The Unlikely & Pivotal Racing Event of 1909

Having purchased 320 acres of farmland in November 1908, the founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) found little opportunity until the following spring to plow through the fields frozen during the winter months and begin development. They hired Ernie Moross, the best-known motorsports promoter of the era, and he immediately had a scale model of the end product erected at the perimeter of the grounds just off Crawfordsville Road. It was a first small step in building the interest of future race fans, the automotive industry and the local newspapers in making the emerging speedway part of the Hoosier conversation.
 
There is no record of the founders carrying any debt. Together, they self-financed the place. That means the combined powers of three local corporations, Prest-O-Lite Company, Wheeler-Schebler Carburetor Company and National Motor Vehicle Company were at least indirectly essential to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway taking shape. That’s because the founders of the track also founded those companies. It was Carl Fisher and James Allison behind Prest-O-Lite, Frank Wheeler had his carburetors and Arthur Calvin Newby led National.
 
Plans for the first year of operation – set to begin only weeks after ground broke in early April – were nothing less than wildly optimistic. Impossible might be another word to describe their goals, and those less kind would have said it was insane. Such admonition wasn’t strange to Fisher, who routinely amazed people by pulling off the implausible since he entered business as a teenager in the early 1890’s.
 
Initially the founders thought they could put on their first motorcycle races in July. They also planned auto races in August, Labor Day Weekend and October. The October contest was to be a 24-hour race with Prest-O-Lite headlights affixed to the fences alongside the running surface for illumination. Fisher also wanted a national championship balloon race in June and an aviation show in September.
 
The airplanes and passenger balloons brought to life Fisher’s vision of a multi-purpose facility. There was an aviation show in France that was deemed a success with much fanfare. Fisher wanted to be the first in America to host such an event. He saw the opportunity of emerging industries and wanted to be a part of them. Automobiles and aircraft were two favorites.
 
The June 5 balloon race was launched from the track before initial construction work for the facility was complete. Imagine the vista from any one of the nine balloons involved as they ascended from the Speedway and took in the view of grading in process and some number of the 41 white and green-trim structures sprouting up that summer. Among those were buildings dedicated to aircraft, such as the aero clubhouse, definitive proof that Fisher, a licensed passenger balloon pilot, envisioned not just a race track, but America’s first major airfield.
 
Like all the other events on the ambitious calendar, the importance of what was billed as a “national championship” balloon race was to put the facility into revenue-generating mode as soon as possible. The four investors were eager to replenish their resources.
 
With no financial records to analyze we can’t be certain there was profit. First, the event was simply a launch of the race. Once the nine balloons had disappeared into the distance the show at the track was pretty much over despite the fact the race had barely begun. Second, given the obvious nature of the contest, many determined it would be far more affordable and just as enjoyable to park or camp outside the grounds and observe the floating orbs instead of purchasing tickets to enter the gates. Thousands clogged Crawfordsville Road with their carriages, cars and camps with tents.
 
Meanwhile work at the track accelerated to a frenetic pace. The management team soon realized the July motorcycle races simply would not be feasible. They negotiated an August date with the sanctioning body, the Federation of American Motorcyclists (FAM), but even that burst through the bounds of good judgment. They simply lacked experience. Fisher had promoted motorsports events before, especially at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, but he had never built a facility from the ground up and had it ready in time for such a contest.
 
Expectations were sky high and Fisher fueled them. He wanted to challenge the already established high-banked concrete oval in England – Brooklands - for world supremacy. That notion was, frankly, ridiculous. Fisher’s relatively flat oval with its crushed stone running surface, while of comparable size, was in no way as advanced or as fast. Brooklands recorded mile trap speeds as blazing as 115 mph in 1909, while IMS only reached 100 mph in 1910 after being paved with brick. Still, Fisher had made his pronouncements in July 1909, “the Speedway is better the Brooklands will ever be,” and that was the standard in the minds of his constituents.
 
Laborers worked around the clock to coat the track with taroid and crushed stone, erect grandstands, buildings and sod the infield. They toiled under the glow of gas fueled Prest-O-Lite headlights at night and in one dramatic incident a man fell into a pot of boiling tar. Despite Fisher’s frantic attempt to rescue him by personally driving him to the local hospital in his Stoddard-Dayton street car, the injuries were too severe for the man to survive.
 
Chaos was still swirling when the FAM riders arrived in August. They gasped at the state of the running surface. The facility was beautiful with the white-with-green-trim buildings complementing the manicured infield sod and bleached stone that shimmered in the summer sun. To experienced riders it was like cheap veneer. They could readily see how the loose stones would yield under their tires as they leaned through the turns. They protested to their FAM officials and ideas such as transferring the event to the Indiana State Fairgrounds were tossed about.
 
Fisher would have none of it. Such a move would be a slap to his pride and cast dark questions about the viability of his “greatest track in the world.” Besides, with no ticket sales the Speedway would not only miss a revenue opportunity but also incur material costs of promotion and preparation with no return.
 
Fisher held FAM to their contract and damn the torpedoes, the show went on – such as it was. When Albert Gibney, an Indianapolis motorcycle police officer eager to race in the amateur contests, was thrown from his bike and severely injured on Thursday, August 12, the first day of practice, it foreshadowed the fiasco of an event the weekend would bring.
 
Make no mistake; this race meet was an utter fiasco. Despite being taunted with the insult of, “you’re yellow!” many riders bagged it and returned home. In the parlance of the day, to be called “yellow” was to be labeled a coward and obviously less than a man. In hindsight, those guys were smart men, the all-too-rare profile in courage of people speaking truth to power.
 
A small crowd of something less than 4,000 people witnessed the first day of racing on Saturday after rain washed out Friday’s card. Six short races were held, none lasting longer than four laps of the 2.5-mile oval. After the fourth contest most of the riders refused to continue, convinced the track was absolutely treacherous. Fisher and his contest director, Ernie Moross, a promoter of the Barnum & Bailey mold, quickly improvised.
 
On the fly they pulled together a 10-mile “championship” feature where the champion of the East, Jake De Rosier, would meet one-on-one with Ed Lingenfelder, who was billed as the champion of the West. In those days there were champions everywhere and while both riders were indisputable stars of the sport, there was no official points championship or any kind of alternative criteria for assigning the title. Fisher and Moross just said it and so it was - so as far as fans were concerned.
 
When De Rosier was thrown from his bike after his front tire blew as he neared start-finish to complete his second lap, the only thing the contest accomplished was to confirm the worst fears of the riders who had warned of calamity. De Rosier was either fearless or foolish – maybe both – and had a long history of serious injuries from racing accidents. This one proved to be one of his worst and he was rushed to a nearby hospital. He eventually recovered but would die in February 1913 after corrective surgery to deal with other injuries incurred during a racing incident a year earlier.
 
Officials attempted one more race but then abruptly cancelled the remainder of the meet, including a planned second day. Based on the loss of a second day of ticket sales, it is hard to believe the track made much money to recover owner investment. After two events it is very possible the Speedway had done nothing to recover the founders’ investment but very likely cost them more money.
 
Despite the travails of the motorcycle race, Fisher and his team forged ahead with their American Automobile Association (AAA) auto race the very next week. Reasoning that the hulky and heavy cars with four points of ground contact would fare better than the bikes was not unfounded. Nonetheless, the larger question of insuring safety remained unresolved. It did not take long for evidence to emerge that the track and the entire situation was unacceptably dangerous. This became abundantly clear as five people would lose their lives during three days of racing.
 
Drivers practiced for much of the week leading up to the first day of competition on Friday, August 20. The feature race of the day was the 250-mile Prest-O-Lite Trophy. This was the capstone of a five-race card and proved costly. William Bourque, an accomplished veteran driver for the Knox Automobile Company team who won the third race of the day, lost control of his racer coming out of the fourth turn and tumbled over at the side of the running surface.
 
Both Bourque and his riding mechanic, Harry Holcomb, suffered multiple injuries and died shortly after being tossed from their seats. As if to put an exclamation point on the tragedy, Bourque was to be married a week later. So quickly do manmade plans change.
 
The death of two racing competitors as an isolated event was tragic under any circumstances, but after the previous week’s motorcycle madness, the incident heightened alarm. A contest that should have been remembered as a great victory for Bob Burman and his Buick team turned into something of a wake. Both Burman and his teammate Louis Chevrolet reported seeing ruts high on the exit of turn four and had deliberately changed to a lower line. Bourque had charged directly into the overly worn high line and speculation was that a wheel slipped into one of the ruts. The overarching message was, once again, the track was unsafe.
 
As with the motorcycle meet just days prior, Fisher had laborers patching the course overnight. Results the next day, Saturday, offered hope. There were no major accidents and the racing was fast with nice weather. Lewis Strang again scored for Buick by taking the 100-mile G&J Trophy. G&J was a local tire company.
 
The final day of the three-day race meet had to wait to Monday as in the custom of the times there was no racing on the Sabbath. There were four races as well as time trials for speed records. The feature event of the day was to be a 300-mile contest for the Wheeler-Schebler Trophy, a magnificent ornate sterling silver masterpiece designed by Tiffany. It stood seven feet tall.
 
In the end the Wheeler-Schebler race was cancelled, despite having completed 235 miles. This was an edict of AAA and Speedway officials that would be deemed bizarre by today’s standards as well more than half of the brutal contest was completed. Driver Leigh Lynch and his Jackson Automobile Company were denied the spoils of their efforts, including bonded custody of the imposing trophy that had been such a focal point of pre-event promotion.
 
The race was declared null and void because it was not completed. Track conditions again were the cause presenting irrefutable danger when at 175 miles Charlie Merz’ National suffered catastrophic tire failure and ended up crashing through fences and into spectators along the front stretch. It was probably the absolute worst place he could have crashed.
 
Merz survived virtually unscathed, but riding mechanic Claude Kellum was crushed when the big National rolled over on them. Lost to the world, too, were spectators James West and Homer Jolliff – both victims of the errant racecar.
 
Shocking by today’s sensibilities, officials let the race roar on despite mass confusion and the task of removing the dead and other spectators injured in the incident. The contest continued for an additional 60 miles until another accident occurred involving Marmon driver Bruce Keeton and his riding mechanic, James Schiller. Schiller was thrown from the car to suffer head injuries, although not life threatening. Still, that incident was apparently the final straw as AAA stewards conferred with Fisher and the race was stopped with Lynch leading.
 
It’s impossible to know the reasoning behind refusing Lynch and his team official recognition as the winners. The answer could be as simple as these were the formative years of the sport and its leadership was grappling with the responsibility of setting precedent – and not having any to follow. Another reason might be financial or flawed public relations reasoning.
 
Fisher and his team may not have wanted to pay out awards when they were still struggling to recover start-up costs on their enterprise. There can be no doubt the outcome of their first events was anything but what they had hoped for, or even expected. They may also have thought by just declaring a non-event that there would be fewer reminders going forward of it ever taking place.
 
If that was what Speedway management was hoping for, the Jackson Automobile Company did not help with that objective. They protested the decision and even filed legal proceedings to demand recognition for their achievement. Jackson also published advertising stating their case and complaining about the organizers’ unfair actions. The AAA reacted swiftly and firmly by banning Jackson’s team from competition for the remainder of the year.
 
While Fisher and his associates were well networked in the Indianapolis community – and even throughout Indiana – they took a lot of heat. Lieutenant Governor Frank J. Hall called for a special session of the state legislature to pass a law to forbid auto racing in Indiana. Hall had his sympathizers, as evidenced by a local newspaper editorial cartoon depicting a worry-sick mother with a small child clinging to her skirt as she awaited word of her husband racing at the track.
 
Fisher and his team announced a new level of investment – in fact, enough to double their start-up costs – to improve the track. The showcase of that effort was a massive repaving of the running surface with 3.2 million bricks. As with everything Fisher did, work began immediately as if by running harder than anyone he could reverse the second hand of clocks everywhere and turn back time. Other improvements were announced too, such as constructing retaining walls on the turns, sand traps at the edge of the track and observation platforms for officials.
 
Speedway management’s decisive action to improve their facility won the support of a community already poised to be helpful. Municipal and business leaders alike knew the track held great promise as an attraction for people and companies outside Indianapolis to visit – and spend money. They pronounced their praise of the track and its owners in petitions and the newspapers.
 
Astonishingly, even in the face of additional significant investment and the challenging project management to introduce massive improvements, Fisher and his team persisted with plans for an October 24-hour race and an autumn aviation show. Moross was dispatched to attract airplane and passenger balloon owners to an autumn event. While this concept was certainly more feasible than racing on a track being resurfaced, the challenge of assembling a sufficient number of participants proved, for whatever reason, to be problematic.
 
Plans for both events were dropped. Another victim of the disastrous first races was Fisher’s vision of building a road course in the infield. He dreamed of either attracting the Vanderbilt Cup to the Speedway or creating a similar race that would rival America’s most famous road race. Undoubtedly, whatever budget they had set aside to build an additional 2.5-miles of race course went to the upgrades to insure the viability of the oval.
 
In order to prove the new paving job was a success – and to lay claim to 1909 American speed records – Fisher crammed a time trial event into the end of the year on December 18 and 19. The weather was exceptionally frigid but drivers Lewis Strang and J. Walter Christie hung up new marks, notably Strang’s mile run in his big Fiat at 91.82 mph.
 
Fisher had originally considered charging admission to the time trial but the weather was so miserable he decided to throw the gates wide open for free. Governor Thomas Marshall placed the final brick, a newspaper photo opportunity. It was billed as a gold-plated block but in reality it consisted of the same alloy used in the manufacture of Wheeler’s carburetors.
 
Strange as it may sound the December time trial was the most successful event of the year. The Speedway could lay claim to being America’s fastest track and since no one was injured there was renewed hope that hazards had been mitigated for the future. Meager rewards, perhaps, but there were positives and no catastrophes. It was the track’s most important, unlikely, even pivotal, event of 1909.
 
The Speedway, now dubbed the Brickyard by locals, entered the New Year with a hopeful stance. For the most part, it would be fulfilled. The Brickyard’s races were fast and relatively safe in 1910 as the only fatality of the year was to promising young Tom Kincaid and that came in a lonely mid-summer practice run, not an official event.
 
The events of 1909 were a reflection of the risk-taking entrepreneurialism of the founders, and none more so than Carl Fisher. Some historians, such as Charles Leershen, the author of, “Blood and Smoke,” a book about the first Indianapolis 500, present Fisher as a user, a greedy, manipulative man and uncaring of what happened to others. My take on Fisher is not so judgmental. He was not only a huge risk-taker but also a man driven by an incessant desire to build and create. Fisher saw the world through his filter and imposed those values on other people.
 
He took tremendous risks himself, with both his physical wellbeing and his finances. Impatient and always running, I don’t know that he possessed the ability – and certainly not the inclination – to pause and consider that others may not hold the same aspirations. Especially those who held similar interests, such as building or selling cars, aircraft and racing them.
 
No one could be happier than Fisher about allowing the Speedway’s travails of 1909 to slip into a fog. The glories of the grand place since undoubtedly have cast what happened in that start-up year in an nostalgic, even august, light. The reality was something quite different. Not only were several people killed or injured but also the events, when scrutinized, fall far short of anything extraordinary.
 
There were only nine balloons in that first “national championship” race. There were only six motorcycle races on that single-day race meet, and none of them were longer than four laps or involved more than nine riders. The auto races, too, were for the most part sprint contests and in the end took five lives including two spectators.
 
Speedway management’s unrelenting determination to rush the track into service and their later resistance to cancelling events like their fall aviation show until it simply became impossible may seem heartless, but that’s a superficial assessment. Carl Fisher, more than any of the founders, was simply a steely-eyed, irrepressible force of nature. This spirit made him an American hero, a historical figure and eventually brought about his ruin.
 
In many instances, such as once flying his balloon into a thundercloud, he literally bet everything he had on his ability to reach his goals. His gambles with his wealth left him with little means in his declining years of his life – a life that ended prematurely due to his hard charging style of working late, drinking too much and eating as he liked. Carl Fisher couldn’t understand anyone living life without explosive passion.