First Maserati entries at the Indy '500'

 

First Maserati entries at the Indy '500'

Most racing fans are familiar with the maroon Boyle Racing Maserati 8CTF driven by Wilbur Shaw that won the International 500-mile Sweepstakes back-to-back in 1939 and 1940. Shaw led 107 laps in  the 1941 '500' in his trusty Boyle Maserati in a bid to win three ‘500-mile races in a row,  but a wire wheel collapsed and Wilbur and the Maserati crashed out on lap 152.

Fewer know the story of the first Maserati entries at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway which came to the US in 1930.   

After the purchase of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway by a group of investors who installed Eddie Rickenbacker as its President, Rickenbacker pressed the American Automobile Association (AAA) to revise its rules for championship racing, effective with the 1930 Indianapolis 500-mile race. These new rules required two-seat bodies, riding mechanics, and non-supercharged engines limited to a maximum displacement of 366 cubic inches (six liters) fitted with a maximum of two carburetors.    

In 1929, the Maserati factory in an effort to maintain competiveness, built the "Sedici Cilindri" (sixteen cylinder) Maserati Tipo (type) V4 (V configuration engine 4 liters). The power plant was two 122 cubic inch (2 liter) inline 8-cylinder double overhead camshaft Maserati Tipo 26B blocks set on a common crankcase.

Each engine was independent, with its own crank-driven supercharger, magneto, 16 valves, a single Weber carburetor, twin oil pumps, water pump, and the two individual crankshafts rotated clockwise and transmitted the estimated 280 horsepower through a central power take-off gear.   

Baconi Borzacchini (Baconino Francesco Domenico Borzacchini) drove the Maserati Tipo V4 most frequently.  After his service in the Italian army during World War I, he first raced motorcycles before he moved to automobile hill climb competitions in 1926.

The Tipo V4 made its racing debut on March 24 1929 at the Tagiura circuit in Libya in the 16-lap Tripoli Grand Prix. Baconi led for a time and ran the race’s fastest lap of 11 minutes and 10.2 seconds but finished 54 seconds behind winner Gaston Peri’s Talbot.  

On April 21 1929 as a member of Maserati factory team, Baconi drove a Tipo 26B and finished second in the non-championship race held on the temporary Alessandria Circuit in the Piedmont region of Italy behind Achille Varzi’s Alfa Romeo P2.  

At Monza on September 15 1929 Alfieri Maserati, one of the four Maserati car-building brothers, drove the Tipo V4 and placed well in the preliminary heat race but did not finish the feature race.

Less than two weeks later, on September 28 1929, on a course outside Cremona Italy, Baconi Borzacchini in the Maserati Tipo V4 set a new flying 10-kilometer world land speed record of 152.9 MPH (miles per hour) for FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile)  Class C cars with 3-liter to 5-liter engine displacement. The following day, in the Cremona Grand Prix, Borzacchini and the V4 suffered a tire failure during the first 39-mile lap and did not finish the race.

Baconi and the Maserati Tipo V4 returned to North Africa for the 1929 season-ending Tunisian Grand Prix on the Bardo road course held on November 17 1929. The V4 qualified second fastest behind René Lamy’s Bugatti, jumped into the lead at the start and led the first six laps until it retired with magneto failure.

To comply with the new Indianapolis rules, workers at the Maserati factory removed the 4V engine’s superchargers, reworked the cylinder heads to raise the compression ratio to 8.5:1 and installed a three-speed gearbox with a reverse gear to meet the 1930 Indianapolis rules. 

In March 1930, an Associated Press wire report mentioned that the Maserati factory planned to enter a 16-cylinder race car in the annual Memorial Day classic to be driven by World Record holder Baconin Borzacchini with Ernesto Maserati named as the co-driver.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway General Manager Theodore “Pop” Myers announced receipt of the Maserati entry via overseas cable on March 19, 1930.  According to W F Bradley, the American Automobile Association (AAA) representative in Paris, the two nominated drivers were in training for each to drive 250 miles “at sprint speed.” 

Before the 1930 Indianapolis  '500' entries closed, a second Maserati entry arrived – this one a straight-eight powered Maserati 26B serial number 15 driven and owned by Letterio Cucinotta.  

Letterio’s father died when he was young and his mother remarried Antonio Piccolo a wealthy textile manufacturer. Cucinotta’s three stepbrothers - Mario, Carmelo and Giuseppe Piccolo - also drove racing cars. 

Cucinotta arrived in Indianapolis first, on May 12 and began to familiarize himself with the giant 2-1/2-mile brick surfaced oval while Borzacchini arrived with the Tipo V4 on May 20. With the first day of time trials set to begin May 24, the Associated Press article noted that Baconi “has a period of intensive work ahead of him if he is to get his big car in shape in time” to make the planned 40-car starting field   

A tidbit in the Indianapolis Star’s “Speedway Gossip” column written by Blaine Patton revealed that Cucinotta, who wore a red helmet and was known as “the red bull” in his homeland, had been nicknamed “Piccolo Pete” by his fellow drivers. Patton reported that Letterio “accepted the nickname with a smile and nod and attempted to learn to pronounce his nickname in English.”  

Neither of the Maserati entries made a time trial attempt during the opening weekend. Baconin brought the 16-cylinder car out for three practice laps just before the track closed on Saturday. He returned to the track on Sunday and the Indianapolis Star reported that Baconin “had a brush” with Russell Snowberger’s Russell Eight Special which had qualified the day before.

Blaine Patton wrote of the Maserati Tipo 4V in the Indianapolis Star that the “foreign car had plenty of speed on the straightaways but its driver (Baconi) was cutting off on the turns to learn the track.” The article closed by stating “he probably could have qualified but decided to wait until later.”

Borzacchini and Rossi 

courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 

Both Borzacchini and Cucinotta qualified on Tuesday afternoon, May 27^th, along with four other drivers. Wilbur Shaw led the day’s qualifiers with a four-lap average of 106.172 MPH and would start from the twenty-fifth position, while Baconin, with his riding mechanic  James “Jimmy” Rossi, ran the timed ten miles at an average speed of 95.213 MPH for the 28^th starting position on the inside of the tenth row.  

 Letterio and Petillo

courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Letterio slotted into the 30th starting position (outside of the tenth row) with his 4-lap run of 91.584 MPH, accompanied by his riding mechanic, a 26-year old Californian of Italian descent named Cavino Michelle “Kelly” Petillo.   Petillo had attempted to qualify for the 1928 Indianapolis 500-mile race, but crashed in practice, and since then established his reputation as an AAA “big car” racer at Legion Ascot Speedway. Petillo, of course, would win the 1935 Indianapolis 500-mile race in his own Offenhauser powered car.

Before the 1930 race, the radio announcers of the local Indianapolis radio station WFBM AM 1230 tasked to broadcast updates from the race met with reporters from the Indianapolis Star to learn the pronunciation of “Baconin Borzacchini” and “Letterio Cucinotta.” Despite the preparation, the following day the Indianapolis Star humorously reported that “the announcers had more than a little difficulty making ‘Borzacchini’ and ‘Cucinotta’ sound like anything but static on the air.”

On Memorial Day, the flat red #26 16-cylinder Maserati encountered problems early and pitted on the fourth lap with ignition problems. Borzacchini turned the car over to his mechanic Rossi to try and diagnose the problem, but the 4V retired from the race permanently on lap seven with magneto problems.  The Maserati factory entry placed 36^th in the 38-car field and won $285.

Cucinotta, on the other hand doggedly hung in with his Tipo 26B Maserati, which was at times the slowest car on the track. An hour after winner Billy Arnold took the checkered flag in the Miller-Hartz, officials flagged the red #47 Maserati off the track with 185 laps completed, and awarded Letterio twelfth place with $510 in consolation money. 

The two Italian race car drivers and their Maserati race cars returned to Italy. Later in 1930, the Maserati 4V was sold and later fitted with a sports car body. Today the car reportedly still retains that body as well as the original chassis and engine.

Neither Baconin nor Letterio returned to Indianapolis, and it would be seven years before the Maserati name returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway when Henry “Bob” Topping entered his 1936 Maserati supercharged V8-powered V8Ri chassis number 4503 for veteran Elbert “Babe” Stapp which finished 31^st after clutch failure.