Cyrus Patschke- forgotten hero

Part three 

1912 - 1913 Retirement

In January 1912, his hometown Lebanon Evening Post newspaper reported that Cyrus Patschke had purchased an interest in the Ideal Automobile Company, a combination garage and Chalmers and Franklin automobile dealership located at 21 South Ninth Street. The article revealed that Cyrus would move back to his hometown from his current residence in Kingston New York.  Cyrus was named one of the company’s directors initially as the company secretary and manager, but he later was named a company vice-president. 

Cyrus did not race during the 1912 or 1913 season, as he threw his efforts into promoting his new business venture. Late in 1912, his late father’s estate was settled, and Cyrus and his wife moved into a bungalow on Hill Street in the 12^th Street Heights neighborhood that he had inherited from his father's estate.

During the winter of 1912, the Marmon ‘Wasp’ went on a brief tour of automobile shows, which began in New York, traveled to Chicago and then to Dayton Ohio’s Memorial Hall for a week before it closed it tour in Cincinnati, Ohio.  At its car show appearances, both Ray Harroun and Cyrus Patschke were listed as the “Wasp’s” drivers in the 1911 Indianapolis ‘500’ winning effort.    

1914 – out of retirement 

On May 23, 1914 came exciting news out of Lebanon – Cyrus Patschke had signed a contract to drive a second Charles Erbstein-owned Marmon entry in the 1914 Indianapolis 500-mile race as teammate to Joe Dawson, the winner of the 1912 Indianapolis ‘500.’ 

The reader will recall that Marmon had built three “long stroke” 445 cubic inch four-cylinder powered “special” road race cars, one of which Dawson drove in the first ‘500,’ with the remaining cars built later made their first appearance at the Santa Monica Road Races in 1911 driven by Patschke and Dawson.

The Marmon factory did not race the cars after the 1911 season-ending Savannah races, and by 1914 the three “long stoke” cars were in the hands of private owners.  The car that Patschke was scheduled to drive in the 1914 ‘500’ was of two “long stroke” Marmon race cars then owned by Charles Erbstein, a colorful Chicago based criminal lawyer.

However, for unknown reasons, this effort never came to fruition, as only Dawson’s Marmon appeared in the 1914 Indianapolis ’500,’ and Joe crashed on the backstretch on lap 46.  He swerved off the track to avoid running down a riding mechanic involved in an earlier accident and the Marmon rolled over. Joe sustained serious back injuries which would end his racing career.      

On May 26, 1914 Cyrus served as the referee for the automobile races held on the half-mile Lebanon Valley Fairgrounds. In an exhibition run, Louis Disbrow who broke the two-mile ‘world’s record” with a time of two minutes seventeen seconds, 1 and 3/5 seconds faster than the record time he had posted the week before in Johnstown Pennsylvania driving the Simplex Zip.

In addition to the record run, the program featured an Australian Pursuit, and the scheduled five-mile race was broken into a series of two-car match races due to “the considerable amount of dust which at times hid the racers from view of the 5,000 spectators” according to the next day’s Lebanon Daily News report. In reading the news reports, the author suspects that this was a “hippodrome” – a race for which the outcome was previously determined.

   

Curiously, the AAA scheduled two races far apart for the same day in 1914. There were two races scheduled at the 2-mile Pacific Coast Speedway in Tacoma Washington on July 3^rd and 4^th 1914 with Wilbur D'Alene scheduled to appear in Ernest Moross’ “long stroke” Marmon, while Patschke was set to drive a Erbstein “long stroke” Marmon on the two-mile dirt Sioux City (Iowa) Speedway in the 300-mile “Fourth of July Classic,” in place of the injured Joe Dawson.

On June 18, 1914, Patschke left Lebanon, bound first for Indianapolis where he spent a few days, before the Erbstein team left for Sioux City Iowa. While in Indianapolis, Cyrus tested the Marmon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and visited Dawson who was still confined to bed at the Methodist Hospital.

The Sioux City track had been built in late 1911 after its enthusiastic backers attended the first Indianapolis 500-mile race. The track set on a 400-acre property across the river from Sioux City Iowa in Stevens (now North Sioux City) South Dakota was initially built without a grandstand.  The investors later added a grandstand, designed to accommodate 10,000 spectators, and the 1914 “Fourth of July Classic” was the track’s grand opening.  

On June 28, Patschke joined Barney Oldfield, Gil Anderson (both in Stutz racers), millionaire racer Spencer Wishart in a Mercer and Harry Grant in a Sunbeam in practice at Sioux City Speedway. Cyrus set the fastest time in practice with a lap of one minute 29 seconds, but “did not do his best being handicapped with spark plug trouble,” according to The Daily Times of Davenport Iowa.

That same day, far from Sioux City in the Bosnian capital city of Sarajevo, the visiting Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated, an event which would lead to the start of World War One a month later and eventually prevent racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during 1917 and 1918, although the AAA continued to sanction races throughout the War.  One of the racers at Sioux City, Eddie RIckenbacher (the original family surname spelling) would become a national hero during World War One and later own the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 

Qualifying runs were held in Sioux City on July 1 - each car entered was required to complete one two-mile lap in one minute 42 seconds, or an average speed of 70 miles per hour, to be eligible to start the 300-mile grind. Ten cars qualified that first day, led by Wishart who posted a time of one minute 27 4/5 seconds, but Cyrus was not among the qualifiers  

Patschke’s four-cylinder Marmon suffered a repeat of its 1911 American Grand Prize troubles, as a cylinder loosened from the crankcase in practice before qualifying commenced.  Car owner Erbstein told the Sioux City Journal that his yellow Marmon would be repaired and ready to try to qualify again the next day, On July 2, five more cars qualified for the starting field, led by Patschke who recorded a one minute 29 second lap. Three cars - two Stutz entries and the Moon - were too slow.   

At 11 AM on Saturday July 4, sixteen cars and drivers, arrayed in rows of three, faced starter Fred Wagner for the race’s 45 miles per hour rolling start, and Wagner displayed the red flag to start the race. This starting method was used after pioneering aviator Matt Savidge refused to take to the air and drop signal bombs as originally planned due to high winds aloft.

Front row starter Bob Burman took the early lead followed by Mulford, Wishart, Anderson, Patschke and Oldfield. Meanwhile, Rickenbacher steadily moved his Duesenberg up from his 13^th starting spot. On the fifteenth lap, the engine in Burman’s Peugeot faltered which left Wishart driving the Mercer in the lead.

Over the next 55 laps, the lead traded three times between Wishart, Tom Alley in a Duesenberg and “Billy” Knipper’s Delage. On lap 89 of the 150-lap race, Rickenbacher surged past Knipper into the lead and held on the rest of the way and won with an average over 78 miles per hour.

Confusion reigned among the scorers during the race, and several scorers thought that Patschke won the race as he passed Rickenbacher late in the race, but Wagner presided over a review of the scoring. The final finishing order listed Rickenbacher the winner, with Wishart in second place, 47 seconds behind Eddie at the finish. Patschke, in his overheating Marmon, finished third, thirteen minutes behind Wishart, with Gil Anderson fourth and Ralph Mulford in fifth place in relief of Alley, who was burned when his Duesenberg caught fire on lap 77. 

Cyrus and Lou Heineman were entered as the drivers of Erbstein’s pair of Marmon racers for the next AAA race, the Chicago Auto Club Trophy race on the Elgin Illinois road course scheduled for August 21, 1914, with Charles Luttrell the designated relief driver for both cars.   However, at the end of July, it was announced that Cyrus Patschke had retired from racing at the request of his wife, Millie.  Charles Erbstein then sold the car designated for Patschke to W H Harris who nominated Mel Stringer to drive the Marmon at Elgin. 

Life after racing

In June 1915, Cyrus resigned from the Ideal Automobile Company and began construction of his own garage at 1105 Cumberland Street in his hometown. Patschke’s Garage opened in October 1915 and enlarged it in 1918. 

In March 1919 the garage grew again as Cyrus bought a 150-ton Firestone solid tire press to service truck tires and in December 1919 he and partner John Knull added parts sales to the garage business.   In an interesting twist, in 1923, Cyrus became a dealer for Oldfield Tires manufactured by Firestone and promoted by his old racing rival Barney Oldfield.  

1918 and 1919 were years of heavy personal burdens for Patschke, as in February 1918 his brother-in-law Eli Attwood passed away suddenly at age 62, then a year later 1919, Cyrus and Millie’s infant son, Cyrus Junior passed away at less than four months old in Philadelphia’s Children’s Hospital, and two months later Cyrus’ mother, Sallie, passed away in Philadelphia at age 63   

In February 1920, Cyrus and Millie welcomed a son Fredrick (named after his great-grandfather) and then in January 1922 they added a daughter, Joan, to their family.  Fred studied aeronautical engineering at the University of Cincinnati then enlisted and served two years in the US Army in World War 2, then after the war returned to the University of Cincinnati and received his degree. Joan, a talented dancer, toured the country with the Littlefield Ballet troupe before she married in 1946 and started a family in Lebanon. 

    

Cyrus became a community leader and booster in his hometown and for a time served as president of the Lebanon Automobile Trade Association, but in 1937 he tired of running his own business and sold out to Reading-based E S Youse Company Inc.  The Youse firm sold auto parts and machine shop equipment on a wholesale rather than a retail level. 

Cyrus continued to manage the Youse Lebanon store until his death.  On Sunday afternoon May 6, 1951 Cyrus Patschke died of a heart attack at age 63 at his home. Cyrus reportedly had suffered heart trouble for several years but had worked a full day at the shop the day before.

Although forgotten by modern racing fans, Cyrus Patschke was a remarkable man whose racing career covered just four partial seasons over a period of six years and he took part in less than a dozen major races, of which he won three and scored four top five finishes.  

Most significant is that all of Cyrus’ accomplishments, including winning the inaugural Indianapolis 500-mile race, occurred before he turned 25 years old. Cyrus who was inducted into the Central Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports hall of Fame in 1974, competed in and excelled in a wide variety of racing venues in the pioneering era- road races, long-distance races, track races and hill climbs.