May 16 - Practice Intensifies

This collection of May 16, 1913 articles contains five articles, three from the Indianapolis News and two from the Indianapolis Star - all about events leading up to the May 30, 1913 Indianapolis 500.
 
The anchor of the bunch is in attachment NewsPractice051613 which is a tidy summary of events of that morning as the paper was an evening edition. The big development was the appearance of the Peugeot team with drivers Jules Goux and Paul Zuccarelli immediately busting off some of the fastest laps of the month, in the 87 MPH range. There was an issue with their tires however, as they had improvised with a set of Diamond tires until others they deemed more suitable arrived. Gil Anderson of Stutz laid down laps comparable to the Peugeots.
 
Making news, too, was the arrival of the New Jersey-based Mercer team with star drivers Ralph DePalma, Caleb Bragg and Spencer Whishart. While the yellow cars did not immediately gun for speed railbirds were encouraged to see them on hand. Also present was Louis Disbrow and the Case racing team - who is featured in the second attachment that includes a grainy image (attachment NewsDisbrow051613).
 
Additional images of Harry Endicott and his Nyberg racer as well as Theodore Pilette who was assigned to the Mercedes-Knight are contained in the attachments EndicottStar051613 and NewsPilette051613 respectively. Harry was the brother of Case driver Bill Endicott and Pilette had yet to appear at the track. He was expected to arrive from Chicago the May 17.
 
The fifth attachment is an article (attachment KnipperStar051613) that provides another report on practice activities at the track. Since this came from the Indianapolis Star, a morning edition, it focuses primarily on the previous day, May 15 which, the report says, was rainy. The Peugeot team was anxious to get onto the track, very much aware that the competition had a head start. Louis Disbrow, busy with replacing an axle on this case is said to be "nervous" hearing the roar of his competitors' engines while he toils away with mechanical challenges.