The Pete Kreis story Part five 1932 to his death and beyond

 

The Pete Kreis story

Part five 

1932 to his death and beyond

The photo from the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection shows Pete Kreis, left shaking hands with Henry Ford in 1932

Following the 1931 Indianapolis 500-mile race, at Cliff Durant’s direction, Tommy Milton sold the ‘Detroit Special’ (last raced by Kreis in 1929) to Harry Hartz, who had metalsmith Phil Summers build a two-man body. Hartz installed a 182- cubic inch straight-8 Miller engine in the chassis and entered ‘Miller-Hartz 2’ in the 1932 International 500-Mile Sweepstakes.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Eddie Rickenbacker’s dream of automaker involvement under the “junk formula” came true in 1932 with the Studebaker factory’s five entries. A year earlier, prolific Indianapolis race car builder Herman Rigling built one car for Ab Jenkins and Studebaker chief engineer George Hunt that used a Studebaker Commander straight-eight engine, transmission and axles. 

Although it crashed out on lap 167, the car performed well enough in the 1931 ‘500,’ that the Studebaker Corporation hired Rigling to build four copies for the 1932 ‘500.’

The factory supplied the 336 cubic-inch, L-head, 8-cylinder Studebaker President engines, 3-speed manual transmissions,  front and rear axles, brakes and steering components. Rigling built the chassis and Pop Dreyer built the two-man bodies. 

Hunt designed an intake manifold fitted with four Studebaker single-throat carburetors, supplemented with an aftermarket exhaust manifold and magneto which boosted engine output from 110 to 175 horsepower. 

The driver lineup for the Studebaker team included Tony Gulotta, the 1931 driver, Luther Johnson, Zeke Myer, Cliff Bergere and Albert Jacob “Pete” Kreis. The cars were each painted in a different Studebaker President passenger car color – silver, black, blue, red and green. 

Even before the big track opened for practice, on Sunday May 1 the team ran a test led by manager and Chief Engineer George Hunt. Gulotta and Johnson drove a combined 660 miles in one of the team cars reportedly at an average speed of 102.6 MPH “exclusive of the pit stops” per the Indianapolis News. 

Peter Kreis is his Studebaker for the 1932 '500' at the right of this photo of the team courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

Four of the Studebaker team cars qualified on the first day of time trials, Saturday May 21 and Bergere led the team in qualifying as the #22 averaged 111.503 MPH to start tenth. Cliff just edged his teammate Luther Johnson’s four-lap run of 111.218 MPH which placed the #46 Studebaker eleventh.  Kreis in the #18 wound up seventeenth fastest at 110.270 MPH while Gulotta posted a 108.896 MPH average and would start twentieth. 

Zeke Meyer in the final Studebaker Corporation entry, qualified on the eighth and final day of times trials, on Saturday May 28th and ran ten laps at an average speed of 110.745 MPH to start 38th in the 40-car starting field.     

On Decoration Day Monday May 30 1932, it initially appeared that it would be another runaway by Billy Arnold and Matlock in ‘Miller-Hartz 1’ as they took the lead of lap 2 and proceeded to lap the field. 

However, in an eerie repeat of the previous year, Arnold and Matlock crashed in turn three on their 59th lap after the car slid in oil while they lapped Pete Kreis’ car and hit the wall injuring both driver and mechanic  for the second year in a row. This time Matlock suffered a broken pelvis while Arnold broke his collar bone, but Arnold never raced again, reportedly at the urging of his wife.  

After a mid-race 36-lap duel with Wilbur Shaw, Fred Frame in ‘Miller-Hartz 2’ took command on the 153rd lap and led the rest of the way.  Frame, with riding mechanic Jerry Houck  won the 1932 ‘500’ by a lap over Howdy Wilcox II with a new record average speed of 104.144 MPH despite the necessity for six pit stops to add water to the radiator for the overheated Miller engine. 

Three of the Studebaker entries finished the 1932 ‘500’. Bergere and his riding mechanic Vern Lake led the Studebaker team with a third place finish in the red #22 only four minutes behind winner Frame. 

Meyer (unrelated to fellow driver Louis)  and Walter Mitchell finished sixth in their green #37 with an average speed of 98.476 MPH, and Gulotta and his mechanic Carl Riscigno scored a 13th place finish in the silver #25 flagged with 184 laps completed; they were positioned for a good finish but lost considerable time when a tire blew in turn one late in the race. 

The two Studebaker entries that failed to finish were both the victims of crashes. On lap 164, Luther Johnson’s black #46 Studebaker with Billy Mallar alongside lost a wheel on the main straightaway. Kreis lost control of the blue Studebaker #18 on the main straightaway on lap 178 and crashed in turn one in front of the ‘E’ grandstand. Pete and his riding mechanic Aaron B. Vance, an Indianapolis resident, finished 15th, one spot better than Johnson.

Four nights later, all the Studebaker team members, including the pit crew, were honored in a testimonial dinner held in the Studebaker Corporation Administration Building in South Bend Indiana.  Prize monies were awarded and top Studebaker officials took turns praising the team. The South Bend Tribune reported the comments of Paul Hoffman vice president of sales “the biggest tribute I can pay them is to say that they performed even more credibly than expected.”

On June 22^nd, Kreis and Vance were back at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway “making an experimental run,” (Firestone tire tests) when a tire blew out and the car reportedly “went over the retaining wall” in the third turn.  Details were sketchy, just that Kreis’ injuries “are not serious,” as reported by the Knoxville News-Sentinel while the Indianapolis Star reported both men suffered broken ribs, cuts and bruises.

Later in the summer of 1932, Pete took part in the Studebaker traveling auto show that stopped at Studebaker dealerships across the state of Pennsylvania. Pete appeared with one of the Studebaker Indianapolis cars and gave a brief talk about his racing experiences. 

In one appearance in Altoona, newspaper advertisements claimed Pete would drive the race car through noon day traffic while he wore a blindfold and black hood.

One night after Christmas 1932, Pete had another close call when his Chrysler coupe plunged off Topside Road near Knoxville, caught fire and burned to the ground but Pete received no injuries. 

For the 1933 race, the AAA Contest Board instituted a new rule that limited fuel tanks to 15 gallons and a limit of six gallons of oil used during the race. 

Following his success in the 1932 ‘500,’ winning driver Fred Frame went on a spending spree. Frame bought the “Miller-Hartz 1” (crashed by Arnold in 1931 and 1932) and rechristened it as the “Frame-Miller.”

Frame also bought a four-cylinder Miller 220-cubic inch powered Duesenberg 122 chassis built in 1930 and entered in the 1933 Indianapolis ‘500,’ while he continued to drive “Miller-Hartz 2” for Harry Hartz in 1933.  

Hartz nominated 1932 AAA Pacific Southwest Big Car championship runner-up mustachioed rookie driver Lester “Les” Spangler for his second entry, a rear-drive four-cylinder Miller 255 cubic inch-powered Miller chassis. Hartz purchased this car, the 303-cubic inch DOHC Miller V-16 powered machine from Bill White, shortened the chassis and in place of the V-16 installed one of the first Miller 255 cubic inch engines.

When the official Indianapolis entry list closed on May 1, 1933 Frame had nominated Pete Kreis as the driver of the front-drive Frame-Miller, while Paul Bost would pilot the Duesenberg. On May 3 the Knoxville New-Sentinel reported that Pete Kreis left Knoxville for Indianapolis. 

As he departed Knoxville Kreis told the reporter “I believe I will have my best chance to win this time.” Upon arrival in Indianapolis Kreis found that his car had not arrived, and Pete, a scratch golfer wiled away his time with Bill Heinlein on the Speedway golf course according to the Indianapolis News.

On Saturday May 20 1933, Pete Kreis, on his second attempt, qualified the gray and blue trimmed #2 machine at an average speed 114.370 MPH for his 10-lap 25-mile time trial run which slotted him eleventh in the 42-car starting field on Decoration Day.  Pete had aborted his first attempt earlier in the day after nine laps were completed due to a tire problem.   

A driver protest delayed the start of the 1933 International 500-mile Sweepstakes. Speedway physician DR.  H R Allen disqualified sixth-fastest qualifier Howdy Wilcox II due his diabetic condition (reported as epilepsy). The other 41 drivers protested and refused to start the race and presented a petition signed by all 41 drivers that demanded that Wilcox be allowed to race.

Dr. Allen refused to allow Wilcox to compete, and the drivers remained unmoved even after AAA steward Eddie Edenburn’s impassioned speech.  Finally, after more than an hour’s delay, Speedway officials pushed Wilcox’s ‘Gilmore Special’ off the grid and Edenburn ordered Mauri Rose to start the car from the tail of the field.        

With the first thirty laps completed, Kreis with mechanic Charles Marant rode in seventh place in ‘Miller Hartz 1’, one lap behind leader Bill Cummings, but Pete retired on lap 63 with a broken universal joint in the left front wheel. 22 laps later, his car owner Frame joined Pete on the sidelines as his Miller-Hartz broke a timing gear.

On lap 132, the Hartz second car, the cream and red #14 tangled with Malcom Fox’s semi-stock Studebaker and rolled onto the wall in turn two. Several hours later both driver Spangler and riding mechanic Glenn "Monk" Jordan died of their injuries, the fifth and sixth victims of crashes at the Speedway in May 1933.  Louis Meyer led 71 laps to win his second Indianapolis 500-mile race.

Eighteen days later, on June 17^th 1933, Kreis and his friend and instructor Charles “Sonny” Rising took off from Island Airport near downtown Knoxville, but the engine in Kreis’ Waco biplane quit on takeoff. The plane stalled from a height of 300 feet, grazed a tree and crashed into the Tennessee River upside down.

Kreis, despite his injured right eye, arm and shoulder and the loss of the tip of the middle finger on his right hand, pulled the unconscious Rising from the wreckage and saved “Sonny” from drowning. After their rescue, both men were admitted to Howard-Henderson Hospital, with Pete released a week after the accident to convalesce at home.

After five deaths at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1933, for the 1934 International 500-mile Sweepstakes, the AAA instituted a limit of 45 gallons of fuel and six gallons of oil per car for the 500 miles to slow the cars down. The teams were allotted three gallons of gasoline to qualify, estimated at 12 laps for a time trial run; one lap to get up to speed, the ten timed laps and one cool-off lap.

Just before he left for Indianapolis, Pete took delivery of his new car, a 1934 Ford Model 40 (V8-powered) 3-window coupe from the Vester Motor Company located on Main Street in Knoxville.

Hartz entered his car number 14 without a driver named and when Harry and the front drive Miller- Hartz 2 (the 1932 ‘500’ winner) arrived at the Speedway on Sunday May 13 Indianapolis Star reporter W F Sturm quizzed Hartz as to possible drivers.  Hartz mentioned rumors of Billy Arnold, and Sturm reported that when asked about Pete’s desire to drive the car, Hartz stated that Kreis had not a said anything to him about it.

Three days later, Hartz had still not named a driver but on Wednesday May 23 Sturm reported that Kreis will “probably drive the Hartz car.” On Thursday May 24^th Hartz announced that Kreis would take his first laps on the morning Friday May 25 and qualify later that day. Lengthy practice would not be needed as the reader will recall that Pete a veteran at the Speedway, drove the ‘Miller-Hartz 2’ chassis in 1926 powered by a supercharged 91-cubic inch Miller-powered engine and in 1929 as the two-stage supercharged “Detroit Special.”

It was later reported that at 7:40 AM on Friday May 25, Kreis and fellow driver Cliff Bergere stopped at the corner of Michigan Street and White River Parkway while they were enroute to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and lent aid in a fatal passenger car accident until the ambulance arrived.  

Just after 9 AM, the 34-year veteran Tennessee racer headed onto the track to take his first practice laps for 1934. Reportedly, Kreis and his riding mechanic Bob Hahn turned several slow warm-up laps, then ran several laps at approximately 90 MPH before Pete picked up the throttle for a flat-out lap.  In the Garage Area, car owner Hartz supervised a photography session with Frame and no one in the pit area seemed to pay much attention until the #14 car did not appear.

Patrolman J R McCormick of the Indiana State Police, on duty on 16^th Street, later provided the only eyewitness report. McCormick stated that he heard the car hit the wall at the exit of turn one then he watched it slide along the wall for approximately 80 feet before the car climbed the 3-foot high wall and slid along the top of the short chute wall for approximately 75 feet.

This Indianapolis Star photo shows the damage to the Miller-Hartz 2 in Pete's fatal crash as the car is in the garage area the following day. 

The ‘Miller-Hartz 2’ fell off the south wall and tumbled down the 16-foot banking and hit a tree. After the car hit the tree it broke in half. The front of the car from the cowl forward including the engine and front drive traveled another 40 feet while the crushed tail of the car rested against the tree.

Officer McCormick rushed to the scene and removed Hahn from the wreckage of the car but he died before the ambulance arrived. McCormick reported Kreis’ body landed 20 feet from the wreckage and that Pete had been killed instantly.

Doctor John Slab, the Marion County deputy coroner who investigated reported that Kreis suffered a fractured skull, crushed chest and partial amputation trauma to both his legs. Hahn, the riding mechanic, suffered a fractured skull, broken leg and arm and crushed chest.  

The #14 Miller-Hartz reportedly struck the same tree George W. “Benny” Benefiel hit in the crash of the Jones & Maley Special in qualifying two years earlier that killed riding mechanic Harry Cox. Officials never determined the cause of the Kreis fatal accident but speculation focused on mechanical or tire failure.

A later unidentified witness described as a track guard by the Indidapolis News claimed that he saw the #14 car’s wheels shimmying before it hit the wall. Based on that observation, experts surmised that either a steering knuckle or tie rod connection broke.

The afternoon of the Kreis/Hahn fatality, Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Eddie Rickenbacker gave what in retrospect seems to be a rather callous statement to the Indianapolis News “a serious accident happened at the race track this forenoon and I deeply regret it. However, it is a thing that happens in every walk of life. Men are willing to take a chance in pioneering for progress and glory.” 

21-year-old riding mechanic Williams Robert “Bob” or “Howdy” Hahn, raised on a turkey ranch in Chino (often erroneously reported as Chico) California had raced on the West Coast in some CARA (California Auto Racing Association) dirt track events in 1932.

Hahn raced “back east” in 1933 at tracks in Lewistown Pennsylvania, Woodbridge and Flemington New Jersey and the Harford County fairground in Maryland.  In 1934 he returned to California, lived in Manhattan Beach and worked as a mechanic for Harry Hartz. Bob, divorced with a son William Hahn Junior was buried May 29 1934 in Forest Park Cemetery in Glendale California.

With Pete’s mother at home convalescing after an appendectomy, Kreis family friend Dr. Herbert Craig and Pete’s brother-in-law Herbert Clark left Knoxville on Friday for Indianapolis to retrieve and return Pete’s remains to Knoxville, with his funeral held on Sunday afternoon May 27.

Several hundred people attended the ceremony at Mann’s Chapel with more than a hundred floral offerings that included a 12-foot diameter floral steering wheel. The funeral procession to Asbury Cemetery in Knox County included more than 100 cars where Pete Kreis, a bachelor survived by grandparents, parents, 2 brothers and 3 married sisters was interred.  

One brother, John, died in a car accident two years later and the other, Roy, with whom Pete worked with at the construction firm, died of a heart attack in 1937. His mother died in 1938 at age 65 and his father fell to his death in a barn on his turkey farm at age 72 in 1945.     

After being torn in half in the crash Louis “Curly” Wetteroth rebuilt the ‘Miller Hartz 2’ for Harry Hartz who entered the car at Indianapolis in 1936.  Sophomore driver Eylard Theodore ‘Ted’ Horn started eleventh, led 16 laps and finished in second place at Indianapolis in 1936.

Horn returned in the same car the following year, fitted with a supercharger, and finished in third place in the 1937 Indianapolis 500-mile race. In 1938, after the end of the “junk formula” rules package, fitted with a new body and rear suspension, Horn qualified sixth and finished fourth in the ‘Miller-Hartz 2’

After Ted Horn left Hartz for the Boyle Valve racing team for 1939, veteran Herb Ardinger drove the Miller-Hartz in 1939 followed by midget racer Mel Hansen in 1940. Hartz did not enter the car for the 1941 running of the 500-mile race. 

After the war, new car owner Robert J McManus entered it for rookie Tony Bettenhausen in 1946 and Tony made his first '500' start in the machine and finished 20th.  In 1947, motorcycle racer  Roland Free returned after a 17-year absence and finsihed 17th after he spun out on lap 87. 

Acquired by Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Anton “Tony” Hulman after its racing days, today the ‘Miller-Hartz 2’ is part of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum collection restored and displayed as the 1932 ‘500’ winner.  

Author's photos of the restored Miller-Hartz 2 at the

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum

author's photo

Albert Jacob “Pete” Kreis’ cemetery monument, erected in September 1935, measures 11 feet wide and 5 feet high and weighs an estimated eight tons including the concrete foundation. On the face of the monument is a replica of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway race track, complete with a detailed marble replica of the #14 Miller-Hartz car jumping the wall at the location of Pete’s fatal crash. The inscription on the monument reads “The Last Lap.” 

author's photo

The center of the marble monument is a detailed relief portrait of Pete in his racing helmet while the left side of the monument shows the outline of a race starter that strongly resembles AAA steward Eddie Edenburn as he displays the checkered flag.

The huge block of grey Tennessee marble came from the Kreis family’s Appalachian Marble Quarry Company.  The sculptor of the monument, Italian emigre Albert Milani of the Day Marble & Granite Company, worked non-stop for nine weeks to complete the monument placed in the Asbury cemetery located two miles from Pete’s childhood home.  Readers of The New York Times Magazine recognized Milani’s work on the Pete Kreis monument as the most outstanding of 1935.    

In July 1948, the new Broadway Speedway in Fountain City, north of Knoxville presented “The Pete Kreis Memorial” midget racing program on its ¼-mile dirt oval sanctioned by the short-lived Indiana-based Consolidated Midget Auto Racing Association.

The CMARA racers mainly drove V8-60 Ford powered midgets, but boasted two stars in Offenhauser-powered midgets – Woody Campbell and Gene Force, but Walter “Leadfoot” Geis won the race and received the trophy from Hazen Kreis, Pete’s first cousin. Although the track existed through the 1958 season it never repeated the “Pete Kreis Memorial Race.”

A sportsman that competed purely for the love of sport, Pete Kreis never won any AAA races but his driving skills were highly regarded by fellow competitors (and later car owners) Harry Hartz, Earl Cooper, and Tommy Milton. Kreis competed in a very dangerous era of automobile racing with cloth helmets wound up giving his life for the sport, and his sacrifice is honored with a magnificent monument. 

 

 

1930’s Muroc Record breakers

Part three

In our last chapter about the land speed record (LSR) attempts conducted on Muroc Dry Lake during the 1930’s we traced the early history of  the Clyde Adams built “Catfish” race car designed by renowned Stanford aeronautics professor Elliott Grey Reid. The car dropped off  the 1932 AAA (American Automobile Association) national  championship trail- why?  

After the July 2 race at Syracuse race where “Stubby” Stubblefield finished second,  the current Class C world speed record holding car was purchased from Art Sparks and Paul Weirick by the 1932 Indianapolis winner Fred Frame who used it on a nationwide barnstorming tour. According to author Gordon Eliot White, Sparks and Weirick used the $8500 proceeds from the sale to buy a pair of Miller 220 engines stroked to 247 cubic inches which they used in their successful AAA Pacific Southwest circuit ‘big car.’

The “Catfish” & Fred Frame

On Saturday October 29 1932, Frame and the “Catfish” appeared in a match race sanctioned by the AAA against the 1927 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner George Souders who returned to racing after three years.  Severely injured in a dirt track crash at Detroit July 1928 in which he suffered a compound skull fracture and broken bones in both arms, Souders retired as race driver the following February.

The first race on the 5/8-mile West Texas Fairgrounds in more than two years was promoted and officiated by local petroleum products trucking company owner D.H. Jefferies, who imported the 1925 Indianapolis winner Peter DePaolo to act as the official starter. The 75 laps of racing action was scheduled to be divided into three heats- the first heat distance of 30 laps, the second 25 laps, and the last heat 20 laps. 

The interesting twist in Abilene was that the “Catfish” was driven by Souders, not Frame who drove his Miller-powered Duesenberg with which he had finished second at the 1931 Indianapolis ‘500.’ Frame purchased the blue-painted Duesenberg from owner Harry Hartz after the 1931 season, entered it for Billy Winn at Indianapolis in 1932, and then drove the car himself for the balance of the 1932 AAA season. Sometime prior to its appearance at Abilene, Frame had replaced the original Duesenberg engine with a Miller power plant.  

The Frame cars arrived in the Abilene area early in the week and were placed on display. The “Catfish” was parked at Christian’s Super Service the local Firestone tire distributor, while Frame’s Miller-Duesenberg was on display in the showroom of the Fulwiler Motor Company, the local Ford dealer  On Wednesday October 26, as the “Catfish” was towed behind a truck to the race track it bumped the back of the truck which “dented its snout.”

With the damage quickly repaired, Souders practiced the “Catfish” extensively on Thursday while Frame took a local newspaper reporter, Harold L. “Prexy” Anderson, along as a passenger for a few fast laps around the 5/8-mile dirt track. After the run, “Prexy” a long-time Abilene fixture self-described as “one of the most widely read and quoted sports writers in the southwest” wrote that it had been his “first racing ride - and last” while Frame for his part, noted that he had been running “at a snail’s pace.”

The Abilene Morning News reporter noted that while the “Catfish” was super-streamlined which allowed it run faster on the long straightaways at Indianapolis, it had “no advantage on the Abilene short course.” On Friday morning after a few practice laps, Souders directed mechanics to install a lower rear end drive gear in preparation for the following day’s race.

The race program which began at 3 PM on Saturday was very well attended but turned out to be not very competitive. Souders in the “Catfish” which still carried its Gilmore sponsorship logos suffered a flat tire during the first 30-lap heat race and George finished two laps in arrears. Souders was more competitive in the remaining two heat races, but Frame swept all three heat races wins that day.  

Frame and Harry Hartz at Muroc in 1933

 

 

This photograph from the June 1934 issue of Popular Science magazine

show a crew readying the Union '76' Special at Muroc Dry Lake

In March 1933  the “Catfish” powered by a Miller 255 marine engine reappeared at Muroc Dry Lake prepared to set new records driven by Frame and Harry Hartz.  Leading up to the record runs in early March 1933, newspaper articles ran across the country with a photograph of Hartz seated in the “new ultra-streamlined car” which “resembles very much a prehistoric monster.” Sponsorship for the record attempt was provided by with Union ‘76’ gasoline.

The Union Oil Company founded in 1890 in Santa Paula California sold its products through independent and company owned service stations. Union introduced its ‘76’ grade of gasoline on January 2 1932 and on February 6 1932 filed a trademark application which was rejected by the examiner of trademarks. The reason given was that “the number `76' applied to gasoline would doubtless indicate to the purchaser the octane rating….or Baumé gravity (density).”

An affidavit filed by the company responded that “said numeral `76' was not affixed by said Union Oil Company of California to the gasoline to indicate its gravity or octane rating or any other grade, characteristic or quality of the gasoline, but merely as an arbitrary trademark." This dispute clearly outlines the confusion over Union’76’ gasoline, as even 85 years later, there remains the public perception that Union ‘76’ gasoline had a 76 octane rating.

Union newspaper advertisements were carefully worded but bragged of the gasoline’s performance advantages. For example an advertisement in the San Bernardino Sun published in September 1932 read in part “Union 76 gives extra performance - this fresh gasoline broke and still holds every American stock car speed record from 1 to 500 miles.” This is a reference to the records set in July 1932 by Eddie Miller and Earl Cooper in a pair of V-12 powered Auburns.   

The Union ‘76’ ad went on to state “under all motor operating temperatures on the road, new Union 76 Gasoline has the highest anti-knock or octane rating of any non-premium gasoline sold!  Qualities vary in different gasolines. You will find Union 76 with its superior qualities of quick starting, anti-knock and power gives you the economy of greater mileage and smoother performance.”

After numerous appeals and rejections in 1937 the tribunals of the Patent Office affirmed the decision of the Commissioner of Patents’ rejection of the registration. The decision stated that the “numerals ‘76’ are mis-descriptive of a grade or quality of oil and do not indicate origin. It appears that the mark "76" might be understood by the purchasing public to be a grade or quality mark so the appellant should not be given the right to use these numerals to the exclusion of all others engaged in the trade.”

Even today Unocal (Union’s predecessor) states that “in 1932, the company introduced a new high-octane gasoline with the brand name 76. The number 76 is no ordinary number but was incorporated to mark a token of respect to the Declaration of Independence of United States of America dated 1776.”

Harry Hartz, the 1926 AAA national champion had retired from racing after suffering severe injuries and burns in a 1927 crash on the Rockingham board track in Salem New Hampshire. Hartz became a car owner and won the 1930 Indianapolis ‘500’ in car he modified.  

The following year, defending champion Billy Arnold in Hartz’ car led the first 155 laps of the 1931 Indianapolis ‘500’ before he crashed out with a six-lap lead, and Hartz’ second car driven by Fred Frame finished second.  In the 1932 ‘500,’ Frame returned in a Hartz owned machine and won after he led the final 58 laps.

On March 9 Hartz set new International Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR) records for the “flying” one kilometer and one mile at 148.70 Miles per hour (MPH) and 151.10 MPH respectively. The following day Hartz set the new 10-mile Class C record of 146.71 MPH as he covered the distance in a scant four minutes and 5.39 seconds which broke John Godfrey Parry-Thomas’ record which had stood since 1926. 

On March 11, Hartz set the new five-kilometer standard at 145.93 MPH which broke Stubblefield’s record set in the same chassis by more 12 ½ miles per hour. Fred Frame then took the wheel for the five-mile run that same day and he broke Stubblefield’s nine-month old record by over fourteen miles per hour.

The following day Sunday March 12 1933 Frame set new International Class C standards for 50 kilometer and 50 mile distances from a standing start. Kaye Don had set the old records in 1929 on the high-banked Brooklands track in England, but on a circular course set up on the flat dry lake surface, Frame smashed the old records. Frame’s new 50-kilometer speed of 136.52 MPH broke Don’s record by nearly 13 MPH, while his 50-mile average speed of 139.64 MPH bettered Don’s record by over 15 MPH.

The “Catfish” after the Muroc Class C records

 

Johnny Seymour and Frank Hinkley celebrate qualifying

for the 1934 Indianapolis 500-mile race

Photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

 

The Clyde Adams built “Catfish” did not appear at any AAA championship races in 1933, but it was entered by Fred Frame as the unsponsored “Streamline Miller” for the 1934 Indianapolis ‘500’ for driver Johnny Seymour.  Johnny, himself a former land speed record holder on an Indian motorcycle had four previous starts at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway all behind the wheel of front-wheel drive machines.  

Fred Frame entered three cars at the Speedway in 1934 - the “Catfish” with the Miller engine de-stroked to just 200 cubic inches of displacement, the old Miller-powered Duesenberg for rookie Rex Mays and the 1930 Indianapolis winning front wheel drive car purchased from Harry Hartz for Frame himself.  Seymour struggled through practice to find sufficient speed, while Mays comfortably qualified on the third day of time trials at 113.639 MPH.

On Monday May 28 the last day of qualifying disaster struck during Frame’s 10-lap qualifying run when a steering arm broke and the front wheel drive entry crashed into the wall and was damaged beyond immediate repair. Frame and his riding mechanic Aloysius ‘Al’ Theisen, a young dirt track racer were shaken but otherwise uninjured.

Frame watched from the pit area as Seymour posted a ten-lap qualifying average of 108.591 MPH to become the slowest car in the starting field. Seymour and his riding mechanic Frank Hinkley started the “Streamline Miller” last in the 33-car field but they were sidelined on lap 22 by either a burnt rod bearing or broken pinion gear 

Frame later sold the “Catfish” to Charles Worley around the time that its International 1-mile, 1-kilometer and five kilometer records were smashed by Rudolf Caraciola in a modified Mercedes W25 Grand Prix car. The record car funded not by an oil company but by the Nazi party, was fitted with a canopy over the driver and powered by a 205-cubic inch straight eight double overhead camshaft engine that developed a reported 430 horsepower. 

On October 28 1934 on five-kilometer stretch of specially constructed roadway known as “the Gyon record stretch” between Budapest and Kecskernet Hungary, Caraciola posted an astonishing two-way average speed of 197.35 MPH for the “flying kilometer” and 196.78 MPH for the “flying mile.” In an enormous jump in speed, both runs were nearly 50 miles per hour faster than Hartz’ records set just a year and half earlier  Caraciola afterwards compared the W25’s ride on the 18 feet 6 inch wide concrete to racing a limousine and the car forever become known as the “Rennlimousine"

 

 

The 1934 Mercedes W25 Rennlimousine

photo courtesy of Daimler AG

 

On December 10 1934 the “Rennlimousine” modified with a lower canopy, a wider windshield and a set of air intakes and outlets made its attempt at the five kilometer record at the AVUS (Automobil-Verkehrs und Übungsstraße) track in the Berlin suburbs which was composed of two six-mile long straightaways connected by tall banked brick curves. At the end of the day, Caraciola smashed Hartz’ record by 46 MPH and establish the new AIACR Class C five kilometer standard of 197.86 MPH

 

Frank McGurk and Karl Hattel pose before the 1936 Indianapolis 500 start

Photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 

 

The “Catfish” returned to Indianapolis in 1936 powered by a Ford Model B engine with a ‘DO’ (double overhead camshaft) Cragar cylinder head conversion as the ‘Abel’s Auto Ford Special.’  Frank “Wildman” McGurk a Legion Ascot Speedway veteran but a rookie on the Indianapolis bricks was selected to pilot the car he also drove Worley’s ‘big car.’

Karl Hattel a talented 21 year old midget racer served as McGurk’s riding mechanic and the pair qualified the “Catfish” with a ten-lap average speed of 113.102 MPH on the busy second day of time trials to take their place as the 22nd starter. On Race Day, the number 52 “Catfish” was sidelined after 51 laps after the crankshaft broke in the Ford engine.

Before the 1937 Indianapolis ‘500’ ownership of the “Catfish” passed to another of the era’s multi-talented men, Frank Brisko who was a race driver, mechanic, engine and car builder. Brisko first raced on the Indianapolis 2-1/2 mile brick course in 1929 and had introduced his own engine design in 1936. Brisko fitted one of his own 271-cubic inch six-cylinder double overhead camshaft engines between the frame rails of the “Catfish” for rookie driver Dennis “Duke” Nalon. After “Duke” could not get the #21  “Elgin Piston Ring Special” up to speed, veteran Dave Evans, who first raced in the ‘500’ in 1925 gave it a try but fell short as the car could not complete its qualifying attempt.

Postscript

According to Gordon Eliot White, the “Catfish” was driven by Emil Andres in the 1938 Indianapolis 500-mile race but the car was unrecognizable as the “Catfish” as it had been re-bodied with a one-man body after the end of the AAA “junk formula” rules following the 1937 season.  The “Catfish” was gone but it had spawned some similarly styled machines; in 1938, Floyd “Pop” Dreyer built a Harley-Davidson powered midget race car that was a small-scale homage to the “Catfish.”  

Wilbur Shaw's winning "Pay Car" in 1937  

note the similarity to the "Catfish"

photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

The most famous of the cars inspired by the aerodynamic “Catfish” was the Wilbur Shaw “Pay Car.”  Built by Myron Stevens who rode with Shaw in the car’s debut in the 1936 Indianapolis ‘500,’ the pair lost ten minutes during the race when the hood came loose and the “Gilmore Speedway Special” finished seventh.   The following year the “Pay Car” returned;  Shaw started second, led 131 laps and recorded his first of three “500’ victories.   

Douglas Hawkes at Indianapolis

Part three - 1929

While his 1926 Indianapolis 500-mile race car owner Ernest Arthur Douglas (E.A.D.) Eldridge continued to set speed records, in 1927 Wallace Douglas Hawkes joined the British division of the French car manufacturer Derby. Founded in 1921 to build and sell motorcycle-powered cars,  by 1927, Derby offered three models - a tiny 8-horsepower sports car powered by a 67-cubic inch four-cylinder engine and a pair of small displacement side-valve six-cylinder powered two-seat cars. 

Derby which sold most of its cars in England used speed records to promote its brand, with its star driver Englishwoman Gwenda Stewart who often paired with Hawkes in pursuit of long-distance sped records. To further advance its record setting publicity efforts, Hawkes was dispatched to Indianapolis in May 1929 to buy a car for Mrs. Stewart’s use in setting records.  The car Hawkes purchased and had shipped to Britain  was a front wheel drive supercharged 91-1/2 cubic inch Miller which became known as the “Derby Miller.”

The “Derby Miller” began life as one of the two first front wheel drive racers built by Harry A. Miller Engineering for 1922 Indianapolis 500-mile champion Jimmy Murphy who was killed in a crash at Syracuse New York in September 1924 before the cars were completed.  The cars were entered by Harry Miller for the 1925 Indianapolis ‘500’ but Bennett Hill disliked the handling of his assigned car, fitted with inboard brakes and withdrew. Dave Lewis in the other Miller front-drive finished the 1925 Indianapolis ‘500’ in third place.

Both the Miller front wheel drive cars made the Indianapolis starting field in 1926 and after the race driver Earl Cooper arranged to buy the car he drove and he built three semi-copies all paid for by Buick. Before the 1927 ‘500,’ Buick pulled its support, so all four front drive cars were entered as “Cooper Engineering Specials.” Julian Arthur “Jules” Ellingboe was assigned to the original supercharged Miller built machine but he crashed in the north end of the track as he completed his 26th lap. The car rolled over and may have ejected Ellingboe, who in his sixth Indianapolis ‘500’ suffered severe chest injuries and two broken legs and never raced again.

 

Phil “Red” Shafer bought the wrecked Miller and with funding reportedly from the AC Spark Plug Company a division of General Motors, rebuilt the car along with parts taken from another unidentified wrecked Miller.   Shafer was a multi-talented man, as in addition to being a mechanic and car builder he started the 1924 Indianapolis ‘500’ after three previous relief driving appearances, and continued to appear as a driver at the Speedway through 1936.

 Prior to the 1928 Indianapolis 500-mile race, AC pulled their support and the rebuilt front-drive Miller painted gold appeared without sponsorship driven by sophomore driver Elbert “Babe” Stapp. Stapp qualified fifth and finished seventh in the ‘500’ and then made four more appearances in the #7 Miller front-wheel drive car during the 1928 season, with a best finish of fourth at the season finale, the ‘International Motor Classic’ at the Rockingham Speedway board track in Salem New Hampshire.

When Stapp moved on to drive for millionaire William S. White for the 1929 AAA ( American Automobile Association) season, Shafer himself drove the car, painted black and silver and carrying number 17 in the 1929 Indianapolis ‘500.’ After he qualified eighteenth, Shafer had a troubled race and completed only 150 laps when he was flagged as the twelfth place finisher. After the race, Shafer sold the front-drive Miller to Hawkes and his associates and it was shipped overseas.

Gwenda Stewart was born in 1894 in England and served as an ambulance driver during World War One. In 1920 she married Sam Janson and became a motorcycle record setter, but in 1923 the pair divorced and Gwenda married motorcycle manufacturer Neil Stewart. In 1928 she moved into automobile record setting paired with W. Douglas Hawkes and the pair set a number of 12- and 24-hour distance records in a Vernon Derby, the nameplate for the Derby marque in Britain.  

Beginning in 1929, Gwenda Stewart drove the “Derby Miller” in multiple record breaking attempts over the next five years at the steeply banked (51 degree) 1.58-mile long Autodrome de Linas- Montlhéry parabolic oval south of Paris. Unlike its British counterpart, Brooklands   Montlhéry was designed and built with reinforced concrete beams and pillars to support the high banking concrete surface rather than being built on dirt embankments. 

In September 1930 Mrs. Stewart and the “Derby Miller” set Class E (91 ½ cubic inches engine displacement) records for 100-miles at 118.13 miles per hour (MPH), one hour at 118.29 MPH and 200 kilometers (KM) at 118. 32 MPH.  In another attempt later in October 1930 Stewart blew the Miller engine. After it was rebuilt, in March and July 1931 Mrs. Stewart reset the Class E records for the five and ten mile distances and the five, ten, and fifty kilometer distances and in August she reset the fifty mile, fifty kilometer and 100 kilometer records. In October 1931 she reset the 200 kilometer record at 121.75 MPH.      

During March and April 1933 the “Derby Miller” and Mrs. Stewart reset the new Class E standard for one mile three separate times eventually setting the record at 143.29 MPH. During April 1934, Mrs. Stewart reset the Class E record for both the five mile and five kilometer distances at 140 MPH. In July 1934 she reached the highest speed in the “Derby Miller” so far and set new records for the one mile and one kilometer distances of 147.79 MPH at Montlhery.  On August 6 1935 Stewart and the “Derby Miller” set the Ladies Outer Circuit absolute lap record at Brooklands at 135.95 miles per hour.   

 

Gwenda Stewart and the "Derby Miller" on track at Brooklands in 1935

Courtesy the Brooklands Museum

During the early nineteen thirties, Douglas Hawkes moved to France full-time to work as a manager for Derby, and while there Hawkes arranged for the factory to build two cars for Gwenda to race in the 24-hour endurance race at LeMans.  In 1934, there was a special Derby sports car, and in 1935 a hybrid Maserati-powered Derby, but both years, the cars retired early in the grind with mechanical failure.  During the mid-nineteen thirties, the Derby car company, never a high-volume manufacturer, encountered financial difficulties and ceased business during 1936. 

The “Derby Miller” was offered for sale during 1936 but failed to find a buyer even after the price was reduced to 750 pounds ($3700). Under the AAA “junk formula” rules, the car’s engine was no legal for competition and it would have been costly to ship the Miller back to United States and re-fit it with an AAA-legal engine.  The car dropped out of sight and was reportedly parted out and considered lost by historians. The “Derby-Miller” reappeared in 1993 after a complete reconstruction and restoration by Dallas real estate developer and race car collector Mitchell Rasansky. The gleaning Miller is finished in black and silver with red wheels which is reminiscent of the livery it carried in the 1929 Indianapolis 500-mile race.  

Gwenda's affair with W. Douglas Hawkes finally resulted in Neil Stewart divorcing her and a third marriage in 1937 to Hawkes. The pair returned to England and ran the Brooklands Engineering Company Limited which manufactured and supplied engine parts to racers. Hawkes and Stewart later retired to the Greek islands, where Douglas died in 1974 at age 80 and Gwenda passed away in 1990 at age 96.

Douglas Hawkes at Indianapolis 

Part two – 1926

In 1926, Wallace Douglas Hawkes, the Bentley engineer who drove in the 1922 Indianapolis ‘500,’ lived in France and worked with wealthy amateur racer Sir Ernest Arthur Douglas Eldridge.

Eldridge, born to a wealthy English family, lived part time in France, did not look the part of a racer – he was stoutly built and wore eyeglasses. After his service as a Major in the French Army during World War One he owned a number of special race cars that he raced at the famed 2-3/4 mile high-banked Brooklands track an hour southwest of London. Eldridge became best known through his ownership of the engineering monstrosity known as ‘Mephistopheles,’ named after a demon from German folklore.

‘Mephistopheles’ began life as a 1908 Fiat 18-liter racer that literally blew up its engine during a 1922 race at Brooklands and crashed. Eldridge bought the remains and extended the frame rails to accept a massive Fiat A12 World War One surplus aircraft engine. The A12, an inline six cylinder engine displaced an incredible 1325 cubic inches, and while it produced a reported 250 horsepower, it stood nearly 45 inches tall and weighed over 900 pounds. A four-speed transmission fed dual chain drive that transmitted the power to the rear axle.

Eldridge debuted the two-ton car which used drum brakes on the rear wheels only at the Brooklands 2-3/4 mile steeply banked concave concrete oval in October 1923 and set new records. In July Eldridge and ‘Mephistopheles’ traveled to Arpajon, France to attempt to set a world’s land speed record in a meet held on a closed public roadway. Eldridge was opposed by 1914 Indianapolis 500 champion Rene Thomas who drove the six-cylinder 305-cubic inch powered iteration of the Delage DF “torpedo.”

It was clear that ‘Mephistopheles’ was faster, but the French team protested that the monster lacked a reverse gear as required by the rules and officials disqualified Eldridge’s run. Thomas’ run with the Delage with an average speed of 143.31 miles per hour (MPH) thus was recognized as the new world’s land speed record.  

Six days later, on July 12 1924 Eldridge returned to Arpajon with ‘Mephistopheles’ fitted with a rudimentary reverse mechanism and accompanied by riding mechanic John Ames (who was not required by rule) set a new world record of 145.90 MPH. Eldridge’s new record stood for less than three months as Malcolm Campbell set a new record of 146.16 MPH on September 25 1924 on Pendine Beach in Wales in a car that he called ‘Blue Bird’ powered by a 350-horsepower 1116 cubic inch Sunbeam V-12 aircraft engine.

In early October 1924 Eldridge had one final outing with ‘Mephistopheles’ on the 1.58-mile steeply banked concrete L’autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry oval near Montlhéry France. In a six-lap match race against John Godfrey Parry-Thomas’ eight-cylinder Leyland in the track’s inaugural event, Eldridge and his massive Fiat who out as he averaged over 121 MPH. The pair met again in the same machines at Montlhéry in May 1925, and this time Eldridge and ‘Mephistopheles’ retired with a blown rear tire while Parry-Thomas averaged 126 MPH over the six laps. It remains unclear if these were actual head-to-head competitions or single car runs.

As an interesting addendum to this story, Parry-Thomas took the worlds land speed record from Campbell at the end of April 1926. Parry-Thomas drove a car he called ‘Babs’ powered by an American 27-litre Liberty V-12 aircraft engine at 171.02 MPH on the same beach that had been used by Campbell. On February 4 1927 Campbell recaptured the record at 174.224 MPH in the ‘Napier-Campbell Blue Bird’ powered by a 900 horsepower 1460-cubic inch displacement Napier Lion W-12 aircraft engine that used three banks of four cylinders each that shared a common crankcase.

On March 3 1927 Parry-Thomas crashed the revised version of ‘Babs’ during his attempt to recapture the land speed record crown and was killed in a gruesome accident. After a coroner’s inquest was held that resulted in a finding of accidental death, the wreckage of ‘Babs’ was buried on the beach, but after 42 years the remains were unearthed and ‘Babs’ was restored.

In 1925, Ernest Eldridge commissioned two special racing cars, designed with Hawkes’ help, which were built at the Anzani engine works in Paris. One car, designed for road course racing, sported a two-seater body, but the mechanic's seat could be faired over. The second car, a single seater intended for record attempts stood only 31 inches tall at the cowling. Both cars used a 108-inch wheelbase chassis with the belly pan riveted to the chassis rails as a stressed member.

Both the new cars used the same advanced 4-cylinder 91-cubic inch Anzani engine which featured two valves per cylinder operated by twin chain-driven camshafts.  The intake side featured a single Solex carburetor and an aluminum case British-built Berk supercharger. With 5.2:1 compression ratio the engine reportedly delivered 122 horsepower at 5600 revolutions per minute (RPM).

Eldridge used one (it is unclear which) of his new “specials” to set multiple new Class E (91-1/2 cubic inch displacement engine) records at the Montlhéry oval in late 1925. Ernest raised the 10-mile record on three occasions finally setting the record at 121.5 MPH, and he also reset the one hour, 1000 kilometer (KM), 1500 KM, 2000 KM and 1000 mile speed standards.

The Chicago Tribune reported on May 2 1926 that Ernest Eldridge “the English sportsman” and “a young man of independent means” had entered a pair of cars for the 14th running of the 500-mile International Sweepstakes. Although the article noted the cars were built in Pairs it referred to Eldridge’s effort as the first “all British” entry since 1922.  Eldridge would handle the two-seater machine, while W. Douglas Hawkes the driver in the 1922 British effort was assigned to drive the low-slung single seater. The Tribune article stated that the cars were due to arrive in Indianapolis on May 10.

E A D Eldridge in the "two seater" Eldridge Special at Indianapolis in 1926

Photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection at the Center for Digital Studies at the IUPUI University Library

The cars both featured suspension system that used half-elliptic springs on all four wheels along with drum brakes at each wheel. While both cars featured a rounded nosepiece that enclosed the radiator and oil cooler, the single seater sat much lower, with the driver fully enclosed inside the cockpit with the steering shaft running horizontally. At Indianapolis, both cars were photographed with Rudge Whitworth wire wheels shod with Dunlop tires, although press reports indicated the cars were fitted with Duesenberg rims to accommodate Firestone tires.

W D Hawkes in the single seater Eldridge Special at Indianapolis in 1926

Photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection at the Center for Digital Studies at the IUPUI University Library

Reports suggest that the cars may not have arrived in Indianapolis until much later than anticipated accompanied by three mechanics - James Ames, Jean Orves, and Luke Lucas. The delay in arrival apparently did not negatively affect the effort, as Hawkes qualified his unpainted #27 machine on the second day of time trials May 28 with four-lap average speed of 94.97 MPH. Eldridge was one of six drivers that qualified on the third day in his #26 machine with a four-lap average speed of 89.77 MPH.  While the two “Eldridge Specials” were far from the slowest machines in the field, there qualifying runs were several miles per hour slower than the 28-car starting field’s 100.19 MPH average.

The 500-mile race was a surely a disappointment for the English team, as both machines were eliminated by mechanical failure before the halfway point of the race. Eldridge’s car was parked with 45 laps completed with a either a broken steering knuckle or a broken tie-rod. On lap 57 the team called Hawkes into the pits and Eldridge took the wheel of the low-slung #27. Shortly after it returned to the race, the car blew a tire on lap 73 and spun three complete loops. Eldridge managed to avoid hitting anything, returned to the pits for fresh tires and turned the car back to Hawkes, with the car was retired for good on lap 91 with a “frozen camshaft.”

Both the Eldridge Specials were entered for the next race on the AAA (American Automobile Association) championship circuit held June 12 at the high-banked 1-1/4 mile wooden oval outside Altoona Pennsylvania. In this era, long before teams traveled form race to race in semi-tractor trucks with enclosed self-contained transporters, race cars were shipped between race tracks in railroad boxcars.

Frank Elliott’s Miller which had finished sixth at Indianapolis arrived at Altoona on June 7, and Elliott was already on track practicing when a group of thirteen cars including the two Eldridge Specials arrived in rail cars on Thursday morning June 8, with the balance of the machines due to arrive later that afternoon. The two British-built cars the only foreign built cars entered at Altoona were described by the writer in the Altoona Mirror as “peculiar in construction” and “odd looking.”

Under threatening skies on the morning of the race neither Eldridge nor Hawkes turned laps fast enough to make the 17-car starting field.  A huge crowd had turned out to watch the 250-mile racing program and a pre-race stunt flying exhibition by former Army Air Service captain Harry Yost. After completion of a loop, the airplane’s engine quit and after a few moments of drama, Yost crashed into the ground from a height of 30 feet directly in front of the main grandstand. Yost was able to walk away from the crash which demolished the airplane to the emergency hospital in the infield where he was treated for a “bad cut on his chin.”

Thirty minutes later, AAA long-time starter Fred Wagner waved the green flag which turned the field loose and Ralph DePalma led the first fifty-two laps at an average speed of 115 MPH. The veteran pitted which turned the lead over to Harry Hartz who held the point for 15 laps before he yielded to Elliott. The #6 Miller which Elliott owned built up nearly a half a lap lead before it faded late in the race. Dave Lewis caught and passed leader Norm Batten led the last two circuits and won the race with an average speed of over 112 MPH as he edged Batten by just four seconds. 

Both the Eldridge machines were entered for the 200-mile ‘Independence Day Classic’ scheduled for Monday July 5, at the 1-1/4 mile wooden Rockingham Speedway in Salem New Hampshire. 27 cars were entered for the 18-car field after one powerful threat, the 1926 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Frank Lockhart, was disqualified by the AAA Contest Board.

Prior to his surprising victory on Decoration Day, Lockhart had committed to race in the sixth annual ‘Speed Classic of the South’ held in Abilene Texas a race promoted by AAA Southwest supervisor D. H. Jefferies.  When Lockhart tried to back out of his Abilene commitment, Jefferies asked the AAA Contest Board to intervene. The Board ruled that Lockhart had to honor his original commitment and enforced the ruling by disqualifying his entry for the Salem board track race although he was third in AAA points at the time, trailing Harry Hartz and Peter DePaolo.   

During time trials on July 4 Jack Foley a young 25-year old British émigré who lived in suburban Boston crashed to his death in a supercharged Duesenberg owned by pioneer-era driver Jack LeCain who was also the general manager of the Rockingham Speedway.  After taking four warm-up laps, on the fifth lap the Duesenberg swerved up to the track into the guardrail then rolled down the banking of the track which crushed Foley.

 

 

Jack Foley at Indianapolis in 1926

Photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection at the Center for Digital Studies at the IUPUI University Library

 

Foley had made his name a few seasons earlier behind the wheel of his own Model T based Frontenac–Ford racer with a win in an “All Ford” race held in conjunction with the Labor Day “New England Championship Race” on the 1-mile dirt oval in Readville Massachusetts. A period photograph of Foley and his car are contained in Don Radbruch’s book Dirt Track Auto Racing.

Foley had been entered in LeCain’s car for the 1926 Indianapolis 500-mile race but failed to qualify, and had made his first board track appearance just weeks before the accident at Altoona Pennsylvania. Buried in Lowell Massachusetts, Foley was another a sorry victim of the dangerous board track racing era, a time when there was no intermediate training ground between dirt tracks and the brutally fast board tracks.

Neither of the Eldridge cars was fast enough to make the starting field for the July 5th race at Rockingham and by the next race on the AAA schedule on July 17, Ernest Eldridge had purchased a supercharged 91-1/5 cubic inch Miller, chassis number 2307, from Harry Hartz.

The three year old car originally built as a “Durant/Miller” for the 122-cubic inches rules had a bit of a wicked history as it was the car driven by Hartz on Thanksgiving Day 1923 at the Beverly Hills board track that struck three men and killed two of them – 20 year old photographer Russell Hughes and sportsman and Harlan Fengler’s car owner George Wade. A Duesenberg team mechanic Jimmy Lee was also struck and suffered a broken right leg.  Lee recovered and three years later won the 1926 Indianapolis 500-mile race as Frank Lockhart’s mechanic.

The accident occurred after AAA starter Fred Wagner gave Hartz permission to make a test lap after Hartz had reported carburetor trouble. This approval came although the balance of the starting field was still lined up on the front straightaway with a group of men milling around the cars.

Hartz later told the International News Service (INS) reporter “I shifted gears and slowed down as I came into the stretch In front of the grandstand. I saw the other cars ahead of me. I could do one of two things hit the cars or make for an opening. I tried for an opening. I had understood that the upper part or the track was to have been cleared for me to pass.”

As he rolled past the crowd on the high side of the banked wooden straightaway Hartz’ car struck the three men.  Wade was reportedly thrown one hundred feet by the speeding car and died at a hospital an hour later, while Hughes was killed instantly. Witnesses testimony varied widely; Hartz estimated his speed at the time to be 50 MPH, while Wagner estimated Hartz’ speed as 110 MPH, and Hartz’  car owner Cliff Durant estimated the speed to be 70 MPH.  Hartz claimed that “I may have been doing 100 miles an hour on the back stretch but I wasn't going that fast when the accident took place.”

Hartz told the INS reporter “I didn't know I hit Lee and did not see Wade but I saw the photographer when he loomed in my path." Some witnesses claimed that the young photographer had darted into Hartz’ path in an attempt to get a photograph of the fire that had broken out under Joe Boyer’s car, while other claimed that Hughes was standing on a wooden chair.  Allegedly when the film in Hughes’ battered camera was developed the subject of the last photo taken by Hughes was a smiling Harry Hartz. After the accident, a distraught Hartz understandably withdrew from the race, so only 15 cars started the race won by Bennett Hill.

With the differing eyewitness accounts, the Los Angeles County Sherriff’s department investigated the twin fatalities. Hartz claimed the next day in questioning by Undersheriff Eugene W. Biscailuz that Wagner had given him permission to turn a couple of test laps, while Wagner claimed that he had warned Hartz to stop behind the cars which were lined up on the straightaway.  

At the coroner’s inquest held on December 1 the jury returned a verdict that the accident was “unavoidable.” While Hartz was criticized in the testimony of some witnesses “for the speed with which he circled the track” it was also brought out that the two men killed were on the track “against orders from speedway officials.” In an editorial in the December 2 edition of the Bakersfield Morning Echo headlined “Harry Hartz did his best at the track,” the writer stated that “those present say boy did not a chance to do anything different.”   One shudders to imagine the consequences if such a tragedy occurred today.

The Miller was repaired after the crash and driven by Hartz for Cliff Durant throughout the 1924 AAA season and he finished sixth in season points. For the1925 season Hartz became his own car owner added a supercharger and finished third in championship points. The Miller was rebuilt by Hartz again to meet the new formula rules for 1926.

The revamped car was driven by rookie Tony Gulotta to an eleventh place finish at Indianapolis and a seventh place at Rockingham by Wade Morton. With Hartz as the driver and owner, the Miller won two races and notched sixteen top five finishes. With Eldridge behind the wheel at Atlantic City, the grey #31 Miller broke a valve on the tenth lap of the first forty-lap heat race and was finished for the day. Meanwhile in the Eldridge single-seater, Hawkes once again failed to qualify for the starting field.

The three Eldridge machines were shipped back to Europe, with the two Anzani-powered specials having made no impact on American oval racing. In four race appearances the cars had qualified at Indianapolis but retired early and won a combined $1051 then failed to qualify in three subsequent board track appearances.  

Upon its arrival in Europe later in July the Eldridge Miller was rebuilt to its original 122 cubic inch engine displacement configuration used by Ernest to set new Class E records at the Montlhéry oval with the five mile distance covered at an average speed of 140.6 MPH and ten kilometers at 140.2 MPH. At the end of December 1926, Ernest Eldridge and the Miller reset Class E records for 50 KM, 50 miles, 100 KM, 100 miles and one hour, all in high 120 MPH range.

Eldridge returned to Montlhéry in February 1927 with the Miller engine rebuilt to 91-1/2 cubic inches, crashed in his attempt and was seriously injured.  The engine and transmission of the former Hartz Miller car was later used to power the “Lea-Francis Miller” record car and is today reportedly owned by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum according the Michael Ferner who traced the history of the car.

After he recovered from his injuries, Eldridge, who had lost vision in one eye in the 1927 accident, continued to pursue records. In 1929 he and British driver/engineer Don Kay set a 71 MPH Class C 24-hour record at Montlhery in a 1929 six-cylinder 250-cubic inch Chrysler convertible stripped of its top, windshield and fenders. 

In 1930 Eldridge teamed with British driver/engineer George Eyston to attempt to set a new 1000-mile, 24 hour and 48 hour records at Montlhery in a class G Riley Nine roadster but their attempt came up short on speed. Later, Eldridge served as Eyston’s team manager for several world land speed record attempts. After Eyston set a new mark of 345.50 MPH at Bonneville Utah in the twin Rolls-Royce V-12 engine powered ‘Thunderbolt’ in August 1937, Eldridge became ill during the trip home and died in England at age 40 on October 27 1937.   

In the last installment of the Douglas Hawkes story we will review his final trip to Indianapolis in 1929.