Cyrus Patschke - the forgotten hero

part one

Most open-wheel racing fans know that Ray Harroun won the first International 500 Mile Sweepstakes held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 30, 1911, but the important contribution of relief driver Cyrus Patschke to Harroun’s victory is often overlooked.

As you will read in this multi-part article, Cyrus Patschke’s career encompassed much more than that relief appearance as he had a short but distinguished career in the pioneering years of automobile racing in the United States. Cyrus Richard Patschke was born on July 6, 1889 in the steel mill town of Lebanon in southeastern Pennsylvania, the only son and youngest of five children of Sallie and Augustus, a second-generation rope manufacturer. Cyrus was recognized in grammar school as an outstanding student, but his formal schooling ended early, which was typical in the first part of the twentieth century.     

Beginning in 1904, while he lived with his parents in the family home at 234 South Eighth Street, Cyrus worked as the mechanic and chauffer for his brother-in-law, Eli Attwood, who owned the Lebanon Chain Works & Iron Company. Several years later Eli bought a new Acme passenger car, built by the Acme Auto Manufacturing Company in nearby Reading Pennsylvania. Cyrus’ driving abilities came to the attention of the new owner of the Acme factory, Herbert Sternbergh who had bought the company out of receivership in February 1907.

Cyrus’ racing career begins - 1908

Cyrus Patschke’s first automobile race took place on May 30, 1908 at the Giants Despair Mountain Hill Climb in Laurel Run, near Wilkes Barre Pennsylvania.  The one-mile hill climb, with a 650-foot rise in elevation, with grades up to 20%, included six turns, including the 110-degree “Devil’s Elbow” was first held in 1906 and continued through 1910.  

Early Giants Despair Hill Climb overall winners included future Indianapolis ‘500’ competitors William “Willie” Haupt in 1908 and David Bruce-Brown in 1909 as well as 1915 ‘500’ winner Ralph DePalma who won in 1910 as he drove a massive 200-horsepower Fiat.

Notable winners after the 1951 event revival included Carrol Shelby who broke the magic one-minute mark in a Ferrari in 1956, Roger Penske in 1959 in a Porsche RSK, and Oscar Kovelski who won five times in a McLarenM8B Can-Am car including three years in a row.   After another inactive period in the early nineteen eighties, the event resumed in 1986 has continued to be run annually on Memorial Day.

While Willie Haupt won the featured event in 1909 with a time of one minute and 38 3/5 seconds in a Great Chadwick six-cylinder 707-cubic inch touring car rated at 60 horsepower.  Cyrus Patschke drove an Acme Type 19 four-cylinder car with an engine rated at 24 horsepower and won his class by one minute 15 seconds.

Following his maiden race win, Patschke and the Acme Type 19 went to Jamaica Long Island for the June 5^th, 1908 speed trials held on Hillside Avenue in conjunction with the railway station opening ceremonies. The event, managed by the Long Island Automobile Club, used a 3-mile stretch of road connected by two gentle curves. 

Patschke won his class for gasoline cars priced from $1,251 to $2,000 at all three timed distances – he covered the kilometer in 38 3/5 seconds, the one-mile distance in one minute and 3-3/5 seconds and the two-mile timed section in two minutes and seven seconds.  His hometown paper understandably trumpeted the young man’s accomplishments - his first two races had resulted in two wins!

On September 11, 1908, the youthful Cyrus made his first track racing appearance as one of the team drivers of the six-cylinder Acme entered in the Brighton Beach 24-hour race. These long-distance races, which drew huge crowds, were promoted by the Motor Racing Association, which leased the former Brooklyn thoroughbred horse racing mile track after the New York State Legislature banned pari-mutuel betting on horse races.

Eleven cars started the twice-around-the-clock grind at 8 PM on Friday night the 11^th, with the Acme driven for the first 18 hours by Louis Strang, before he handed off the driving duties to Patschke for three hours. During Cyrus’ stint, the Acme suffered a broken water pump, but repairs were made, and it completed the 24-hour grind. 

“Smiling” Ralph Mulford in a 60-horsepower six-cylinder Lozier won as he covered 1,107 miles in 24 hours, 15 miles ahead of a 45-horsepower four-cylinder Lozier. Due to delays caused by the mechanical failures, the Acme finished eighth with 976 miles completed.  

Patschke’s next race on October 10, 1908 was the 200-mile road course event on the eight-mile course laid out inside Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. The event promoted by the Quaker City Motor Club was part of the City’s Founder’s Week celebration. George Robertson won the historic race in a Locomobile with a time of 4 hours 2 minutes 30 seconds, while Cyrus crossed the line in second place in the Acme with a time of four hours fourteen minutes and 54 seconds. Ralph Mulford finished third in a Lozier in a race that was marked by a high degree of attrition, as only eight of the sixteen starters finished the race. After the Fairmount race, advertising copy called the Acme “the car that continues to make good.”

Two weeks later, at the fourth running of the George Vanderbilt Cup, Patschke drove a 90-horsepower Acme ‘Sextuplet’ on the new course, which used a section of the new concrete paved Long Island Motor Parkway. Unfortunately, the Acme broke a camshaft gear in its engine during the third lap, while George Robertson won his second consecutive major race in the Locomobile.   

Cyrus Patschke was initially entered as the driver of an Acme for the Thanksgiving Day 400-mile “Grand Prize of the Automobile Club of America (ACA)” race scheduled over a 25-mile course comprised of public roads Savannah, Georgia. However, just two weeks before the event Cyrus was replaced as the Acme driver by Leonard Zengle.

Reports were that Acme company officials felt that Patschke at age nineteen was “at present a bit too young for such responsibility.” Louis Wagner averaged over 65 miles per hour (MPH) to win the Grand Prize in a Fiat, while the 21-year old Zengle retired the Acme on the seventh of sixteen laps with a broken spring.

1909

The author believes that during the early months of 1909, Cyrus Patschke helped prepare the Acme entry for the Ocean-to-Ocean Automobile Endurance Contest and likely performed a support role during the event.  

The event, that covered 3878 miles was sponsored by M. Robert Guggenheim (of the famous wealthy family) and sanctioned by the ACA (Automobile Club of America) required the competitors to travel from New York City to Seattle Washington to demonstrate the durability of the automobile and focus the public’s attention on the need for a transcontinental highway.

Acme entered a six-cylinder 48-horsepower roadster fitted with Firestone tires and carried George Salzman the driver and alternate driver Fay Sheets.  Six cars left the starting line in New York City at 4:03 PM on June 1 and the first car, a Ford Model T runabout, arrived in Seattle on June 23^rd 23 days and 55 minutes after leaving New York.  The little Ford finished 17 hours ahead of the second place 40 horsepower Shawmut Runabout. 


The Acme entry finally reached Seattle on the afternoon of June 28^th as the third and final finisher.  

After more than four months of protests and counter protests, the Ford was disqualified for the use of a substitute engine enroute and the Shawmut declared the winner of the gold and silver M. Robert Guggenheim Transcontinental Trophy and the $2,000 cash prize. This reversal came too late as the Shawmut Motor Company factory near Boston had been destroyed in a fire in November 1908 and Ford had already garnered the publicity for the victory, and without financing to rebuild, Shawmut ceased to exist.  

Cyrus got his first taste of 1909 racing competition at Brighton Beach in another 24-hour race that started on July 30. The 60-horsepower Acme driven by Cyrus Patschke and his co-driver H A Van Tine, a New Yorker who had been racing since 1905, fell behind early with mechanical issues early during the 3^rd and 4^th hours, and was never a factor-  between the tenth and 17th hours, the Acme completed just twelve miles and it was retired before the 21^st hour with just 385 miles completed.

Patschke’s next long-distance race at Brighton Beach began at 10 PM on Friday night August 27, 1909 and he nearly met with disaster. Ninety minutes into the race, the rear wheel collapsed on the Stearns as it raced down the main stretch in front of the clubhouse grandstand. The Stearns tumbled out of control towards the infield and struck the front of Patschke’s Acme, which was exiting the pits.  

The Stearns rolled over several more times with both Laurent Grosse, 27, a local driver who had been racing since 1903 and his riding mechanic Leonard Cole crushed beneath the car.  Cole was pronounced dead at the scene while Grosse suffered a broken back and internal injuries. Grosse was taken to the nearby Coney Island Reception Hospital then later transferred to Kings County Hospital where he died two days later never having regained consciousness.  

  

The impact from the Stearns bent the Acme’s front axle and broke a spring perch but the damaged Acme was repaired and Patschke rejoined the race. Cyrus, with his co-driver VanTine and riding mechanic Arthur Maynard, finished the race in third place with 883 miles completed. 

Charles Basle won in a Renault with 1,050 miles completed, but Patschke won the $200 prize for completing the most miles in one hour as he covered 55 miles in the race’s first hour. During the last hour of the race, the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper reported that Patschke made a pit stop and the Acme crew changed all four tires and filled the car with fuel in a reported one minute and 22 seconds.

Several days after the race, Patschke was one of a group of drivers and riding mechanics called to testify at a coroner’s inquest. After hearing conflicting testimony regarding the track conditions (Patschke did not have any complaints), Brooklyn Coroner Henry J Brewer ruled that Laurent Grosse and Leonard Cole were “killed by their own carelessness.” 

Likely due to the negative press publicity that followed the double fatality, Cordner and Flinn, the New York sales agents of the Acme automobile run by A B Cordner and his partner Welton Flinn, decided to temporarily withdraw from racing.

Patschke and the Acme had already been entered for the September 6, 1909 Vesper Club Trophy for cars with 301- to 450-cubic inch piston displacement at the 10.6-mile Merrimack Valley Course in Lowell Massachusetts but the Acme did not arrive at the race site. 

On September 17, 1909, Patschke signed to drive for the Lozier Motor Company factory team, which at the time was based in Plattsburgh New York. Patschke co-drove with Ralph Mulford at the Brighton Beach 24-hour race run on October 15-16, 1909.  Cyrus drove the stock chassis Lozier for three hours which completed a new record total of 1,196 miles in 24 hours, and the team won $1000 along with the Sewall and Alden Trophy awarded for the most miles completed at the Brighton Beach Motordrome.  Once again, Patschke scored a $200 bonus for completing the most miles in one hour, as the Lozier covered 51-1/2 miles in the last hour of the race.  

1910

During the winter of 1909-1910 Cyrus Patschke worked for his brother-in-law’s company, the Lebanon Chain Works & Iron Company, as a traveling salesman. The New York Times reported on May 1,1910, that in preparation for the season opening long-distance race at the Brighton Beach Motordrome, the promoters added a “top dressing” to the track surface – a mixture of clay and cement and had also increased the banking in the corners. Patschke and Mulford were confirmed as teammates to drive the Stearns #1 entry.

Twelve cars started the race on May 13^th which was sanctioned by AAA for the first time under sanction number 143. The race was marred by another fatality, as early on the morning of the 14^th, the Marion, driven by Gil Anderson, crashed through the wooden fence after it hooked a rut.

The car, known as the Model 33 Bobcat, which weighed 1,870 pounds with a 255-cubic inch engine, had been built in Indianapolis from a design penned by Marion Motor Car chief engineer Harry Stutz before he left and founded his eponymous company.  During the accident, the Marion’s riding mechanic, William Bradley, a resident of Newark New Jersey was stuck in the head by a wooden fence post. Freed from beneath the wreckage by rescuers, Bradley was transported to the Coney Island Reception Hospital where he died shortly after arrival.

The Simplex, driven by the team of Al Poole and Charles Basle, took the race lead in the twelfth hour and won with 1,145 miles completed, while the Stearns, driven by Patschke and Mulford finished second with 1,120 miles completed in 24 hours. Ralph DePalma finished third in a Fiat that covered thirteen miles less than the Stearns. The winning Simplex had been on pace to break the record of 1,196 miles but speeds slowed as rain fell in the latter stages of the event. Ten cars, including the repaired Marion, finished the race  

The records for the 1910 season are spotty, but it appears Patschke drove the 60-horsepower four-cylinder Stearns in “free-for all” race at Brighton Beach in July and again in mid-August. “Free-for-all” meant that the cars could be modified from stock.  

In the August 19-20 race, Cyrus, teamed with Al Poole, but the car they drove was not a Stearns factory entry, rather it was owned by John Rutherford of New York City who reportedly had loaned Patschke the car just 24 hours before the race.  Cyrus completed the first lap of the event in 1 minute and fourteen seconds from the standing start, and then set a new track record as he completed 57 miles in the race’s first hour.

During the second hour, the 60-horsewpoer six-cylinder Matheson driven by Basle, took the lead but crashed, and while the Matheson was in for repairs, the Stearns regained the lead which it never relinquished, and Patschke and Poole set a record of 1,253 miles completed to the Matheson’s 1,175 miles. Only four of the nine cars finished the event.  

1910 proved to be a trying year for Cyrus personally, as on September 6, Cyrus was driving a Stearns demonstrator car near Sandy Hook Connecticut when he encountered two men along the road whom Cyrus claimed shouted and stood in the path of the car.  Patschke assumed they were hold-up men, and though he attempted to swerve around them he struck one of the men, Michael Hourigan. Cyrus drove onto Waterbury Connecticut where he reported the incident to the police.  

Days later, Cyrus, 21 years old, and identified in press reports as a resident of Kingston New York, was arrested and charged with the responsibility for Hourigan’s death. Coroner Clifford Wilson heard testimony from both Patschke and the third man in the incident, Thomas Shehan, who claimed the pair were on their way home from a local pub and tried to flag a ride.  

On September 10, Coroner Wilson issued his determination that Patschke was not at fault for Hourigan’s death with a broken neck. “Patschke, an expert driver, was not driving recklessly, but was using due caution and had his car under control.”    The Coroner’s ruling was accepted by the Grand Jury and the matter was closed.   

On October 23, Cyrus’ father Augustus, who had retired from the rope business, died suddenly at his home in Lebanon from “acute indigestion “at age 60.

Our next chapter will examine Cyrus' key role in winning the first Indianapolis 500-mile race.