Aitken Portal - 1910

This image originally appeared in the May 22, 1910, Indianapolis Star as part of the build-up to the May 1910 race meet at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This was the Sunday edition of the paper just five days prior to the beginning of the meet and as such was packed with articles concerning the event in anticipation of subscribers spending more time with the paper over coffee on their day of rest. I lifted this image from the first page of a section devoted to previewing the May 1910 "national championships," a newly-announced distinction by the American Automobile Association (AAA) for select race meets.
 
Pictured here is National Motor Vehicle Company's top driver Johnny Aitken. He was a force in his time, a threat to win any event he entered. The winningest driver in the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway among Aitken's career accomplishments was utter dominance of the Brickyard's 1916 "Harvest Classic" multi-race meet; pushing Dario Resta to the final race of that season's battle for the first AAA national points championship; the pole position for the 1916 Indianapolis 500 and managing the winning teams of the 1912 and 1913 "500s." He also holds the distinction of being the first driver to lead a lap in the Indianapolis 500. Aitken's career is clearly under-documented; there probably isn't any better single source of information on the man than First Super Speedway (FSS). Check out other links where you can learn much more, this index does not contain every mention of Aitken on FSS as I tried to cull out the most significant:
 

AttachmentSize
JAitken_opt.jpg44.82 KB