in The Lebanon Reporter
Happy 100th Birthday Indy. IMS officials have surely wrestled with how best to commemorate your centenarianhood (my word for 100 years old). Donald Trump’s hair flapping in the breeze of a convertible pace car was scheduled to give the title “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” new legs but alas such is not to be the case. Instead IMS will celebrate the occasion with a 300 foot Hot Wheels sponsored truck jump.
While the 7 year old boy in me wants nothing more than to see a truck screaming down a 16 foot wide track made to resemble those I jumped cars off of as a child, it would seem a publicity stunt unworthy of such a fine occasion as this. But one can’t really blame race organizers for failing to rise to the lofty expectations of Indy’s 100th birthday, for in the beginning few expected her to ever make it this far.
In an era when car on buggy accidents spelled the dangers of the road, the Lebanon Pioneer’s headline following the first ever Indianapolis 500 mile race summarized contemporary opinion on the prospect of such an undertaking “One dead, eight hurt-First 500 mile automobile race may be lost”.
1911 was a time when people were still coming to terms with the fallout of the Civil War while sparring over a looming Prohibition. In central Indiana, Ed Adair was doing some repair work on the road in Ratsburg and an “old time slave”, some believe to have been 100, died in Hamilton County. Considering Studebaker was running advertisements boasting their “expert knowledge in wagon building” it’s safe to say nothing about life in 1911 was fast. It was a time when folks passing through Lebanon did so without exceeding 8 miles an hour while in the country speeds approached a white-knuckling 20.
It therefore becomes understandable how ridiculous the prospect of racing cars was. In the aftermath of the first 500 mile race in Indianapolis, the Pioneer speculated that “It is probable that the 500-Mile International Sweepstake race just finished will go down in history as the first and last contest of the sort ever waged”. Clearly unimpressed, The Patriot ran less than a paragraph 2 days following the race stating it ended with “(one) killed, and seven others injured and all for the fame fortune and glory of the automobile.”
Still on May 30th 1911 over 100,000 people arrived on what had been 180 acres of farm ground just a short 5 years prior. The crowd a kaleidoscope of dark Stetsons and lighter straw hats, parasols and white handkerchiefs all spinning just as furiously as the tires of the 40 competitors racing 500 miles. However on that day nothing could stand against Ray Harroun and his Marmon Wasp.
Though little about the early 1900’s appears precocious on the surface, perhaps this is the best word to describe the 500’s first winner. Flamboyant canary yellow paint job aside, his car was in itself a trendsetting model which became amongst the first to take aerodynamics into account. Harroun chose to race without a mechanic, opting instead for a rearview mirror; though it is a mainstay of the North America Automobile industry today, it was at the time a novelty yet to find its stride.
500 miles racing over bricks that 4 time winner A.J. Foyt once said could “shake the fillings out of your head” proved a brutal undertaking. Of the 40 competitors to make the field in 1911, only 12 finished the race. Like a herd of iron cattle, the group forged their way through a haze of exhaust and dust cast from 500 miles worth of pounding bricks. Racing at speeds the Pioneer declared were “almost beyond the conception of human eyes” one car lost control and busted through the fence killing Sam Dickson, a mechanic from Chicago.
With less than 10 miles to go Harroun found himself in a dogfight with two others. At one point Ralph Mulford’s no. 33 Lozier was able to crawl into the lead only to fall victim to an unexpected flat tire which sidelined his team for 2 full minutes. This would prove the difference between first and second place as Harroun grabbed the $10,000 prize, and perhaps more importantly his place in history as the first to accomplish what so many talented racers after would fail to do (see Andretti, Mario).
Perhaps the Lebanon Pioneer had it right by touting the dangers of such a race. For men like Harroun who found 500 miles on a brick raceway so punishing he swore “never again would he enter such a slaughter”, to men like Sam Dickson who had no choice but to end his racing days at the Brickyard, from its inception the Indianapolis 500 has stood as a symbol of American bravery.
It becomes fitting then that she be run on the weekend designated for remembrance of those who were bravest. For we Midwesterners, the Indianapolis 500 is an event linked to Memorial Day by Federal mandate. From 1911 when Boone County commemorated Memorial Day with a roll call of those killed during the Civil War followed by a recitation of the Gettysburg Address made by Alva Wynoop to 2011 when million dollar fighter jets fly over the racetrack in the missing man formation, Hoosiers refuse to forget bravery and sacrifice. And after 100 years there remains no better example than the Indianapolis 500 mile race.
© 2011 Eric Walker Williams
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