This week's feature article focuses on the December 17 & 18, 1909 time trials staged at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. After a disastrous first auto racing meet on a running surface of crushed stone and "asphaltum oil" where five men were killed (including two spectators - Homer Joliff and James West), Speedway management had to take steps to make the track safer or there would be no track. After some deliberation they arrived at a brick surface as the most durable, fastest and safest paving material.

I just loaded a big batch of content under my section of articles on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's 1909 motorcycle race meet. It doesn't pertain to auto racing, but it involves the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and that's all I need to know.

The great thing about history is that just when you think you have things figured out, new evidence is unearthed that forces you to reconsider everything. The hardworking history professor Dr. Elsa Nystrom recently uncovered articles about the September 9, 1903 Zanesville, Ohio auto racing accident involving Carl Fisher that contradict the evidence I had already gathered. Now, I don't know what to believe.

My take on James Ashbury Allison is he was a no-nonsense guy. There's nothing I can point to as it is simply my intuition developed through reading a number of articles and books that describe his role in various scenarios, primarily with Prest-O-Lite, the founding of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the founding of Allison Engineering and his decision late in life to leave his wife of over 20 years to marry his secretary.