I like to highlight images of some of the old drivers, as many times they are nearly impossible to find. I just uploaded two, albeit grainy, images of drivers from the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911. One is Joe Jagersberger, who Indianapolis 500 history enthusiasts will recall, triggered the race's most spectacular accident when a steering knuckle broke on his Case racer. This triggered a spectacular accident when Westcott driver Harry Knight swerved to avoid him and crashed into two other racers parked in the pits.

Biographies of some of the lesser-known drivers in the first Indianapolis 500 can be very difficult to find. I just uploaded a new article (broken into two parts due to file size) that presents biographical sketches of all the drivers from that historic race. The article was published in the May 28, 1911 Indianapolis Star.

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.
 

Check out this neat article written by an Indianapolis Star "newspaperman," as they referred to journalists back in the day. The reporter rode with driver Harry Endicott during practice for the first Indianapolis 500. He not only describes his sensations and the attire (goggles, leather duster and leather face mask), but also recounts stories he had heard about the heroic efforts of professional riding mechanics. These insights to the role of long-forgotten riding mechanic are too rare and always intrigue.