Just for fun, here's the original trailer to the 1932 movie, "The Crowd Roars," starring James Cagney and Joan Blondell. Like most racing movies the writing is mediocre, the plot contrived and thin and tremendous liberties are taken with plausibility - if you know anything about the sport. The great thing about these movies is that they incorporated newsreel clips of actual races. You get the opportunity to see a number of the drivers of the era, many of them with brief speaking parts.

For anyone who appreciates auto racing history, the buzz these days is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's centennial celebration. It's interesting to look back just 50 years and how the Speedway handled that milestone. Below is a video of a homemade 8 Milimeter film captured by a fan in stand A.

I just added content on the 1905 James Gordon Bennett Cup. Frenchman Leon Thery won his second Bennett Cup in the last race for that prize. The French, upset over the Cup race's restrictions on the number of cars allowed from each nation, decided to start their own race, the French Grand Prix in 1906.

If you have about a half hour, kick back and watch this film of highlights from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway back in 1941. It is an interesting mix of practice highlights, some footage of the victory dinner - with drivers receiving checks and the Borg-Warner Trophy in the background - and race day coverage. There is footage from the race day morning garage area fire that I have never seen before. Track manager T.E. "Pop" Meyers is alive again and quite active in the pit area.