Buick All-Nighter

This attachment contains an article which orginally appeared in the May 29, 1910 Indianapolis Star. The article describes the interesting, crazy fire drill the Buick team hustled through to ready Bob Burman's entry in the Wheeler-Schebler Trophy race at the May 1910 race meet at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The May 1910 race meet weekend included "national championships," a newly-announced distinction by the American Automobile Association (AAA) for select race meets. Car manufacturers were keen to make a great showing. Check out other articles that provide additional summaries on the results of the races staged May 27 and May 28 elsewhere on First Super Speedway.
 
Also, check out these other relevant articles:

• C.E. Shuart's report focusing on the Wheeler-Schebler Trophy.
• H.G. Deupree's report on record-breaking speed.
• May 28 Weather Report.
• Event card for May 28.

 
The attached article is the story of how the Buick team hustled to prepare the "100" model assigned to driver Bob Burman when it was discovered just hours before the Wheeler-Schebler Trophy race that its engine had two cracked cylinders. The problem was discovered during tech inspection late Thursday and the race was the coming Saturday.
 
A  telegraph message to Buick's Flint, Michigan factory sent out the call for two cylinders. Note here that during this era cars did not typically have engine blocks. Cylinders were individual units bolted to the crankcase. While obviously engineers determined that casting cylinders in a single block had its advantages the idea of having them as seperate units had to make replacing one simpler than pulling an entire engine due to one or two cracked cylinders.
 
That said, these were very basic times so the process for replacing these cylinders was still laborious. The cylinders were not cast at the Flint factory but at the Marquette Motor Plant at Saginaw, some 35 miles away. The telegram was received at Flint and a touring car was driven to the Saginaw motor works to get what the article calls "the rough cast."
 
From that description I am guessing there was flash - or excess metal material - that had to be filed and otherwise removed from the final part. It's very likely there was other attention the rough cast required as well but I am not a mechanic and won't venture a guess.
 
The rough cast was returned to Flint where mechanics went to work preparing it for installation in a race car. Still, they had a train to catch in order to deliver the cylinders to the Brickyard for racing action. Ony two-thirds of the work could be completed at the Flint shop, where, I assume, the resources to condition parts were as good as available anywhere.
 
This meant Buick mechanics packed tools to continue their work while in what the article refers to as an "express car." They arrived at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with their prep work nearly finished and the cylinders were installed for the race. The situation was less than ideal however. The imperfect seating of pistons in fresh cylinders in those days produced horsepower-robbing friction. New engines or engines with new cylinders and/or pistons had to be "broken in." That is, they had to be driven a certain distance until they wore against each other enough for the contours to arrive at the best fit during the life of the engine.
 
While the concept of "breaking in" an engine is rarely discussed today it was not that long ago - as late as the 1970's - that dealerships recommended to new car customers that they not exceed certain speeds until they had built up some level of mileage on the engine. Obviously Burman could not afford that luxury, and, frankly, he was the kind of driver who would never heed any admonitions to slow down anyway. For all these reasons the cylinder swap stuck him with what they called a "stiff" engine.