National Dominates Lexington - 1909

The article attached here is a digest of news events for August 10, 1909, and was printed in the Indianapolis News. The primary report concerns a dirt track oval race meet in Lexington, Kentucky where the National Motor Vehicle Company Team with drivers Johnny Aitken, Tom Kincaid, and Charlie Merz dominated the events. The race meet was hosted by the Blue Grass Motor Club under American Automobile Association (AAA) sanction. The other items concern the first auto races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
 
The first competition of the day was a time trial for the track record. Aitken broke the old record by 0.2 seconds with a time of 58.6 seconds. Strang put up a time of 1:00.2. 
 
Next was a five-mile amateur contest for a silver cup. There were four drivers, Kincaid and Merz (National), J.K. Gilchrist (Stoddard-Dayton), and Walter Donnelly (Packard). Kincaid won but was protested by Gilchrist and subsequently disqualified for being a professional and therefore ineligible.
 
The second race was for motorcycles and again five miles. The prize was a silver cup and was won by E.R.Aker on a twin Indian, five HP. He covered the distance in seven minutes, 30.5 seconds on a five HP twin Indian. Richard Shryock, 3.5-HP Excelsior, was second.
 
In what I suspect was a second amateur race, James Morris (Packard) got the best of Gilchrist in his Stoddard-Dayton. The winning time was 11:52.8.
 
Kincaid won a 10-mile handicap race for another silver cup with a time of 10:03. Merz was second. The other drivers were Aitken and Strang, and neither finished.
 
Aitken prevailed in a 50-mile free-for-all race for a prize of $75. Strang finished second for a prize of $35. Both experienced tire failures during the race.
 
The race meet closed with an amateur time trial. Jimmy Ryalls, of Boston, in a Buick 30, covered five miles in 4:52.2. Art Greiner set the previous record at Nashville with a time of 5:17. 
 
This portion of the article finishes with a notation that the cars had previously competed in the Algonquin Hill Climb. They were headed back to Indianapolis to get ready for the inaugural auto races at the Speedway.
 
The next item in the digest concerns the entry of the Buick team for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway races. Note that the team manager was William Hickman Pickens - famous/notorious promoter in those early days. His drivers were Lewis Strang, Louis Chevrolet, Bob Burman and George DeWitt. There are two particularly interesting points here. One, Strang is referred to as the best-known of the four drivers. Two, the Buick engine is noted as having a "V" shape design, probably among the earlier American engines to do so.
 
A.E. (Al) Denison is reported to have arrived the previous evening with his big Knox racer. William Bourque, his teammate, was scheduled to arrive the following day. Other entries anticipated were Barney Oldfield (Benz), J. Walter Christie (Christie), Herb Lytle in an Apperson. The Marion and Marmon teams were gearing up for action. The Velie Motor Company from Chicago was expected to file entries as well.
 
The final item in this digest reports on the status of the amazing Wheeler-Schebler Trophy. The trophy had been on a traveling exhibition tour for several weeks. It had been in Detroit during the Glidden Tour and then went to Chicago where it appeared on the city's "motor row."