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Post by firebird40622 on Aug 25, 2008 18:48:09 GMT -5
Sorry if this has been discussed before but I'm kinda new (to the board and to drill team racing) However...
I was wondering how popular this sport got throughout its history. I'd like to think that each new day is the new pinnacle for its popularity.
But in the past how big of a deal was it over the largest area at one time? Has many non-new york states showed interest in having teams or events? I know its dominated by our area, but I'm actually suprised it hasnt really spread past the empire state.
Any good stories about out-of-state drills or teams? Whats the interest now to broaden the racing world to more areas?
Anthony Cold Ducks
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Post by 911pix on Aug 25, 2008 20:31:00 GMT -5
Anthony,
I'm currently writing a book on the history of the sport that covers everything you've mentioned. Send me a PM and I'll send you my phone #; too much to go into here!
Mike
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Post by twabster on Aug 25, 2008 20:40:26 GMT -5
I am not the one to tell further details, but I do know that for a year or perhaps two (maybe 35 years ago or so), a Canadian dept would come down and run some events in Western/Northern drills. Not sure how they were accepted in such a structured and elite group of NY racing teams though.
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Post by firebird40622 on Aug 25, 2008 21:53:26 GMT -5
Wasn't there an exhibition at a "World Firefighters" event or something out in Vegas one year? I wonder if its anything an expo like the Coliseum or Baltimore would look into haha.
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nightraider
Senior Member
Syosset Night Raider from the 70's
Posts: 71
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Post by nightraider on Aug 25, 2008 21:56:11 GMT -5
There about 20 teams that went to Pa twice in 1973 and 1975 after Labor Day.
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Post by OB on Aug 25, 2008 22:07:52 GMT -5
Looking at the old pictures on the site, and the ones from the recent years it seems its like there are no spectators
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Post by twabster on Aug 26, 2008 3:53:07 GMT -5
OK, Let's think about this... Anthony asked what teams from outside NY competed in drills ? We know about Vegas and PA exhibition drills, and that few fans attended, but what about teams from other states competing in drills ? Interesting question. As in my previous post, I believe there were some Canadians who crossed the bridge to compete. I doubt that any NJ depts crossed the river.
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Post by firebird40622 on Aug 26, 2008 10:25:58 GMT -5
Here's another quick question for the pot...Has there ever been any type of FDNY team??? Haha...Im sure at least one "phantom fdny" team came from a LI dept that had a few city guys on the team...
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Post by 911pix on Aug 26, 2008 19:24:41 GMT -5
Teams from Western and from Canada raced together on a regular basis much earlier than that, as early as the turn of the century. From what I've gathered, it's been a somewhat on-again off-again on-again relationship, but for the most part both sides of the river got along quite well. My understanding is that it's been fairly recently that Northern teams would travel to Canada to give Exhibition Runs during firemen's days there, and although it's PD and not FD-related, I believe the US and Canadian cops still compete each year in a tug-of-war across the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls (any add'l info from those who might know better would be welcomed!)
Connecticut has always had a core of firemen who have followed and supported the sport, and who still come across each summer to take in a drill or two; this too has been going on since the late 1800's. With all their interest, I say they should put together a team - even if it's old-fashioned - and make this into a not-just-a-New York sport!
Mike
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Post by tems32 on Aug 26, 2008 20:30:28 GMT -5
I don't know about participating but this year at Copenhagen there was a tour bus load of Canadian firefighters that chartered a bus for a trip to watch the event.
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Post by digger127 on Aug 27, 2008 4:54:11 GMT -5
As to the FDNY connection to our sport, I am sure 911pix can bear this out, but it is my understanding that that firematic racing started amongst the volunteer fire companies of NYC in the 1800's. They would race each other to fire calls in the hope of being first on the scene and receiving the stipend paid by the fire insurance companies. This eventually turned into the competition we know today.
Over the years, a few volunteer city companies participated in drills. I know for many years that a team from the West Hamilton Beach FD (near Howard Beach Queens) raced in the annual Floral Park Drill. Additionally, Devon Hose Co. #4 from Connecticut was a participant at Floral Park.
There is also a thread on this board that the Gerritsen Beach FD (Brooklyn) raced at some Southern NY Drills.
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Post by diverdown on Aug 27, 2008 6:40:40 GMT -5
I believe that a Canadien team runs foot races at the Jefferson County drill every year.
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Post by 911pix on Aug 27, 2008 8:36:57 GMT -5
digger 127, you are correct on all counts! In fact, in a roundabout way, it was the fact that NYC companies were racing each other to fires that brought about the demise of that department as a volunteer organization, when in 1865 city officials felt the whole thing was getting out of hand, and they disbanded the volunteer department and created a paid New York City Fire Department. It's interesting to note that many of the new paid companies were staffed by old vollies from the old department, and even though the new rules & regs made racing to fires forbidden, the rivalries were still there...even as they still are, to a minor extent, today, when a 2nd-due company will try to sometimes beat a 1st-due company into their box. There's an intersting passage from Costello that I'm including in the book, ref the new paid dept.:
"Not surprisingly, ‘racing to and from fires’ was prohibited, as were ‘spirits and intoxicating liquors’ and ‘any game of chance.’”
He goes on to say:
"It is just to say here that, as a whole, the Paid Department of this city has not in heroism, intrepidity, or disinterestedness, excelled the active Volunteers, when all things are taken into consideration. The same company rivalry, which, under the old system led to racing and sometimes brawls, still exists, and despite iron-clad rules and public sentiments, crops out now and then, showing that, after all, all firemen are human. The very rivalry which existed between Volunteer companies was in the end an advantage. Had they been apathetic, few apparatuses would have reached a fire in time to prevent serious loss. The racing was based on a point of honor, a test of endurance, skill and strategy. It kept up the esprit de corps, and left laggards in the rear. The anxiety in running to a fire to prevent a rival company from passing was that of an English or American university crew of oarsmen to avoid getting ‘bumped.’ The system of competition taught firemen that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and that the alert and fleet-footed get to the goal first. So that in these days the company which has the ‘hitching-up’ drill well mastered, and leaves the quarters the moment a home signal is ticked off, may reach the station indicated before a less drilled and not so wide-awake company much nearer to the rendezvous, and so shame the laggards into better performance of duty another time.”
To Costello, the new commissioners, by banning all forms of competition between its members, were being hypocritical:
“If the naked truth were told, few outside the Department were gravely anxious about them at all times. To many it appeared that until New York paid for fire service it would be impossible to have such service at all efficient without at least winking at the competition which pitted one company against the other, and resulted generally in a gain in point of speed in reaching a fire. Men who did their utmost to create a Paid Department were members of companies whose reputation for zeal in distancing or vanquishing rivals by feet or hands was the best or worst, as the partisan or critic may determine, and were as eager as their comrades when the apparatus was rolled out and the race began, or when the goal was reached and others were found to have the ground of vantage. How many staid citizens of the Volunteer time who yet live will affirm that, even on Sunday, when the races either on genuine or false alarms, were along Broadway or the Bowery, and the ragamuffins ran to see them, and the often consequent unpleasantness between companies, they did not gird up their loins and become interested spectators? And how many, under the pressure of conscience, will fail to admit that at a pinch they vented their preferences, apathies or interest in a shout or an exclamation, if they did not take a hand in the results of a collision after a war of words?”
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Post by Historian on Aug 27, 2008 9:01:45 GMT -5
Over the years, a few volunteer city companies participated in drills. I know for many years that a team from the West Hamilton Beach FD (near Howard Beach Queens) raced in the annual Floral Park Drill. On August 18, 1979 the West Hamilton Beach Vol Fire Dept. hosted a sanctioned old fashioned drill. That was the last time we raced within the borders of New York City.
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Post by digger127 on Aug 27, 2008 14:28:19 GMT -5
911 Pix You may have run across it in your research. But, a few years ago I found a book about the fire service in the old west. There were a number of pictures and a narrative about firematic racing back in those days. They used hand drawn hose reels and hose wagons for their events.
They even had a picture with an all-Chinese team from around the San Francisco area.
It was pretty neat.
Digger127
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