In some ways an article from 1910 about Barney Oldfield taking a long weekend in Chicago may sound insignificant, but not to those who savor delicious auto racing history. Check out an Indianapolis Star article that reports on Barney taking a breather between a whirlwind tour of the West Coast and on into Wyoming and Denver before tackling the Brickyard's first Memorial Day weekend of racing.
 

Recently a fairly prominent motorsports journalist mentioned in an article that Indianapolis was once the American capital of automobile manufacturing. Not to be persnickety, but that just isn't true. The rise of Henry Ford's company along with such players as Cadillac, Dodge, Oldsmobile and others pretty much established Detroit as the top dog from the get-go.
 

Important to understanding the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500 is learning the influences active in the mind of the leading founder of the institution: Carl Graham Fisher. Clearly, the momentum of his work in establishing the facility in 1909 and the great race in 1911 is far more relevant to any success they both enjoy today than anything the people currently taking up space in the facility's executive offices do now.
 

In the early days of auto racing it makes perfect sense that there was a paucity of driving stars. The sport had only just begun and in 1906 there were many in remote areas of the United States who had yet to lay eyes on a car. The idea of organized races had hardly been around long enough to establish household names.