Now go, if you can." Those words, shouted 110 years ago, lack the ring of "Gentlemen, start your engines," but they launched a landmark event in the history of motorsports: the first organized oval track race held in the United States.

The setting was the Narragansett Trotting Park in Cranston, Rhode Island, a one-mile flat oval built in 1867 for the then-astronomical sum of $80,000. Its proprietor was Amasa Sprague, scion of the vast Sprague cotton textile empire, who built the park after having a falling-out with the owner of another trotting park in nearby Washington Park. Narragansett Trotting Park had an enormous ornate grandstand, so large that it contained a hotel at its center, and its opening day was attended by such antebellum captains of industry as Cornelius Vanderbilt and J.P. Morgan.

The collapse of the Sprague empire and a decline in the popularity of horse racing led to the closing of the track in 1873. After other promoters tried and failed to reestablish the park, it was purchased in 1886 by the Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry, which established the Rhode Island State Fair on its 67-acre grounds.

Automobiles were just beginning to make their appearance when the organizers of the 1896 state fair decided that a race might be just the kind of spectacle to draw crowds. Seven cars, powered by gasoline, steam and electricity, assembled at the starting line on the afternoon of September 7, 1896, as a crowd of 60,000 looked on.

Only four of the seven cars were able to run at an average speed of at least 15 mph, as the rules required. The first to complete the required five laps of the one-mile track was a Riker electric car from Brooklyn, with a time of 15 minutes, 1¾ seconds. Second was the entry from the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company, and third was a Duryea, made in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Further automobile races were held sporadically at the park until 1914, when it was closed for renovations. When it reopened in 1915, it had become the nation's first super speedway, a one-mile banked oval with asphalt pavement, both extremely novel for the day. Its inaugural race, a AAA-sanctioned event, would be its most notable, when "Fast Eddie" Rickenbacker drove his Maxwell to victory over a field that included Ralph DePalma and Bob Burman. There was no race in 1916, but a few big-name drivers entered the Providence 100 the next year. "Barney Oldfield showed up with his Golden Submarine. He got lapped there--he was absolutely horrible that day," said R.A. Silvia, a race historian and former race car driver who grew up in the area and shared with us his research on the track's history.

Narragansett Park Speedway failed to establish itself as a major racing venue over the next several years, although Hammondsport, New York's Glenn Curtiss would race his motorcycles there, and pylons would be erected at opposite ends of the oval for air races. Its last race would be held in August of 1923, a contest won by New Yorker Ira Vail, who would later go on to become a prominent race promoter. After a fire that was reportedly started by a carelessly discarded match consumed the grandstand in 1924, no efforts were made to rebuild the track. After lying fallow for several years, the land became a residential subdivision.

Though the track is long gone, its echos remain. Travel to a certain neighborhood in Cranston, nestled to the south of the capital city of Providence, and you may find yourself on streets with names like Chandler, Jordan, Overland, Cadillac, Packard and Fiat, all keeping alive the memories of the men and machines that were tested on Narragansett's oval. Fiat Street is the old backstretch. Tramp up a knoll beside Cranston Stadium, built in 1937, and you'll be standing on embankment where giants like Ralph DePalma and Louis Chevrolet once raced.