The Start of the 1936 Indianapolis '500'
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photographer unknown
With the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500-mile race fast approaching, today we focus on the race held 80 years ago. The above photograph, from the Ed Reynolds collection owned
by the author, shows the exact moment of the flying start of the 24th running
of the International 500-mile Sweepstakes at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at
10 A.M. Central Standard Time on May 30, 1936. The photograph represents a number of intersecting
lesser-known stories from one of the more fascinating eras of Indianapolis 500-mile
races.
1936 was the sixth year of the often ridiculed American Automobile
Association (AAA) “junk formula” rules package devised in 1928 by Indianapolis
Motor Speedway owner Eddie Rickenbacker. There is a common misconception that
what we today derisively call the “junk formula” came into being as a result of the
Depression, but the new rules were published by the AAA on January 9 1929, ten months
before “the Crash.”
These rules, set to go into effect for the 1930 Indianapolis
‘500,’ were intended to encourage racers to use running gear from passenger
automobiles. In Rickenbacker’s mind, these new rules would cut the cost of
racing, increase the number of ‘500’ race entries, and
stir more public interest in the ‘500.’
In addition to banning superchargers on four-cycle engines, the rules required each car carry a driver and a riding mechanic. Riding mechanics had been optional at the Speedway since 1923, but unused and while riding mechanics were certainly the bravest of the brave men that raced on the bricks, their inclusion in the “junk era” rules led to a number of unnecessary fatalities.
When the initial “junk rules” package failed to have the desired effect of reducing the domination of “pure” racing engines, not passenger car engines, Rickenbacker and the AAA introduced limits on the amount of fuel that could be used to complete the race. The “junk formula” rules at Indianapolis were abandoned after the 1937 season, as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the AAA sanctioning body adopted the new FIA (International Automobile Federation) “international formula” for 1938. Looking back over its seven-year history, while the size of the fields increased, the “junk formula” was in the end a failure, as the winner of the ‘500’ each of the “junk” years was powered by either a Miller engine or its Offenhauser derivative.
The Pacemaker
Tommy Milton smiles from the drivers seat of the Packard One-Twenty Pacemaker
At the far right of the photograph is the Packard One-Twenty
(or 120) Convertible “Official Pacemaker” driven by the first two-time winner
of the 500-mile race, Thomas “Tommy” Milton accompanied by Speedway General
Manager Theodore E. ‘Pop’ Myers. The
gleaming white Packard with red trim and interior, powered by the 282-cubic
inch aluminum-‘L’ headed straight-eight engine rated at 120 horsepower was the
third Packard pacemaker in the history of the Speedway. The previous Packard pace
cars were the 1915 “Six” driven by Speedway co-founder Carl Fisher, and the
1919 “Twin Six,” as Packard advertised its V-12 power plant, which was driven
by Packard’s Vice-President and Chief Engineer, Colonel Jesse Vincent.
The Packard One-Twenty series, introduced in 1935,
essentially saved the company during the Great Depression competing against
other ‘mid-market’ marques such as General Motors’ LaSalle and Chrysler’s
Airstream. In 1935, sales of the luxurious Packard ‘Fourteenth Series’
automobiles had dropped to less than 7,000 cars sold, while nearly 25,000 of
the One-Twenty series were sold. In 1936, over 55,000 Packard 120 series cars
were sold which dwarfed the Packard luxury car sales which amounted to less
than 6,000 cars.
The 1936 Pontiac 6 Official Car
The Packard One-Twenty model line featured seven different
body styles as opposed to its competitor LaSalle, which offered just four body
styles. Packard offered a “120” four-door sedan, two-door sport coupe, two-door
touring coupe, four-door club sedan, four-door touring sedan, two-door business
coupe and the $1,100 convertible coupe which was the basis of the Indianapolis ‘Pacemaker.’
All the One-Twenty series cars shared the same “X-design” 120-inch wheelbase frame
which featured Packard’s “Safe-T-Flex” front suspension. In an interesting variation
from the modern era, there were several different automobile manufacturers’
products in use on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway grounds in 1936. The track’s “Official Car” was the 1936
Pontiac 6 coupe, while Chief Steward Charles Merz’ official car was a 1936 Airflow
DeSoto.
During his 11-year racing career, Pacemaker driver Tommy
Milton won 20 AAA championship races, and along with his two Indianapolis 500-mile race victories
in 1921 and 1923, he also finished in top ten three times in just eight starts
at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Both
of Milton’s 500-mile race victories came in dominant fashion - in 1921 Milton
led the final 90 laps of the race after Ralph DePalma’s Ballot retired with a
broken connecting rod. In 1923 Milton was even more dominant, as he started from
the pole position in the ‘H.C.S. Special’ after he set new one- and four-lap
track records in time trials. During the race Milton’s car led the most laps,
128, including the final 49 circuits after Tommy returned to the car after
being relieved by Howard O. “Howdy” Wilcox.
Tommy Milton retired from automobile racing after the first race of
the 1926 season, and in retirement, Milton worked for the Packard Motor Car
Company as a development engineer. During 1926, Milton and long-time friend and
fellow Packard employee C.W. Van Ranst developed and built a new Indianapolis
entry, the ‘Detroit Special,’ funded by multimillionaire Cliff Durant.
The engine in the 1927 Detroit Special
The ‘Detroit Special’ used a unique front-wheel drive design
a version of which that Van Ranst later used on the prototype 1931 Packard V-12
front-drive passenger car, and a two-stage supercharging system for the Miller
engine developed by Dr. Sanford Moss. In a confusing series of events, after speculation that Milton would return to drive the new car, Milton "hired" Durant to drive the car in the '500.' On May 27, it was announced that Durant was unable drive due to a "sudden illness," and that Milton would replace. him Milton qualified on May 28 for the 1927
Indianapolis 500 where he finished eighth in his final racing appearance.
Tommy Milton continued to work in the Detroit area as a
consulting engineer for multiple automobile manufacturers for the rest of his
life. He never drove the Pace Car again, but from 1949 through 1957, Tommy Milton
served as the Chief Steward for the Indianapolis ‘500.’ Milton took his own
life in his Detroit area home in July 1962 after he had suffered through
several years of deteriorating health.
Starting on the Pole
Alongside the Packard One-Twenty, starting from the coveted pole
position for the 1936 Indianapolis 500-mile race is the ‘Gilmore Special’ driven
by Rex Mays from Riverside California, who had spent the early years of his racing
career honing his skills on the fast and dangerous 5/8-mile oiled dirt surface
of Legion Ascot Speedway in Los Angeles. 1936 marked the second year in a row
that Rex and his Miller-powered ‘Gilmore Special’ built by Clyde Adams and
owned and maintained by Paul Weirick and Art Sparks had started from the pole
position for the ‘500.’
Mechanics and car owners Weirick and Sparks were a potent
team in AAA ‘big car’ racing; together they won the AAA Pacific Southwest title
three years running from 1931 to 1933. With
the addition of driver Rex Mays, the trio added the 1935 AAA Pacific Southwest
championship and the 1936 AAA Midwest title. The ‘Gilmore Special’ was powered
by a unique 238 cubic inch displacement Miller engine modified and assembled by
former Hollywood stunt man Sparks.
Chickie Hirashima in 1962
Not only was the pole-winning car and driver the same as
1935, but even Mays’ riding mechanic was the same man - Japanese/American Takeo
‘Chickie’ Hirashima. Hirashima’s remarkable career at Indianapolis stretched
the late nineteen eighties; “Chickie” was a member of the 500-mile race winning
Thorne Engineering crew in 1946, was a two-time Indianapolis-winning engine
builder in 1959 and 1962, served as the winning chief mechanic in 1960 and later
worked as a representative for the Autolite and Champion spark plug companies.
Despite their success on the AAA big car circuit, while the
Weirick-Sparks-Mays team fielded a fast car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
that speed never translated to good finishes. In 1935, Mays and Hirashima
started from the pole position, led the first 63 laps, and then led 26 laps
later in the race before yielding the lead to eventual winner Cavino ‘Kelly’
Petillo before the ‘Gilmore Special’ retired with broken steering on lap 123.
In 1936, Mays and Hirashima again led the field away from the pole position, and
held the point for the first 12 laps of the race, before they settled into a
comfortable pace but ran out of their fuel allotment eight laps short of the
finish.
As noted earlier, to enhance the impact of the AAA “junk
formula” rules which encouraged the use of passenger car engines over pure
racing engines, races teams were given a limited amount of fuel with which to
complete the 500 mile distance. In 1935, the limit was 42 ½ gallons (11-3/4
miles per gallon average) and after the race, testing found that winner Kelly
Petillo had two extra gallons, second place Wilbur Shaw three leftover gallons,
and fourth place finisher Floyd Roberts five gallons in reserve, and only one
car ran out of gas. The allotment for 1936
was then reduced to just 37 ½ gallons, or 13-1/3 miles per gallon average, but
clearly the rule makers went too far, as seven entries ran out fuel during the
1936 500-mile race and for 1937, the fuel allotment rule was rescinded.
The second place
starter
Starting second, in the middle of the front row for the 1936
500-mile race was another West Coast ‘big car’ graduate Elbert ‘Babe’ Stapp and
his riding mechanic, Indianapolis native John Apple. The pair shared the
‘Pirrung Special’ a front-wheel drive machine powered by one of the earliest 220-cubic
inch inline four-cylinder Offenhauser racing engines. The car, designed by
Wilbur Shaw and Offenhauser associate Leo Goossen a master draftsman and
engineer, was built in the Los Angeles area by master metal craftsman Myron
Stevens and longtime Shaw associate and veteran ‘500’ chief mechanic, Roscoe E.
Dunning.
A speed shot of Babe Stapp in the Pirrung Special
The ‘Pirrung Special’ debuted at Indianapolis in 1935, driven
by Shaw with Dunning as crew chief and former driver Stevens as his riding mechanic.
This was perhaps a unique circumstance in Indianapolis ‘500’ history as a car
builder competed on course against no less than six other cars which he had
built. Shaw and Stevens finished in second
place, just 40 seconds behind Petillo that comprised the first
Offenhauser-powered one-two finish at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The owner of the light blue ‘Pirrung Special’ was young
sportsman Gilbert “Gil” PIrrung, of Clayton Missouri a 1934 graduate of Yale with a Bachelor of Science degree. Gil was accomplished squash player and golfer and heir to the Gaylord
Container fortune. Pirrung was born on July 12 1911 near Columbus Ohio, and
after his father died when Gil was just a year old, his mother married Robert
Gaylord, president of the Gaylord Container Company of Saint Louis Missouri, the
innovator of the corrugated fiberboard pallet mounted “bulk box.”
The press understandably had a field day with such a young
man as a race car owner and newspaper articles featured a posed photo of Gil
“tuning” his car for the 1935 race. In addition to the second place finisher,
Gil Pirrung owned a second car in the 1935 ‘500,’ a conventional rear-drive
Miller-powered Miller ‘122’ chassis and bodywork modified by former Duesenberg
employee Herman Rigling to comply with the two-man rules. The #8 rear-drive Yale Blue “Pirrung
Special” finished ninth in 1935, driven
by George ‘Doc’ McKenzie with riding mechanic Billy Devore, who would later
race in the ‘500 ’seven times beginning in 1937.
Tony Gullotta and Carl Riscigno
After achieving such success during their rookie year at
Indianapolis in 1935, the Pirrung team struggled during May 1936. On May 15,
the day before Stapp qualified the front-drive car for the middle of the front row,
teammate Tony Gullotta destroyed the second Pirrung entry in a practice crash
exiting turn four which injured Tony and his long-time riding mechanic Carl
Riscigno “painfully but not seriously” according to the Indianapolis Star.
Pirrung, in 1936 a vice-president at Gaylord Container, then
purchased a similar replacement car from Michael de Baets but Gullotta was
unable to find the necessary speed in the replacement entry to qualify for the
33-car starting field. During the 1936 ‘500,’ Stapp and Apple led twice for a total of 35
laps before the “Pirrung Special’s” Offenhauser engine broke a crankshaft while
the pair were leading on lap 89, and the Pirrung entry was placed 24th in the
final standings and won $1,585.
The front-wheel drive car and the rest of the Pirrung racing
operation which also included a DOHC (double overhead camshaft) Frontenac ‘big
car’ was later purchased by another
heir, the notorious Joel Thorne. Thorne had the Shaw front wheel drive
machine’s body revised to a single cockpit design and he personally drove the
car to a ninth place finish in the 1938 Indianapolis 500. In 1939, midget
standout and ‘500’ rookie Mel Hansen was racing in the top ten positions behind
the wheel of the former ‘Pirrung Special’ until he hit the pit wall on lap 113.
Former Indianapolis car owner Gil Pirrung remained as a
vice-president and board member at Gaylord Container through 1956 except for
the time that he served in World War 2 as a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel with
an engineering battalion and earned the Silver Star. After 1956, Pirrung
purchased Aragaon Farm in Bainbridge Georgia where he lived until his passing
March 1986.
Outside front row
On the outside on the front row is another front wheel drive
entry, the Miller-powered ‘Boyle Products Special’ driven by veteran Chester
“Chet” Miller with veteran riding mechanic S.T. “Pinkie” Donaldson. This
particular car had a long history at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that
started when it debuted in 1930 with blue and gray livery as the ‘Miller-Hartz
Special,’ owned by retired 1926 AAA national driving champion Harry Hartz. It was built by Hartz and Jean Marcenac using
the widened Miller front-drive chassis formerly owned by Peter DePaolo powered
by a Miller 122 cubic inch engine bored out to 152 cubic inches of displacement
cloaked in two-man cockpit bodywork by Phil Summers.
Billy Arnold and Spider Matlock started from the pole
position in the new “Miller-Hartz Special” and led the last 198 laps on their
way to victory in the 1930 Indianapolis ‘500.’ The 1931 Indianapolis 500-mile was
continuation of the same as Arnold, Matlock, and the Miller-Hartz dominated
until an axle snapped on lap 162 with Arnold holding a five-lap lead. Arnold
and Matlock recovered from their severe 1931 injuries and led 57 laps of the
1932 ‘500’ until they crashed out on lap 59.
Harry Hartz sold the repaired car to 1932 ‘500’ winner Fred Frame who
entered it in the ‘500’ in 1933, 1934 and 1935, with a best finish under
Frame’s ownership of tenth place in 1935 with the car driven by Chet Miller.
After the 1935 ‘500,’ Fred Frame sold the front-wheel drive
machine to Chicago IBEW Union Local 134 vice-president and business manager Michael
Boyle, who had owned cars at the Speedway since 1927 when he entered four cars,
three of which made the field. Boyle is the subject of Brock Yates’
controversial book Umbrella Mike: The True Story of the Chicago Gangster behind
the Indy 500. Boyle entrusted the
care and operation of his new car to his chief mechanic Harry “Cotton” Henning,
who retained the pairing of Miller and Donaldson for the 1936 ‘500.’ The pair would finish the ‘500’ in fifth
place, five and half minutes behind the race’s first three-time winner, Louis
Meyer.
Chet Miller would continue to pilot the ‘Boyle Special’ Summers-bodied
front drive chassis at the Speedway until 1939. The car was converted back to a
single cockpit body with a 255 cubic inch Offenhauser engine for 1938 and was destroyed in a backstretch flip after
Miller took to the infield to avoid the crash during the 1939 ‘500’ that killed
defending champion Floyd Roberts. Miller
himself would die at the Speedway in 1953 at age 50 in a crash of the front
wheel drive Novi as he practiced in preparation for his seventeenth
Indianapolis ‘500.’ Chet died at the
wheel of the same car with which he had set new one- and four-lap track records
during time trials for the 1952 ‘500.’
The flagman
Seth Klein
At the upper left corner of the photograph, one can just
glimpse the starting flag waved by honorary starter, U.S. Army Air Corp Captain
Albert William Stevens. Stevens had achieved worldwide fame in November 1935 when
he and Captain Orvil Anderson ascended nearly 14 miles into the earth’s
atmosphere beneath a balloon inside a sealed gondola. The balance of the race was flagged by
Speedway Chief Starter Seth Klein, who served in that role from 1934 until
1953.
Inside on the second row
Starting in fourth position, on the inside of the second row
and partially visible between the Gilmore and Pirrung Specials is the “Gilmore
Speedway Special” the same Offenhauser-powered Wetteroth chassis that won the
1935 Indianapolis ‘500’ driven by Cavino “Kelly” Petillo, but it was not Petillo
that was behind the wheel for the start of the 1936 ‘500. ‘
Kelly Petillo in 1935
Following his 1935 ‘500’ win Petillo became greedy and
demanded large appearance payments in advance from race promoters. For the September
1935 Altoona (Pennsylvania) 100-mile race, Petillo and the promoter sparred
over his appearance payment and once an agreement was finally reached, it was
so late that the AAA Contest Board was forced to decline Petillo’s entry.
Kelly won two more races on the six-race 1935 AAA
championship circuit with victories at St. Paul Minnesota on July 9 (after
which he claimed his trophy was stolen) and the final points-paying race at
Langhorne Pennsylvania. Despite not competing at Altoona Petillo easily
captured the 1935 AAA national driving title over Bill Cummings with 890 points
to Cummings’ 630 points. In recognition of his accomplishment Petillo was
presented a diamond set medal at a banquet held the day before the running of
the 1936 Indianapolis 500.
Petillo had announced his retirement from driving after the
1935 season, as he said he had seen and experienced enough crashes and death.
On April 5 1936, probably in need of money, Petillo changed his mind,
unretired, and filed an entry for his Wetteroth chassis that listed himself as
the driver for the 1936 Indianapolis ‘500.’ Petillo’s entry blank listed the
option of the use of one of two Offenhauser blocks, one that displaced 248
cubic inches (which was used in the race) or a larger bore block that displaced
262 cubic inches. On May 7 Petillo
changed his mind again and announced his retirement.
As his replacement to drive the “Gilmore Speedway Special,”
Petillo selected the goateed 1935 East Coast AAA big car champion George D.
‘Doc’ Mackenzie, so nicknamed as he was the son of a physician. In place of the original nominated
“mechanician,” (the Speedway’s term for the riding mechanic) West Coast ‘big
car’ owner and mechanic Harvey Ward of Arcadia California, Mackenzie chose
Herschel Caitlin who had ridden with Mackenzie during the 1935 season in the
Bowes Seal Fast entry.
Petillo announced that he would manage the race from the
pits but when ‘Doc’ a veteran of four previous 500-mile races, pitted from the
top ten for tires and fuel on lap 142, Petillo demonstrated his management
style and personally replaced Mackenzie as the driver of the ‘Gilmore Speedway
Special.’ Time magazine later reported that the retired Petillo “could no longer stand the strain of seeing
his car behind the leaders and jumped in to drive himself.”
With his car re-filled with fuel and fitted with
new tires, Petillo set off after leader Louis Meyer, and as he drove deeper and
deeper into the corners, he climbed to sixth position by lap 180. In the race’s
last 20 laps, Petillo passed two more cars then sped past Shorty Cantlon for a
third place finish after Cantlon’s car ran out of fuel on lap 194. Petillo
never mentioned retirement again, and he and the Wetteroth chassis appeared
annually in the Indianapolis ‘500’ through 1941.
‘Doc’ Mackenzie was seriously injured in a five-car accident
on July 12 1936 during an AAA ‘big car’ race in Reading Pennsylvania, and while
he was hospitalized, “Doc” married Verna Mather on July 21. Mackenzie left the
hospital in early August, now clean-shaven at the request of his bride and on
August 23 in his second race back from his injuries, ‘Doc’ qualified in third
starting position for the 25-lap AAA ‘big car’ race at the one-mile Milwaukee
Mile. At the drop of the green flag, ‘Doc’ charged low into the first turn, clipped the left front wheel of
pole winner George Connor’s machine and flipped four times into the inside
railing. The 30-year Mackenzie died later that day at the Milwaukee General
Hospital from his injuries.
The middle of the
second row
Visible between the Pirrung and Boyle entries is the 1936
fifth-place starter, the ‘Marks-Miller Special’ owned by grocer and garage
owner Joe Marks from Gary Indiana and driven by George Connor. The chassis,
built by Clyde Adams in 1934, was powered by an Offenhauser 255-cubic inch
engine (one of only five built) purchased from Louis Meyer. Kelly Petillo won
the pole position in the new ‘Red Lion Special’ and led the first six laps of
the 1934 ‘500,’ but finished a disappointing eleventh. Babe Stapp qualified
twelfth in the Marks-Miller for the 1935 ‘500,’ but retired with a broken
radiator on lap 70 finished in 25th place and earned $470.
The Marks racing team was a family operation that included
his wife, Amelia, and his mother-in-law Mary Falcione, (alternately spelled Falcioni)
who allegedly funded the team. The family first became involved in racing with
an employee of the grocery store in 1926 and according to June Meyer, bought
Louis Meyer’s entire racing operation in June 1932 for cash. Joe Marks fielded a
‘big car’ entry at Legion Ascot Speedway powered by the same 255 cubic inch
Offenhauser; this was the car in which Bob Carey perished in April 1933. The
mysterious Marks/Falcione family continued to field Indianapolis entries through
the 1941 running of the 500-mile race then dropped from sight.
George Connor in 1946
The Marks’ 1936 driver, second-year Indianapolis starter
George Connor was born in Rialto California and first trained to be a pilot
before he started racing around 1926.
Connor was another of the many graduates from the fast and dangerous
Legion Ascot Speedway that included Rex Mays and Wilbur Shaw.
After he passed his rookie test at the Speedway in 1934, in his first start in 1935, Connor drove another Joe Marks-owned Myron Stevens built entry. Connor and riding mechanic Ed Kaelin in the Marks-Miller were the last pair to complete the full distance in the 1936 ‘500’, and they finished in tenth place, having completed their 200th and final lap 58 minutes after the first three-time ‘500’ winner Louis Meyer had taken the checkered flag.
After he passed his rookie test at the Speedway in 1934, in his first start in 1935, Connor drove another Joe Marks-owned Myron Stevens built entry. Connor and riding mechanic Ed Kaelin in the Marks-Miller were the last pair to complete the full distance in the 1936 ‘500’, and they finished in tenth place, having completed their 200th and final lap 58 minutes after the first three-time ‘500’ winner Louis Meyer had taken the checkered flag.
Connor and Kaelin would return in the Adams-built Marks-Miller
for the 1937 ‘500,’ and their ninth place finish was the car’s best-ever result
in its long history; the car last appeared at the Speedway in 1951 as the
non-qualifying ‘Palmer Special’ driven by Jackie Homes. George Connor retired from race car driving at
age 46 during time trials on Sunday May 23 1954, and was the last surviving
pre-war Indianapolis ‘500’ driver when he passed away at age 94 in March
2001.
The 24th running of the International 500-mile Sweepstakes saw
the origination of three traditions at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway which
will still be celebrated at the completion of the 100th running of the ‘500’ in
2016. 1936 marked the first time the ‘500’
race winner received a replica of the pace car as part of his winnings (at
Tommy Milton’s suggestion), the first time the magnificent Borg-Warner Trophy
was awarded, and the first time the ‘500’ race winner drank milk from a glass
bottle in Victory Lane.
All the photographs that accompany this article, except the lead photograph, appear courtesy of Indianpolis Motor Speedway Collection in the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies.
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