Why Race?

I came across this article (Indianapolis Star, May 28, 1911) that posed an interesting question to several automobile manufacturers with cars entered in the first Indianapolis 500: "why do you race?" Without fail, all the manufacturers enthusiastically touted the tremendous testing benefits from sustained, high-speed driving to improve engineering of their products. Among the manufacturers responding: Marmon, Fiat, Case, Cole, Cutting, Columbus Buggy (makers of the Firestone-Columbus), Jackson and Knox.
 
The Fiat discussion cited some neat examples of success, including Felice Nazzaro's victory in the 1908 Targa Florio. This article is a historian's delight.