Marmon Valued Racing in Businesss

This article was originally published in the May 1, 1910 Indianapolis Star and discusses the value Howard Marmon put on racing in developing and promoting an auto manufacturer's products. This article was written by Mr. Marmon who contributed regularly to the newspaper.
 
These were heady times for Marmon, the engineering genius behind the even-then venerable Nordyke & Marmon Company. Fresh (April 7 - 18) from a dominant performance at Playa Del Rey, America's first wood plank auto racing speedway, Marmon had 10 days later arrived by train at another race meet at Atlanta speedway fully intent on maintaining his winning momentum. Marmon was interviewed as his star driver Ray Harroun was out on the Georgian track putting the team's cars through its paces.
 
Almost certainly true and not just hype, auto racing had already put the otherwise largely forgettable city of Indianapolis on the map. Marmon makes this point in the following quote:
 
"I frankly believe that through the medium of racing more than anything else the name of Indianapolis is being recognized throughout the land."
 
Marmon also asserts that the automobile was rapidly gaining widespread market acceptance.
 
"The automobile industry is the great industry that at present is in the spotlight, and anything that is out of the ordinary in the automobile industry is at once absorbed by a great number of the general public, who, although they may not own motor cars, are planning or hoping of some day doing so. The automobile industry has passed that stage when it was considered a sport of the wealthy, and when prejudice fell to the lot of the owner of a motor car."
 
He also saw auto racing as essential to informing and exciting the public about cars.
 
"True, every man that buys an automobile and every man that owns one does not epect to race it, but the fact that it is capable of such speed has opened the eyes of the general public to its utility as any man capable of thought realizes that when he has a car with such power that traveling through almost any difficult or uneven country will not become a difficulty, so the machine is capable of winning events is also a good commercial proposition."
 
The article closes by noting that the Marmon team had enjoyed success in the inaugural Atlanta races the previous November and expected to add to their collection of trophies. Also, this was their first outing under the new Speedway team colors that had been announced weeks earlier in a cooperative program with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Marmon notes that he and his team were looking ahead to the Brickyard's May race weekend, the first of the American Automobile Association's (AAA) newly announced "National Circuit" for 1910.