When The Indy 500 Became Truly International

By Sigur Whitaker
The four Indianapolis 500 cofounders had yet another problem within five years of building the Speedway. Two years previously, the issue was the decline in spectator attendance. They decided to have one race per year, which is now known as the Indianapolis 500. After the 1912 race, they were concerned about the number and quality of the race cars and started discussing their options.

The American car companies, which had supported the races in the first four years, were withdrawing from auto racing. The mighty Buick team including Bob Burman, Louis Chevrolet, and Lewis Strang, withdrew from racing as did Stoddard-Dayton and the Marmon team which won the first Indianapolis 500. Marmon figured that they had nothing to gain by continuing to participate in everything to lose.
After winning the 1912 Indianapolis 500, Indianapolis-based National Motor Vehicle Company also decided to withdraw. IMS co-owner Arthur Newby communicated the decision not to participate in the 1913 race to his fellow owners prior to it being made public. He also indicated that he knew a couple of other racing teams which were considering not participating. Fellow owner Frank Wheeler was particularly upset by this news. He felt that as an owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Newby should have the National team participate. Newby indicated that the National stockholders had decided the same as Marmon had--there was too much at risk in terms of their reputation by running the race.
After discussion, the track’s owners decided to see if they could not recruit drivers and cars from the mighty European teams. They sent Speedway general manager Charles Sedwick to Europe in November 1912 to visit the Peugeot, Sizar-Manzin, Clement-Bayard, De Dietrich, and Renault factories in France, Mercedes Benz and Opel in Germany, and Fiat in Italy. Most of Sedwick’s contacts were made at the London and Paris auto shows.
Returning to Indianapolis on December 5, he reported that foreign drivers were “wild to come to America to compete with the celebrated pilots in the greatest of all automobile events.” But there was a fly in the ointment. The automakers had “unreasonable demands” driven in part by their desire to have the cars and participate in the French Grand Prix on June 29.  The manufacturers believed the time between the events was not sufficient for the drivers to prepare the cars for the race. The only person recruited initially was Albert Guyot with an 8-cylinder car which he built.
 One by one, the field of foreign cars began to take shape. The first was Albert Guyot who would drive a six-cylinder Sunbeam from England which established a world’s record on the Brooklands track in the fall of 1912. Within a couple of days, A. G. Kaufmann, the United States distributor for Lion-Peugeot indicated that he would do everything in his power to get at least one or two Peugeots for the race. He believed that a victory in the Indianapolis 500 would contribute to Peugeot sales in the United States.
In April 1913, Jules Goux broke the record for 10 laps at the Brooklands racetrack in the Peugeot to be driven in the Indianapolis 500. Goux’s average speed was 103.23 mph. The Peugeot’s arrival in Indianapolis was expected around May 12. The Brooklands racetrack had greater banking making the course faster than that of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Joining Goux in a second Peugeot entry was Paul Zuccarelli.
To compete in the race, one lap in excess of 75 mph was required to qualify. The starting positions were determined by a blind draw held the night before the race. The foreign drivers included Albert Guyot driving a British Sunbeam, Jules Goux and Paul Zucarelli piloting Peugeots, Théodore Pilette piloting an American owned Mercedes-Knight, and Vincenzo Trucco piloting an Italian Isotta. America was also well represented with entries by Stutz, Case, Mason and Mercer, which all had three teams. Additionally, there were ten other American entries, each with a single car.
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