There's been quite a bit of a relationship between the Indianapolis 500 and the early days of hot rodding. Many of the drivers started out on the dry lakes or circle tracks before moving up to the brickyard, and many of the slick racing bits on the ... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
Interesting reading,,there is definitely a correlation with early hot rod pioneers and the Indy cars,,thanks for posting. HRP
The 1941 Rose/Davis car was restored quite some years back by Jerry Weeks. Displayed at the Indy museum and may still be there (?) Had a long and varied history and in one of its last gigs was driven by Buck Baker on the short lived NASCAR Speedway circuit, with a Caddy motor for power.
Good stuff! That '41 footage is awesome. Beautiful color, and a time of life at peace before the hell of WWII. Thanks for posting this.
Not a Memorial Day p***es that I don't think of my grandmother's brother who was both a regular at Indy before WWII and a casualty at the Battle of Remagen. The Inter War Period was easily the most interesting to me, especially the "junk formula".
Love the steering wheel in the red car at 1:35. Innovation was the key to many improvements both in racing and on the street. I'm sure that more than a few where created by hot rodders and others put to use by them too. Always loved the early years of racing because you were able to see the latest ideas of the fertile minds of these speed demons.
Oh yea. All I see are gorgeous track-nose hot rods running around the track! (With dinky hardhat helmets, no roll cages, no fire suit . . . )
The story about Kelly Petillo and Fred Offenhauser should be a Hollywood movie. Hasn't anyone made one yet? It has all the underdog thrills that make for good movie storytelling.
Thank you so much for this thread. I love this time period of racing. There was some really crazy stuff that went on during this time period. Especially at the board tracks. It was also common knowledge that the manufactures/builders did not consider the safety of the driver or mechanic at all. One builder use to run the exhaust through the center of the ****pit. Both the driver and the mechanic would routinely suffer burns from the red hot pipes. It was also common for oil lines to burst and spray scolding hot oil over the driver and the mechanic. Crashes would launch the occupants out of the car like missles. Interesting history of a catch phrase that isn't used too much today, but was a very popular "back in the day". When the Duesenbergs came onto the scene and were winning races left and right, beating the Europeans at their own game, the phrase, "It's a Duesy" started to be used quite frequently. The original meaning was something that is hard to beat. As time went on, the phrase morphed into "It's a Doosy". The meaning of the phrase changed somewhat to mean like a real problem or something that is hard to handle. Great time period in American racing.
Some further history on the Wilbur Shaw built Gilmore car you mentioned: In 1939 it became the Wheelers Spl. with Mauri Rose driving at Indy. For 1940-41 it was the Holabird Spl. with Billy Devore/Frank Wearne driving at Indy In 46-47 it was the Wolfe Spl. with Wearne/Paul Russo driving at Indy. On Labor Day 1946 it was driven by 'Tex' Barringer at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta. Due to extremely dusty conditions he crashed full bore into George Robson killing both. By 1948 it became the Nyquist Spl. and the body work had been changed quite bit. Russo/Chitwood at Indy. In 49 it was the Glessner Spl. driven by G. Metzler who was killed when he punched the wall during practice. I don't know what became of it after that, but it may have been s****ped.
If you like the Miller/Offy engines, check out the book "Miller", by Griffith Borgeson. It tells the history with many Pictures. Really neat stuff.
All of G. Borgeson's post are incredible. In his History of American Auto Racing, there is a pict. of Miller hand filing the impeller of one of his blowers. The craftsmanship that went into the motors and engines is incredible.
Thanks,I just spent the last 3 hours watching old Indy video.Wilbur Shaw is my favorite out of the bunch,followed by Rose and DePaolo.
Although not Pre-War, any conversation about Hot Rodder's contributions to the Indy 500 should mention Stu Hilborn. After equipping the '53 winning "Fuel Injection Special", the entire field was Hilborn injection equipped in '54.
I'd just note that Jimmy Murphy's Duesenberg was all Duesey when he won the French GP; the Miller engine came later (per Borgeson, Tommy Milton ordered the first one after he parted with the Duesenbergs on bad terms after the LSR effort, the Miller engine was done at a time when no one thought much of Miller as an engine builder and it really didn't work until Milton filched the print of a cam that Colonel Hall had done for Duesenberg...) The 1925 de Paolo win was notable primarily because (a) it was the first for a supercharged engine and (b) 1925 was the peak for Duesenberg, after that it was mostly downhill.
This is kind of a fascinating story: http://www.amazon.com/Umbrella-Mike-Chicago-Gangster-Behind/dp/1560259663 though it's absolutely one of the worst-edited books I've ever read.
That gulf miller looks awesome - the detail work on the heat exchanger / radiator and the faired-in front axle. How about those big balloon Firestones though - 3 inch wide treads!! Talk about traction................ not! Coolest lookin' old race car I've seen for a very long time. Thanks for posting.
I posted this on the sprint car thread but it probably goes better here. It is a prewar 2 man car that ended up as a hot rod on the streets of chicago in the 50's.
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