Ghosts of the Brickyard: Pre-Indy 500 IMS Lore

Hello! Welcome!

This is the written version of the podcast. I know that there are various reasons that people can’t listen/choose not to listen to podcasts and in the hope of accessibility, I will be posting written versions of each podcast episode — for Lore Episodes, they’re already scripted so I am uploading the script but I will be including relevant links and photos. This also will help accomplish one of my other goals — making this history more easily searchable/accessible on the internet! Enjoy!

For as long as there have been automobiles, people have been racing automobiles. It is believed that the first automobile race was held in 1895, from Paris to Bordeaux, France and back*. This first race covered a distance of 1,178 km or ~732 miles. The first American automobile race was also held in 1895, an 87km (or ~54mi) race from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois and back. 

European roads were able to handle these new automobiles and so European motorsport formed mostly around road races. In stark contrast, American roads were much rougher and not nearly as passable by automobile so the oval race tracks used for horse racing became a popular choice. AAA formed a contest board to sanction these races. 

At the turn of the century, people were still highly skeptical of the automobile and even more skeptical of the sport that raced these contraptions. But the automobile industry as a whole believed that through motorsports, they could showcase their cars, their innovation and their reliability to the spectators and encourage those spectators to become customers. 

At the same time, Indianapolis, capital of Indiana was transitioning from an agricultural community to a bustling industrial center. One such industry that was rooting itself in Indianapolis was the automobile industry. 

Indianapolis had an early boom of automakers – Marmon, Cole, National and Marion were all headquartered within city limits. By 1908, they were 4th in the country in terms of automobiles produced, behind only Detroit, Toledo and Cleveland. The men driving the automobile industry in Indianapolis weren’t satisfied with fourth place – they wanted more. 

And there was a man with a plan on how to get there – Carl Graham Fisher. Carl was born on January 12, 1874 in Greensburg, Indiana to Albert Fisher and Ida Graham, the eldest of three sons. 

Carl’s first wife Jane wrote a biography-memoir about Carl, and in it, she detailed how Carl’s parents had separated and his mother subsequently moved Carl and his two brothers, Rolly and Earle to Indianapolis. She supported her sons by taking in boarders. As a child, Carl had severe, undiagnosed astigmatism that made schoolwork and other tasks nearly impossible. He was dubbed ‘Crip’ by his schoolmates. Carl Fisher stopped going to school at 12, instead working to help support his family. 

In the early 1890’s, there was a bicycle craze that started when the ‘safety bicycle’ – which are bicycles with two same size wheels – was introduced. And in Indianapolis, at least, there were massive groups of mostly young men who would ride around on their bicycles. They would also organize themselves and ride from Indianapolis to other cities and back. One such group became known as the ‘Zig Zag Club’ and Carl was a member. It is through the Zig-Zag Club where Carl met James Allison, Arthur Newby, Frank Wheeler and Howard Marmon. 

At just seventeen, Carl opened his first business – a bicycle repair shop. Working with his brothers, they mended tires for twenty-five cents. Carl also pursued bicycle racing. It was through this where he met a man named Barney Oldfield, who told him about these new fangled automobiles and this set Carl Fisher’s life on a whole new course. Carl became a Stoddard-Dayton dealer and Carl and Barney ended up starting a race team and in 1905, they went over to Europe to race. 

On this trip, Carl first had flashes of a vision that would become Indianapolis Motor Speedway – a place where automobile manufacturers could safely test their cars. At the same time, basing this speedway in Indianapolis would encourage and strengthen the automobile industry in Indianapolis. With ovals, the testing and racing could serve as entertainment because ovals allowed spectators many looks at the on track action, which was impossible with straight line testing or the long road courses that were popular in Europe at the time. 

By this point, oval racing was fairly popular in the US anyway – thanks to state fairs that held exhibition races on horse tracks and Barney Oldfield’s barnstorming. 

Roughly three years later, Carl and his friend Lem Trotter (whose full name was Lemon) were driving from Dayton, Ohio back to Indianapolis and the road conditions were terrible, forcing the pair to have to repair the tires numerous times. The story goes that Carl was bitching to Lem about how the race track he envisioned could fix poor tire and automobile construction and Lem was essentially like “Okay then, do it?” And Carl’s response was “Well I guess I will.” 

Shortly after that, Carl and Lem were driving west of Indianapolis where they noticed 4 parcels of land for sale just outside of Indianapolis and they decided that this was where they should construct the Speedway that Carl had envisioned. 

Carl Fisher didn’t do this alone though, he convinced three men to partner with him: 

James Asbury Allison was born on August 11 1872 in Marcellus, Michigan to Noah Allison and Myra Black, the second of four boys. Like Carl, he quit school at 12 to work at his father’s coupon manufacturing company. Noah Allison died in 1890 and James ascended to vice-presidency and started running the company with his brothers at the tender age of 18. 

Like many young men his age, James was swept up in the bicycle craze of the 1890’s, where he met Carl Fisher. Together in 1904, they bought the patent to Prest-O-Lite which became the first effective automobile headlight. The company born from the patent became very lucrative and gave both Carl and James the fortune to invest heavily in the Speedway. 

The second man who partnered with Carl Fisher was Arthur Calvin Newby. He was born on December 29, 1865, the only son of John Newby and Cornelia York. He was born in Indiana, however his family moved west to Kansas and then California before returning home again to Indiana by 1890. 

Of the four men, Arthur had probably gotten himself the most swept up by the bicycle craze in the 1890’s. He had founded the Zig-Zag Club but he also had a bicycle racing oval built which had been briefly successful before the craze faded. 

In 1890, he went into business with two other men, making bicycle chains. At one point, this company was supplying approximately 60% of the bicycle chains in the US. 

Later on, Arthur had helped found National Motor Vehicles and he was president of National when Carl Fisher asked him to become involved in the Speedway. 

The third and final man that came on board with the Speedway project was Frank Wheeler. Frank was born on October 24, 1864. His father, Sylvanus Wheeler, died when Frank was three years old and his mother, Ursula Davies remarried to a man by the name of John Ball. 

By 16, Frank was living on his own in Earlville, Iowa, working in a furniture shop. Frank had a big personality and used it well when he became a traveling salesman – which is how he ended up in Indianapolis. 

While in Indianapolis, he was introduced to George Schebler, inventor of the float-bowl carburetor. Frank invested in George’s business which became the Wheeler-Schebler Carburetor Company in 1904. The success of Wheeler-Schebler gave Frank the funds to invest in the Speedway that Carl envisioned. 

To manage the track and oversee the track construction, Carl Fisher hired Ernest A Moross (often called by his initials EA). EA had formerly been Barney Oldfield’s press manager. At this point in time, Barney Oldfield was the most well-known racing driver in the US and a lot of that had to do with the way that EA would market Barney’s races – every race was marketed as the most important race ever and when Barney Oldfield inevitably won, he broke “world records” (in reality, the races were rigged and while he definitely broke some records, some records were probably fabricated) but it didn’t matter because EA and Barney would move onto the next track and use the world record to market the next race and so on. 

Hired to design and construct the Speedway was Park Taliaferro Andrews, a civil engineer. There is not much information out there about what PT was up to before he designed the Speedway but he worked on the Panama Canal afterwards*. 

According to newspaper articles from the time, construction on the track started on February 8 1909. 

Charles Leerhsen, author of “Blood and Smoke: A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem and the Birth of The Indy 500” described the track that was built as an elaborate—and unprecedented—parfait: At the bottom, there was the red-clay soil that was native to Marion County. On top of that, two inches of large gray gravel, followed by two inches of  limestone covered with taroid, followed by two more inches of slightly smaller, taroid-drenched gravel, topped off with another two inches of dry white stones. Each layer was steamrolled repeatedly to pack it down hard.

Andrews had claimed that for a price less than asphalt, macadam, or brick, this unique method provided a course that was faster, easier on cars, and more durable than the concrete track at Brooklands in England, which reportedly had begun crumbling in places after just a few months’ use. It would be “like solid rock,” Moross had told the press, it was going to be “as smooth as a floor.” 

While the track was being constructed, the Speedway held hot air balloon races in June. According to the Indianapolis Star, approximately 40,000 people showed up (although in Blood and Smoke, Charles Leerhsen points out that only 3,500 people actually paid admission because the rest figured out they could see the races just as well outside of the Speedway). The balloon races weren’t particularly riveting and it really did nothing to excite the people of Indianapolis about the Speedway.

On July 29th, Johnny Aitken was the first driver to practice at speed on the newly constructed Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Johnny Aitken was a 24 year old employee of the National Motor Vehicle Company, which Founder Arthur Newby was president of. Johnny’s job was to drive in both wheel to wheel races but also test drive passenger cars and supervise tuning these cars. Arthur thought highly of Johnny and considered him his ‘go-to’ driver which is likely how and why Johnny received the honor of being the first to drive on the track.

Motorcycle races were held on August 14th and 15th and they did not go well. There were two injuries – the first was twenty-three year old Albert Gibney, a motorcycle cop on the Indianapolis police force. Albert had entered an amateur event and he took a turn at approximately 60 mph and lost control of his bike. He was thrown from his bike and he rolled 200 feet over the track. Albert sustained extensive internal injuries that required a six week hospital stay. Jake DeRosier’s front tire blew and his bike flipped and pinned him underneath and he skid almost a hundred feet. Jake survived but barely. 

An article from Palladium-Item from Richmond Indiana mentioned that the track surface was called into question so to prove that it was fine and safe for the racers, two sets of drivers went out for a test run. 

The track was not ready and likely was never going to be ready because this parfait that PT Andrews had concocted was unlikely to ever be feasible. 

The first automobile races at the Speedway were scheduled to be held on August 19th, 20th and 21st but before any races could be conducted, the Speedway “claimed a life.” While on the way to spend the weekend at the Speedway, Clifford Litterall, a mechanician for the Dayton-Stoddard Company fell off the truck he was riding on and was hit by his coworker who was following behind. Clifford was taken to the hospital, however he eventually succumbed to his injuries. 

In hindsight, this feels like it was an omen. 

During Friday’s feature race, the Prest-O-Lite Trophy, fifty-seven laps into the 100 lap race, the second place Knox that carried Billy Bourque and Harry Holcomb hit a deep rut that had formed on the track and Billy, the driver, lost control of the car. The car careened and rolled nearly full speed against a fence, pinning both driver and riding mechanic. Both suffered catastrophic injuries and they both succumbed to those injuries before they could reach a hospital. A photo of the wreckage from the Detroit Public Library can be found here and here. If you look, notice the amount of spectators gathered around.

Billy – whose first name was not William, it was Wilfrid*, was born in Canada in 1879. In 1900, he had moved to Massachusetts and had gotten a job in the assembly room for the Knox Automobile Company. Billy had worked his way up to driver by 1908. Harry was a popular athlete from Massachusetts who also had started working at Knox in the assembly room and had graduated to riding mechanic. 

Even now, it is still unclear what had caused the Knox to swerve into the rut. Eyewitnesses stated that right before they lost control, both driver and riding mechanic had turned suddenly and looked behind them. One of the wheels had been found a few hundred feet from the rest of the wreckage, leading some to theorize that the axle nut had been loose, as the tire had been recently changed. Perhaps both Billy and Harry had become aware of this issue and that is what had distracted them long enough for Billy to hit the fatal rut but that is an answer that only the two of them would know. As a reporter from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat put it, “It was a baptism of blood for the new speedway, a ghastly toll exacted by the god of speed.”

In addition to the two deaths, two drivers: Louis Chevrolet and Fred Ellis were temporarily blinded by the white dust and had to be taken to the Speedway hospital for treatment. 

The AAA Contest Board, the sanctioning body, were not happy about the track conditions. They had wanted to speak with Carl Fisher about canceling the rest of the Prest-O-Lite Trophy Race (because if you thought the death of two participants would stop the race, you would be wrong) as well as canceling the rest of the weekend’s races. However, Carl Fisher disappeared and E.A. Morross slowly tried to find him but couldn’t. 

Carl Fisher magically turned up after the last race was over and he promised the AAA that his ground crew would fix the track overnight and that there would be no more problems. 

Why would Carl Fisher want to keep going? He knew that the accidents would likely inspire more people to come to his race track (and he was right). If Carl canceled the rest of the weekend, the Speedway that he had put enormous time and money into would be done-zo and Carl wasn’t a quitter. 

Much to everybody’s relief, everybody survived the second day of racing. Eleven world records were broken and winners included popular drivers of the time such as Lewis Strang and Johnny Aitken.

The third day was going well until the final race, the 300 mile anchor race that was meant to be the weekend’s headliner. Crowds crowded fences, ignoring signs that warned them that being close to the track was unsafe. Police officers escorted the crowds away, however they returned to the fence, hoping for a better look at the on-track action. 

While taking the southern curve, the right front tire blew out on Charlie Merz’ National. The car went headfirst into the fence, taking out 5 fence posts and the dozens of spectators that were standing at the fence, tore out five feet of stone culvert fence before overturning on the far side of the creek. Miraculously, Charlie was completely unhurt, however his riding mechanic, Claude Kellum was fatally injured. 

Claude Kellum wasn’t even Charlie Merz’ usual riding mechanic. He had started the race as Johnny Aitken’s riding mechanic but after Johnny’s car was forced to retire and Charlie’s riding mechanic became ill, Claude jumped at an opportunity that proved fatal. Two spectators, Omar Jolliffe (side note: often his name is incorrectly listed as Homer, however his name was definitely Omar*) and James West were also killed. All in all, newspaper reports put the weekend death toll at 7, adding in Clifford Literall and a child who had been hit and killed by somebody on the way home from the track. Officials made the decision to not finish the third day’s races due to the crash, calling it a ‘no contest.’

AAA warned Carl Fisher that if something was not done to fix the track surface, they would not sanction any more races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. AAA also made a rule that capped drivers to driving 100 miles, because they reasoned that one of the things that factored into these fatal crashes was that the drivers were tired. This meant that in races longer than 100 miles, relief drivers were required. Knox, Stoddard and National all declared that they were done with racing. 

Coroner John Blackwell held an inquest on the deaths to determine if there was anybody at fault. Many people, including Carl Fisher were questioned by Coroner Blackwell. Ultimately, Coroner Blackwell found the Speedway’s management to be at fault. He indicated that the management’s construction of a hospital on the premises as an indicator that the management knew it would be dangerous. 

Further, Coroner Blackwell relayed to the DA that he thought criminal charges could and should be pressed on the Speedway management, however the DA did not pursue this. It did open the Speedway up to civil action but only one lawsuit was successful – filed by the family of Claude Kellum. It took six years but Claude’s widow, Floy, eventually received $7,000 from the Speedway (which is roughly $225,000 in today’s money).

In addition to the coroner’s inquest, there was backlash in the newspapers*. 

The Huntington Herald published an article that stated, “Six lives in one week and that the opening one of the Indianapolis motor speedway is pretty heavy sacrifice to the god of speed. And of what good has it all been? Thousands of people have been entertained for a time and horrified in the extreme. The sport seems to be one which may be ranked with bull fighting and even football and judging from last week’s record it has both together bested.”

The Press and Sun Bulletin ran an article titled “More Victims of Speed Madness” which, in part, said this, “Three more human lives were sacrificed on the altar of speed at the Indianapolis motor speedway on Saturday, making five victims that, in the first week’s history of the track, have paid the death penalty for speed madness… No good is accomplished by such contests, and every automobile race has an invisible starter: the grim specter Death… Automobile racing always has been and always will be a dangerous and a senseless sport, and the day of its passing is hastened by such accidents as occurred last week on the big Indianapolis track. 

Shorter and to the point, the Omaha World Herald pointed out that, “Three persons killed at the opening of the new Indianapolis motor speedway. That $400,000 was only part of the cost.”

Perry Daily News of Oklahoma took it a step further, “In the effort to advertise their machines as being the fastest in the country the manufacturers of automobiles have been indirectly responsible for the seven lives lost on the new Indianapolis motor speedway. The states which have adequate laws to prevent prize fighting should pass laws preventing automobile races. 

A notable Indianapolis automaker Howard Marmon jumped to the defense of the Speedway, writing a letter outlined his opinion for who was at fault, placing the blame on just about everything but the track. In his opinion, if the track had been better quality, all it would have done was increase the speeds and the end result would not have been different. 

Marmon’s defense of the Speedway was not unbiased though – Howard Marmon was a close friend of Carl Fisher’s and business partner. 

In response to the backlash from the AAA, the coroner and the public, the Speedway’s management announced that they would brick the entire race track to provide a better racing surface. 

Brick hadn’t been Fisher’s first choice – it was expensive. Fisher seriously considered concrete – which had been used at Brooklands but didn’t appear to be holding up well. He also considered creosote-soaked wood– which is tar soaked wood. And because Carl Fisher apparently is a slow learner, he considered another “compound” surface that involved gravel, tar, and intensive steamrolling. 

It was a St. Louis man named Will P. Blair that convinced Fisher to lay the now iconic bricks. Fisher agreed to install about two hundred yards of brick on the main straight to conduct tests on the brick.

On September 11, Johnny Aitken ran up and down the newly laid stretch in his National. He then tethered the car to a pair of posts set in concrete and gunned the engine to see if his tires would shave off any of the brick. When Johnny was done, everyone was thrilled to see that the bricks beneath Aitken’s hard-used back tires had retained their looks. 

Six days later, trucks were covering the entire length of the track with three or four inches of sand as a bed for bricks. Moross told the press that the resurfacing would take a mere three weeks. This turned out to be an incredibly optimistic timeline. The track was not done until December. 

Carl Fisher and E.A Moross had big plans for the Speedway in the Fall of 1909 that never came to fruition, including an aviation contest on October 15 and 16. This was canceled as management was unable to negotiate terms with the aviators. They also announced that there would be a 300 mile and a 24 hour automobile race on November 1 but the track was not ready by then. 

The Speedway actually reopened on December 17 – the newspapers called it a rededication. The issue was that it was very cold (because it’s December in INDIANA). Some cars had their lubricating oil freeze which was Not Great. 

Nonetheless, Johnny Aitken in a National broke all of the previously held records for distances for 20, 15, 10 and 5 miles while Lewis Strang in a Fiat set a new Speedway record for a mile (previously held by Barney Oldfied). The next day, Lewis Strang broke the 5 mile with 3:17:70 but further time trials were postponed d/t weather. 

The 1910 season at Indianapolis Motor Speedway started with races on Friday May 27 and Memorial Monday May 30. The race cards were filled with many events, short runs of 1 miles, 5 miles, etc. with a longer race that was somewhere around 100-200 miles anchoring each day.

The hero of the weekend was a Marmon driver named Ray Harroun. 

Ray Harroun was the antithesis to really all racing drivers but especially racing drivers of his day because he got into racing because he wanted to be an engineer, and being a racing driver was a way to get a foot in the door of an automaker. 

Ray Harroun was born on January 12, 1879 in Spartansburg, Pennsylvania to Layfette Harroun and Lucy Halladay. There are a lot of unknowns about Ray’s early career but we do know that he was employed as a chauffeur in 1902 (before he knew how to drive a car) and it wasn’t long before he quit that to create his own car which he called the Harroun Special while others called it “The Sneezer”. He ended up in Lowell, MA, working for Buick and eventually becoming a riding mechanic for their racing team in 1906 and 1907. In 1907, Ray was racing for Buick, and occasionally Marriott and he would occasionally race the Sneezer. 

By July 1908, he had joined Marmon as an engineer. Ray likely hoped that his job as an engineer meant that he was done driving but Howard Marmon asked him if he would join his team for one more season – which was successful. Howard asked Ray if he’d drive just one more season so he could drive Howard’s latest, greatest invention – The Marmon 32, also known as the Marmon Wasp and Ray agreed, but he was firm and very clear with Howard – that this 1910 season would be his last.

In “Blood and Smoke”, Charles Leerhsen noted that E.A. Moross had estimated that attendance for this event to be over 60,000 for the whole weekend while Horseless Age had guessed 20,000 which was Not Great and was definitely an issue that the Founders were keeping an eye on. 

Originally slated to be a combination balloon and automobile races, the fourth of July weekend was just auto races. Again – the race cards were packed with time trials, five/ten mile races as well as a longer race to anchor each day as well as a 200 mile race to anchor the whole weekend.

Paul P. Willis for the Indianapolis Star was very complimentary in his description of the first day of races, writing, “Scotland links are famed for golf tourneys, Thames River for boat races, Churchill Downs for its Derbys and even Reno now for prize fights, but Indianapolis has indisputably placed itself at the head in ability to attract, promote and conduct the world’s best motor car races.” 

The big race of the weekend was for the Cobe Cup. Named for Ira M. Cobe, president of the Chicago Automobile Club. The race was originally billed as the “Vanderbilt of the West”. The first Cobe Cup was held in 1909 on the Crown Point Road Race Circuit which was in Lake County, Indiana (which is the closest county in Indiana to Chicago). For 1910 though, it was decided to hold the contest in a speedway, choosing Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 

Ultimately, it was another Marmon driver, young Joe Dawson who was the hero of the Cobe Cup, managing to best Bob Burman and his Marmon teammate Ray Harroun in a thrilling victory. 

Attendance from this weekend was allegedly 30,000. Like Charles Leehrsen points out in “Blood and Smoke”, even if those numbers were inflated, they were a sharp decline from the attendance in May and by this point, it seems likely that the Founders were trying to figure out what they could do to stop the bleeding and turn this race track into something that might actually net them a profit. 

Nevertheless, tragedy was never far from the Speedway, striking again 2 days later on July 6th. 

Members from the National team including Tom Kincade* and Johnny Aitken were at the Speedway testing to try and sort out the mechanical trouble that they had in the weekend prior – this is apparently a perk when your boss also owns part of the Speedway.

Both Johnny and Tom started a 50 mile run. Tom was in the car for the first time without a riding mechanic. About 30 miles in, Johnny came into the pits for repairs. Nobody saw what happened next but this is what believed to have happened according to the IndyStar:

Kincade took the curve at the south end of the track and continued north down the backstretch at a terrific speed. The two men in the judge’s stand waited for the car to come north end of the home stretch” When Tom did not appear, they followed their line of sight backward until they spotted a hole in the fence. The two men and Johnny Aitken jumped into a car and headed out there towards that hole in the fence.

When Johnny Aitken got there, it was apparent that Tom’s injuries were severe and once doctors arrived, they confirmed that Tom did not survive his injuries, concluding that death was likely instantaneous. There was a handkerchief on Tom’s chest so the theory was that Tom had gotten his handkerchief out to wipe the dirt off his goggles (which was not uncommon) and something had happened with the car, causing him to crash. 

Tom and Johnny were really close friends – they were described in newspapers as ‘The Indigo Twins’, because the National cars were Indigo and Tom lived with the Aitken family. Tom’s death was described as a great shock to Johnny. Friend and fellow driver, Charlie Merz went to the morgue to see Tom and was quoted as saying “That’s it, a fellow never knows when it is going to happen. All he can do is sit there and wait and see what is coming to him”. Tom Kincade was only 23 years old. 

To close out the 1910 racing season at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a weekend of races were held over the Labor Day weekend. Familiar faces returned to the Speedway, including Johnny Aitken who had not raced since Tom Kincaid’s death in July. Other drivers include Ray Harroun, Charlie Merz, Eddie Hearne, and Ralph DePalma. There would even be a new car company – McFarland Motor Car Company making their racing debut at the meet. Other car companies sending entrants to this meet included Marmon, Firestone-Columbus, National, Westcott, Cole and Parry. 

Like the other events staged at the Speedway, the days were packed with various time trials and races of varying length. Saturday’s race card included 11 events, ranging from one mile time trials to five and ten mile races with varying classes of cars and the anchor event were two 100 mile events. Monday’s card was similar with the addition of a 200 mile race and a 50 mile race instead of the two 100 mile races. 

The racing proved to be exciting, however, for the third time that year, the attendance left much to be desired. Charles Leerhsen pointed out that more than three times as many people (65,000) watched the Labor Day parade in downtown Indianapolis than came to the races (18,000). 

But the Founders had a plan.

A plan that the Indianapolis News dubbed the “World’s Greatest Auto Race Planned.” 

Next time on Ghosts of the Brickyard. 

Note: * denotes that I will be discussing this further in a separate, commentary post.

Thank you for reading/listening! I will follow-up this with a written commentary piece and in two weeks we will post the seance episode!