May 20 - Pilette & Others Practice

The big news for May 20, 1913 with respect to practice for the 1913 Indianapolis 500 was the arrival (finally) of Belgian driver Theodore Pilette and his smooth-running Chicago Auto Club Mercedes-Knight racer. In two of the four articles contained in the attachments below Pilette's much anticipated appearance is described.
 
Attachment NewsPractice052013 contains a nice piece that summarizes practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway the previous day. The press had been playing up a sibling rivalry between Bill and Harry Endicott and it came to head late on the 19th. Harry took his red Nyberg took the track and when brother Bill noticed he hurried into his blue Case "Tornado" with the clear to mission to run his younger brother down. The Case was the demonstrably quicker car and big brother Bill (born in 1876 and seven years senior) dispensed with Harry heading into the northeast turn. On the front stretch Bill reportedly taunted his younger brother by looking back and waving at him.
 
The wheel work of Paul Zuccarelli is also discussed as he reportedly was trying a different tact by slowing appreciably in the corners. This was probably born of the recurring tire problems the Peugeots were having when they cut laps at 90 MPH - the fastest of any team during the month. Spencer Wishart in his Mercer and George Clark with his Tulsa were on the track but no drama to report.
 
The struggles of the Europeans in simply transporting their cars and personnel to the track is noted yet again with a report on the progress of the British Sunbeam team. Driver Albert Guyot was trackside but was still frustrated as his race car was reported "lost" in the railroad freight yards - the exact location is unclear. Bob Burman (Keeton) and Billy Liesaw (Anel) were apparently working on their cars in the garage area most of the day.
 
As noted above probably the big news of the day was the arrival of Pilette. In addition to the article in the attachment summarized above, both the Indianapolis Star and the Indianapolis News ran stories with headlines shouting the news. The Star's coverage (attachment PiletteStar052013) not only reports on Pilette but summarizes the action of the day - several points similar to the News article already described. Harry Stutz, founder and president of the Stutz Motor Company was at the track observing even though none of his drivers made it out for practice.
 
As for Pilette the Star attachment contains two pages of an image of him and his riding mechanic. The article touts the quite running of the "sleeveless valve" Knight engine which is an interesting read. This characteristic is directly contrasted with the Peugeots which are noted to be particularly rough sounding when idling. This is again highlighted in attachment NewsPilette052013 which is an image of the car at speed with a cutline.
 
The fourth attachment (NewsDisbrow052013) again discusses the special Jay-Eye-See Case racer which is, interestingly enough, a pretty informative piece on the car even though it is only a photo and cutline. The car, which Case was campaigning along with another big racer referred to as the Zip as pure speed record setters (ineligible for the Indianapolis 500 due to engine capacity), is described as a re-bodied version of the Fiat racer Lewis Strang used to set new track records at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the December 1909 speed trials.