1909 Buick racer 

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum featured four cars from the Speedway’s history in a special “From the Vault” exhibit at the 2019 PRI (Performance Racing Industry) show. 

One car in the exhibit, the 1909 Buick, is of interest since to racing historians as it participated in the earliest automobile races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in August 1909 and won the second race held at the track.  

After the purchase of the 328-acre Pressley Farm property in December 1908 by four partners – Carl Fisher, James Allison, Frank Wheeler and Arthur Newby – construction on the track started in March 1909. The racing surface of the 2-1/2-mile oval was created by the placement of layers of gravel and limestone mixed with tar and oil of varying thickness topped with crushed stone chips.

The first motorized racing event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a series of motorcycle races, held on August 14, 1909, did not go well due to failure of the track surface and the planned second day of racing was cancelled by Indiana Motorcycle Club officials.  

The first three-day automobile racing meet, sanctioned by the American Automobile Association (AAA), was scheduled for August 19 through the 21^st, 1909 with each day to feature several short races and a long-distance trophy race. Anticipation for these events ran high as many automobile manufacturers entered cars for the Indianapolis races.   

David Buick started his eponymous automobile company in 1903 with a majority partner Benjamin Briscoe, who soon sold his shares in the company to James H. Whiting, who moved the company to Flint Michigan. The following year, Whitting lost control of the company to William Durant, and in 1906 David Buick sold his shares and left the company. Durant soon built Buick into one of the top-selling car brands in America. 

Buick factory photo and specifications of the 1909 Buick 16B roadster 

Durant believed in the promotion of Buick sales through automobile racing, and Buick publicized their racing success through press releases. Durant built a successful team in 1909 led by Swiss emigre Louis Chevrolet, teamed with George DeWitt, Lewis Strang and Bob Burman. The team primarily drove Buick model 16B racers with a 112-inch wheelbase roadster chassis powered by the proven Buick four-cylinder engine.

The Buick 16B racers, stripped of their fenders, running boards and lights made extensive use of wood for the floorboards and firewall with the seats mounted directly to the floorboards and the car rides on 34-inch diameter wood spoke wheels with mechanical brakes on the two rear wheels only.  

Louis Chevrolet and the Buick 16B photographed 

at the 1909 Ira Cobe Trophy race

Photograph appears courtesy of IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection  

The Buick factory team arrived Indianapolis “in a big express rail car” with a level of optimism on the strength of the victory by Chevrolet at the previous AAA race held the Crown Point Indiana road course - the 395-mile Ira Cobe Trophy Race held two months earlier. Chevrolet led the final four 23 ¼- mile laps at Crown Point to win with an elapsed time of just over eight hours even though the Buick only ran on three cylinders for much of the event.  

On Tuesday August 17 on the way to the Speedway for practice, Cliff Litterall, a mechanic with the Stoddard-Dayton team which was headquartered in a shop near downtown, jumped (or fell) from the race car in which he was riding and was run over by a following team car. The 28-year old Litterall (alternately spelled Littrell) suffered a crushed chest and the father of two died in Methodist Hospital on Thursday morning. 

The opening slate of five races began at noon before a crowd of 12,000 spectators on Thursday August 19.  The first event was a five-mile race for stripped chassis AAA class 4 machines with engines that displaced from 161 to 230 cubic inches.

The Buick entry that competed in the first event was a Buick Model 10 powered by a four-cylinder engine that displaced 165 cubic inches with George DeWitt behind the wheel, and DeWitt finished third behind a pair of Stoddard-Dayton machines. After the first event, drivers already complained about the track surface and the extreme danger posed by the open drainage ditches adjacent to the racing surface.

The day’s second event, a ten-mile race for stripped chassis AAA class 3 cars with engines that displaced 231 to 300 cubic inches, featured three Buick 16B racers, all equipped with a 298-cubic four-cylinder engine, which fitted with a single Schebler carburetor developed 32 horsepower.  

Louis Chevrolet led the 4-lap race wire-to-wire from the standing start in our featured car followed by teammates Strang and Burman. Chevrolet’s winning time of eight minutes and 56 4/5 seconds was a new world record for the ten-mile distance that eclipsed the old record set at the Empire City one-mile horse track in New York in October 1908 by a remarkable 15 seconds. Unfortunately the identity of the Buick's riding mechanic is not known. 

The third race of the day was a five-mile race for stripped chassis AAA class 2 machines with engines sized from 301 to 450 cubic inches and again, Chevrolet, Strang and Burman were entered in Buicks, these were probably equipped with 318 cubic inch engines. Burman finished second and Chevrolet third behind William Bourque in a Knox. The fourth race was a “free-for-all” 10-mile handicap race won by Harry Stillman in a local entry, the Marmon.          

The finale for Thursday was the 250-mile (100 lap) Prest-O-lite Trophy race for Class 2 machines with three 318-cubic inch displacement Buicks entered for Chevrolet, Burman and Strang. The Prest-O-Lite Company, owned by Fisher and Allison, manufactured and sold cylinders filled with compressed acetylene gas used to power headlights.

Strang retired early from the race after his Buick caught fire, while Chevrolet led the first 14 laps before he yielded to Burman and later made a pit stop. On the 58^th lap, the Knox, driven by Bourque with his riding mechanic Harry Holcomb, hit a rut, left the track, veered into the drainage ditch and flipped. The crushed car came to rest upside down against a fence and both men suffered fatal skull fractures in the accident, thus they became the first fatalities recorded at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Press reports indicated that the Buick driven by Louis Chevrolet was directly behind the Knox and that it was only through Louis’ “superior driving skills” that he avoided colliding with the crashing Knox. Chevrolet retired from the race immediately, reportedly he was blinded after his goggles were smashed and Louis withdrew. 

Late in the race it came down to a duel between Fred Ellis in the Jackson and Burman in the Buick – Ellis led from lap 82 to lap 88, then faded as Burman led the rest of the distance to claim the Prest-O-lite Trophy and the $1,000 prize.   

On Saturday August 21, the scheduled 300-mile Wheeler-Schebler Trophy race, the grand finale of the Indianapolis meet, was cut short due to deteriorating track conditions which had resulted in several crashes and the fatalities of Claude Kellum, a riding mechanic, and two spectators.

Kellum was originally assigned by National Motor Vehicle Company to ride with Johnny Aitken, whose #8 National dropped out on lap 40.  Later during the race, the #10 National’s original riding mechanic, Robert Lyne fainted, and Kellum replaced Lyne. On lap 70, the right front tire burst on the National driven by Charles Merz (later the Chief Steward at the Speedway) crashed through a fence and Kellum and two spectators were killed.     

Research for this article also uncovered two lawsuits that occurred in the aftermath of the 1909 Wheeler-Schebler Trophy race that may be of interest to racing historians.

When the race was stopped at 94 laps or 235 miles, due to ruts in the surface and clouds of dust, referee S B Stevens declared the race as “abandoned,” in effect the AAA stated that there was no race and thus no winner. Accordingly, the Speedway declined to award the Wheeler-Schebler trophy which was valued at $10,000 and announced that the race for the trophy would be run as the first race of the 1910 season.  

A copy of the Jackson advertisement in the Indianapolis Star 

that led to the AAA banning Jackson from racing for a time 

The Jackson Automobile Company of Jackson Michigan owner of the car driven by Leigh Lynch that was leading the race when it was stopped, sued the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on August 26^th to obtain the trophy, and Jackson published newspaper advertisements after the race in the Indianapolis Star newspaper that announced that its car had won the race. After a hearing, the AAA Contest Board announced on October 12, 1919 that the Jackson Automobile Company was banned from AAA competition until January 1, 1910. 

Another legal case related to the 1909 Wheeler-Schebler Trophy race was filed in April 1910, when Carrie Kellum the widow of the mechanic killed in the crash of the National sued both the National Motor Vehicle Company and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for negligence and asked for $10,000 in damages. The case was heard in Hancock (County) Circuit Court in December 1912 and the jury awarded Ms. Kellum $7,000 in damages. After an appeal by the Speedway, the award was affirmed by the Indiana Supreme Court in June 1915.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum acquired the Buick Model 16B in 1964 and it has been painstakingly restored to its appearance on August 19, 1909 when it won the second automobile race held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

All color photographs by the author