While most early races were decided by the first car to cross the finish line, the sport’s growing popularity and the availability of complicated timing devices encouraged new forms of competition, including hill climbs, sprints, rallies and endurance races. These events became the dominant form of postwar racing, where drivers raced not against each other, but against the clock. While we celebrate the drivers behind record-setting laps, it’s the stopwatch that cemented a champion’s place in history. Click ahead to view some of the superb stopwatches and thoroughbred race cars they competed against. –Jake Auerbach
Watches Online
18–25 June | Online
RM Sotheby’s: Monterey
24–25 August | Monterey