There's a lot of action down in this part.

- [Narrator] Stonebridge, at the top of the Glen, was a picturesque area for fans, but also posed a significant challenge for the drivers.

With it's tight corners and unforgiving stone walls, there were many spin outs here.

It also marks the beginning of a difficult stretch of the course.

Not only did the drivers contend with multiple curves, dips, and narrow roadways, the road surfaces varied from pavement to macadam, to extremely smooth oiled gravel and dirt.

At the end of the serpentine road is another popular spectator spot, Archie Smith's Corner.

With a hard right turn, the drivers entered a straight-away, heading down to the famous railroad crossing.

- This was a very fast straight right here.

And we're coming up to the railroad, which is another part of the story.

One of the problems in the early eras was the New York Central Railroad, which stopped for no one, not even.. Well, they would stop for God, but no one else short of God.

But fortunately, the New York Central realized it was a great tourist thing and they're rescheduled for us, which was great.

Now you've seen pictures perhaps of the cars hitting the railroad track at 110 or so.

And they would literally fly off the ground right here with this bump.

And now we're at the upper entrance of the Glen.

We're back on the pavement.

- [Narrator] We're now approaching a pivotal section of the circuit, the Big Bend.

Located at approximately the five-and-half-mile mark, the drivers would hurtle through this decent at speeds exceeding the maximum.

The Big Bend was a defining moment in the race, where skill, courage, and the beauty of the landscape converged.

The polar opposites of breathtaking vistas like this one and the omnipresent adrenaline-pumping world of motor racing is what makes Watkins Glen truly unique.

- Now here is a very exciting corner, Milliken's Corner.

Bill Milliken, a Bugatti-ist rolled over famously on this corner.

And there used to be a hotel over here, and I was sitting in the window and I saw four MG's going to this bar.

At the bottom of the hill, they would run out of breaks.

We're just coming into town, and we do this right-hand corner.

And this was a fast straight.

If you've seen the photographs, people are lining the streets maybe 10 feet from cars that we're doing 120 miles an hour.

And there's a restaurant right here that the drivers loved between the races to go in and eat lunch.

The pits were right along there on the sidewalk.

Unfortunately, in 1952, the crowd just got out of hand and they moved into an area where they weren't supposed to be.

And it was a very hotly contested race.

This was the last year.

And in the second lap, one of the cars brushed the crowd and there was a fatality and the number of people were hurt.

And that was the end of racing in the streets.

We're crossing now the old finish line.

Now, do you wanna do another lap or have we tired you out with this?

- [Narrator] Cameron Argetsinger's passion for fast cars and his dedication to creating a world-class racing venue forever changed the landscape of motorsports in the United States.

And as we just witnessed, his impact continues to resonate through his family's dedication to maintaining his legacy for racing enthusiasts to enjoy.

Now, moving to the present, let's check out a few of the ways the research center integrates with the local and racing communities.

- Well, I'm pretty much the meet and greet guy.

When people come in, they really don't know what they're entering into, so I greet them.

I say hello.

I try to find out where they're from.

I try to find out if their race fans.

It's not a prerequisite to be a race fan to visit here, but it helps.

And then the conversation goes from there.

Well, the first thing they see if I've done my job correctly is some kind of race car on the floor.

The particular car we have here is a 1924 Dodge.

It's a bit unique for us in that we normally have some kind of a sports racing car here.

But the purpose of the Dodge was, we just hosted a large Dodge brothers tour.

And the gentleman that put the tour together thought it would be kind of cool to have a Dodge race car on the floor, and I was in full agreement with that.

So we brought this car up from Pennsylvania and... Well, the cool thing about this car, and more so, the cool thing about the owner of this car, who is a gentleman who is 82 years old, when he was nine years old, he found this car and had his mother buy him this car for $20.

Amazing sum of $20.

And he is very much a person, a hands on person.

So all of the people that we had here a week ago and ensuing guests that have come in here since then, he's very much hands on.

Puts people in the car.

Let's them touch the steering wheel.

We've got goggles and a couple, you know, pre-war helmets in the car.

So people can put those on and get goofy pictures.

As opposed to some of our other cars that we've had here that are strictly please do not touch, they look great, they're here to be enjoyed, this is more an interactive experience.

- So the research center is doing a symposium, and that should bring in a lot of people from all over the place.

- The symposium is an important component of the research center.

It's perhaps our greatest tool for sharing scholarly knowledge about motorsport history.

So on that weekend in November every year, the Michael R. Argetsinger Symposium, that is we gather a number of different materials, presentations on a number of different topics and we present them in a forum that allows for comment and debate among scholars that are well known within motorsport circles.

Last year, we live streamed the event.

We had presenters from five or six different countries that introduced various topics, all in an authoritative manner.

And it was really a very special moment because we don't charge admission for this event, and it was a real sharing opportunity for scholars who wouldn't otherwise have this format.

- You get actual academics from the Society of Automotive Historians, will come in and present papers.

One of my favorites was early on, a gentleman by the name of John Summers.

And what he did was what does the cars universe say about the hobby and where it's going?

You know, some very serious topics like Tazio Nuvolari or Alberto Ascari.

You know, to this is how marketing has changed in the Motorsports world or how are we going to, what's going to be the main issue for the next 20 years down the line?

- Pretty much everybody knows that the first post-World War II road race in the entire United States took place on the streets of Watkins Glen back in 1948.

What hardly anyone knows, myself included, until I delved into this, was that the inspiration, the idea, however, you want to phrase it, for the Corvette, American sports car, really came when the great GM designer-stylist, Harley J. Earl, visited Watkins Glen in 1951, for the sports car races.

Now, in '51, they were still running through the streets of town.

Mr.

Earl spent the weekend as the guest of Nick Fraboni, who was the owner of Glen Chevrolet at that time.

And we have a piece that Mr.

Fraboni wrote after the fact, where he indicates that at numerous occasions over the weekend, Mr.

Earl said, "I can't believe all these people are in town.

There was 150,000 people here for the races.

They were all cheering for European cars.

America had no dog in the fight," so to speak.

There were no American cars racing.

So Mr.

Earl took note of this on more than one occasion, went back to Detroit, and in 1953, the Corvette is born.

Now, Mr.

Earl subsequently gave a radio interview to a Detroit journalist, I believe his name was Stanley Brahms, in 1954.

And I'm paraphrasing this a bit.

But basically, this thrust was, "Yes, I drove a car to Watkins Glen in 1951 to pace the races.

That's where I got the inspiration for the Corvette."

So, we of course have grabbed on to that.

And it's a great story.

And it's really a story that hardly anybody knows, but it's not urban or rural legend.

It's fact.

We have the recording of Mr.

Earl saying that to the journalist at '54.

- I'm standing in the spot where one of the first Corvettes made in 1953 sat.

It was right here.

The building's gone, but the pad is here.

- [Narrator] The International Motor Racing Research Center has been preserving and sharing the history of motorsports for over 25 years.

A hidden gem nestled in the heart of one of America's most picturesque locations.

Join us again next time to discover another upstate attraction.

- [Announcer] Production funding for "Upstate Attractions" is provided by: Franklin County Development.

Allegany County.

Oswego County Tourism.

And The Watkins Glen Chamber of Commerce.

With daily flights to Boston Logan International Airport, Massena, New York offers access to locations such as the Adirondack Mountains, the St.

Lawrence River, and destinations in Canada like Ottawa and Montreal.

Online at fishmassenany.com.

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