Friday, November 13, 2020

The Pete Kreis story Part two - 1926 season

 

The Pete Kreis story

Part two - 1926 season

For the 1926 racing season, the AAA (American Automobile Association) Championship cars would lower the displacement limit from 122 cubic inches (two liters) to 91-1/2 cubic inches (1/12 liters) beginning in May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Albert Jacob “Pete” Kreis sold his supercharged Duesenberg to Ben “the Mississippi Kid” Jones and obtained a 122-cubic inch supercharged rear-drive race car from Harry A Miller from Tommy Milton. The car that Kreis bought had its damaged fuel tank, hood, and cowling repaired from Ray Carrien's fatal crash in November 1925 at the Culver City Speedway and re-numbered #15 for the 1926 season.  

Fulford-Miami Auto Speedway in North Miami Beach Florida was the site of the 1926 American Automobile Association (AAA) season opener. Construction of the 1-1/4 mile wooden speedway partially funded by Miami Beach developer Carl Fisher, one of the four founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, began in the fall of 1925.

Fisher had a partner in the Miami track, Merle Tebbetts, a finance company president and the developer of the Fulford-by-the Sea subdivision in the area known since 1931 as North Miami Beach.  The track built on pilings featured a boardwalk promenade and a mounded infield with 50 degree banked turns.  Years later, the track’s exact location is undetermined.    

Tebbetts and Fisher hired the 1911 International 500-mile race co-winner Ray Harroun to oversee the track construction by the Prince Construction Company then manage and promote the facility after its targeted completion of January 1 1926.  

The Fulford-Miami Speedway initially advertised the inaugural race date as January 30 1926, but there were material delays during construction and the race date switched with the previous Culver City California date. When the AAA Contest Board published the 1926 schedule, the inaugural race at Miami, for the ‘Carl G. Fisher Cup’ date would be held on Washington’s Birthday February 22nd.

Time trials were scheduled for Wednesday February 17 to be followed by a gala dance and reception at the Fulford Casino that evening to “give Miamians an opportunity to meet these men who have become famous because of their daring exploits on the pine boards across the country.”    

Ralph Hepburn in the Boyle Valve Miller won the pole position with a lap speed of 141.199 miles per hour (MPH), the only car to break the 140 MPH barrier. Leon Duray qualified second fastest at 138.9 MPH with Dave Lewis in the former Jimmy Murphy front-drive Miller third fastest and National Champion Peter DePaolo seventh. 

Only the fastest twelve cars in practice qualified on Wednesday afternoon so Pete Kreis qualified on Thursday afternoon and started the race from fourteenth in the 18-car starting field in his white #15 Miller.

Local radio station WGBU broadcast live updates on the race scheduled for 240 laps or 300 miles with a $30,000 purse. Gates opened at 8:30 AM on that Monday morning for a program that featured bands and daylight fireworks. Infield General Admission tickets sold for $3.00, while grandstands seats were $6 or $8 with box seats priced from $10 to $15. 

A crowd of 25,000 fans watched as Hepburn led the first three circuits before he had a tire problem and Dave Lewis took the point until lap 24. Duray led the next 125 laps while Kreis’ car retired on lap 90 and placed eleventh. Earl Devore in the shiny #17 ‘Nickel Plate’ Miller took the lead from Duray on lap 150, and Leon remained in close pursuit until the magneto on his car failed on lap 180.   

On lap 200, Devore pitted to add fuel, which opened the door for DePaolo in his Duesenberg to take control and Peter led the final 40 circuits. The next four finishers – Harry Hartz, Bob McDonogh, Frank Elliott and Bennett Hill – all drove supercharged 122-cubic inch Millers, as did Devore who recovered from his late pit stop to finish fifth.  DePaolo ran a conservative pace to save his Duesenberg but still set a new record of 129.29 MPH as he covered the unusual race distance of 300 miles in two hours and nineteen seconds.

The AAA racers never visited Fulford-Miami Auto Speedway’s 50-degree banked turns again due to two incidents. The first came in late August when United States authorities arrested track owner Merle Tebbetts on mail fraud charges associated with stock sales in the Fulford-by-the Sea finance company.   

Then on September 18, the “Great Miami Hurricane” struck south Florida and the winds over a caused widespread damage and the new wooden Miami Speedway was destroyed. Tebbetts never consider rebuilding the track as he battled the fraud charges in court until in 1930, when he pled guilty and received a fine of $1,000 and two-year suspended prison sentence.

In California during practice on the re-surfaced Culver City Speedway, Leon Duray posted a lap of 138 MPH then on March 18 1926 in time trials, Pete Kreis surprised observers as he qualified second fastest behind Bob McDonogh’s blindingly fast 143.3 MPH lap, which broke Earl Cooper’s previous record of 141 MPH. Many “experts” predicted that this record would stand for years, given the upcoming AAA engine size reduction to 91-1/2 cubic inches. Dave Lewis in the front-drive Miller qualified third as Bennett Hill and Duray rounded out the top five starters.

The 40,000 fans on hand for the Culver City race on March 21st saw a torrid battle among the fastest five cars, and Pete Kreis led his first laps in AAA championship competition as he headed the field for two laps before Hill passed Pete and led the final 102 laps to win in a record time of one hour and 51 minutes at an average speed of 130.59 MPH for the 250 miles. Hill led DePaolo by 28 seconds at the finish with Hartz in third. Pete Kreis finished 11th, five laps behind Hill.

The 122-cubic-inch race cars christened the new one-and-a-half mile long wooden Atlantic City Speedway track on May 1 1926. Alternately known as Amotal Raceway, due to its location on the site of the World War I ammunition plant, the track site was roughly equidistant from Atlantic City and Philadelphia, south of the New Jersey town of Hammonton.  Designed by Art Pillsbury and built by Jack Prince, with the construction largely financed by Charles M. Schwab, the chairman of Bethlehem Steel and a major investor in Stutz and a member of the board of directors.   

The Prince Construction Company completed construction of the track on April 17 which featured 1780-foot long straightaways and a dedicated Pennsylvania Railroad station adjacent to the main grandstand. Advance reserve grandstand tickets sold for $4.40, $5.50 and $7.70, while box seat prices ranged from $7.70 to $15.40. General admission to the infield cost $2.20 with those ducats only available on race day. 

A breathless newspaper article in the Philadelphia Inquirer days before practice opened predicted 100,000 fans and Gordon Mackay wrote that “they would not be surprised if 300,000 spectators jammed their way into the wooden amphitheater.” 

Atlantic City set the total purse at $30,000 with $12,000 to the winner with second prize $6,000, and the remaining $12,000 divided and paid down to the tenth place finisher. Interesting entries came from Ralph DePalma, the 44-year winner of the 1915 Indianapolis ‘500,’ and two imported Bugatti race cars entered by Philadelphia’s Charles M. Ward for Russian driver Baron Vladimir de Rachewsky and French driver Count Jean Richard André de Marguenat.

With 21 cars entered the track opened for practice on April 20, with qualifications set for Wednesday April 28, when cars demonstrated that they could run the minimum lap speed of 130 MPH. It rained that morning and Fred Wagner postponed time trials to Thursday April 29th.

Later in the day however skies cleared, the track dried and AAA officials opened the track for practice with the official timing clocks set up. Bennett Hill blazed around the Atlantic City oval at 143.6 MPH which was recognized as having officially eclipsed Bob McDonogh’s Culver City record-setting lap. The Philadelphia Inquirer article reported that after his record run, Hill remarked to it observers that “with no wind and the weather conditions right, we could shoot them along at 150 MPH on this track.”    

The following day, April 29th, the top four qualifiers – Hill, McDonogh, Pete Kreis, and Harry Hartz all reportedly ran 142.9 MPH, with McDonogh awarded the pole position followed by Hartz, Hill, and Kreis. Cliff Woodbury rounded out the top twelve cars in speed.

The Thursday non-qualifiers included Jerry Wonderlich, who decided to retire, while Dave Evans, DePalma, Frank Farmer and the pair of mysterious Bugatti cars were too slow and had to return to run again on Friday to attempt to set their place in the starting field. The Miller engine in Zeke Meyers’ car broke a wrist pin and was unlikely to be repaired in time.

Before the race on Saturday, the Stutz passenger car that carried Charles Schwab, Stutz President Fred Moskowics and four other men on an official inspection of the track broke through a “defective plank” in the track and suddenly lurched to a stop. All of the occupants of the Stutz suffered cuts and bruises, but no serious injuries. 

The field of 16 cars that included Ben Jones’ Duesenberg (formerly owned by Kreis), the Millers of Evans and Norm Batten, and Count de Rachewsky in Ward’s Bugatti answered Wagner’s flag at 2 PM Saturday for 200 laps or 300 miles. The reported 80,000 fans saw McDonogh dominate the race as he led the first 165 laps until he experienced tire troubles and had to pit.

Bob’s misfortune handed the lead to DePaolo who led for 28 laps in the Duesenberg until a problem forced DePaolo to momentarily slow.  Harry Hartz took the lead on lap 194 and led the final seven circuits to win the $12,000 purse. 

Hartz, who never made a pit stop, finished one second ahead of DePaolo in two hours and fourteen minutes to establish a new standard for 300 miles of 134.091 MPH, which eclipsed DePaolo’s earlier Miami record by over four miles per hour.  McDonogh finished third, a lap behind the leaders, 35 seconds ahead of Kreis in fourth. Ralph Hepburn came home in fifth place, eight minutes behind Kreis.  

For the final tune-up before Indianapolis, Kreis drove the first Miller front drive built, originally commissioned by the late Jimmy Murphy, in the May 10th Confederate Memorial Day race on the 1-1/4 mile wooden oval in Charlotte North Carolina. Kreis started and finished in seventh place, 17 laps behind the winner Earl Devore in the ‘Nickel Plate’ Miller as the top eight finishers all drove cars powered by 122-cubic inch Miller engines.  

Kreis' Miller '122' was sold to Illinois garage owner Henry Kohlert who entered the former Milton Miller 122 at the “Elgin Piston Pin Special” for Legion Ascot Speedway veteran Fred Lecklider at Indianapolis in 1927, and then crashed the car during the race himself while driving in relief. The following year, Kohlert entered the “Elgin Piston Pin Special” for a young rookie, future 1935 ‘500’ winner Kelly Petillo who crashed the car in practice.

Despite the reported crowd of 40,000 fans, Charlotte officials announced that this would be the final long-distance race at the track – future events were to be a series of “sprint” events of 25, 50 or 100 miles each held on the same day.

Reporting on the race, Kreis’ hometown newspaper, the Knoxville News-Sentinel, noted that Pete’s finish was “not bad considering that the 16 of the best drivers in the United States started the race.” The article noted that “Pete has been running close in all the big races,” and opined that “he’ll come out a winner one of these days.”

Early press reports at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway erroneously listed Kreis as the driver of a new Miller 91-1/2 cubic inch Miller front-drive machine, as he had taken delivery of his new white #15 91-1/2 cubic inch supercharged Miller rear-drive at the brick oval.  Pete got in few, if any, practice laps before he was hospitalized with influenza which set in motion one of the most astonishing “rookie driver” stories in Speedway history.

Young racer Frank Lockhart had experienced good success as he drove a Miller 183 to several important dirt track victories, but he had an embarrassing start to his AAA championship career with his appearance at the Culver City Speedway board track on the afternoon of February 19 1925.

Lockhart made four warm-up laps on the Culver track’s concrete apron at approximately 60 MPH, then he tried to move the car (which Jimmy Murphy drove to his death) up the banking, but lost control spun and hit the inside railing nose first.

AAA starter Fred Wagner determined that the 21-year old “Boy Wonder” lacked experience but to save him embarrassment in the press, officials allowed Lockhart to withdraw. Frank Elliott replaced Lockhart as the driver. Ironically, the race on February 22nd had to be red-flagged with 25 laps completed after Elliott crashed with Stuart Wilkinson and William Shattuc.

Lockhart returned to terrorize the dirt tracks in a Miller 183-cubic inch powered car until he arrived at Indianapolis in 1926, tabbed as a relief driver for the Miller factory-supported entries. Mid-way through the month, Lockhart took a “test hop” in Bennett Hill’s new #16 Miller and amazed bystanders when he posted lap speeds two MPH faster than Hill.

As the critical time trials approached, Pete Kreis contracted influenza and had to be hospitalized which left the seat in his brand-new white #15 Miller open. After consultation with his friend Tommy Milton, Kreis turned the new Miller over to Frank Lockhart for the race. In time trials on Thursday May 27th Lockhart was a sensation and broke Peter DePaolo’s one-lap record with his first lap of 114.752 MPH, then bettered that with his second lap speed of 115.488 MPH.

Unfortunately, Frank could not complete the four-lap ten-mile run as a tire failed on the third lap. After repairs, Frank made another attempt later on Thursday, but a valve broke in the Miller engine and cut that run short.

Released from Methodist Hospital on Friday, Kreis went to the Speedway the following day to watch his car qualify. Lockhart, on his third and final qualifying attempt on Saturday May 29th, posted a safe four-lap average of 95.78 MPH, good enough to start the 1926 ‘500’ from 20th starting position. 


The official 1926 Indianapolis Motor Speedway
qualifying photo of Frank Lockhart in Pete Kreis' Miller
Photo courtesy of the IUPUI University library
Center for Digital Studies
Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection 


On race day, May 30, 1926 it took “the Boy Wonder” just 60 laps to work his way through the field and take over the lead from Dave Lewis. Lockhart led when the race stopped for the first time due to rain with 70 laps completed. The race, halted for an hour, resumed as AAA officials used the results on the  timing tape to restart the race with the cars released from a standing start in intervals to have the same relative positions as when the rains came.  

As the race neared the halfway point, dark clouds gathered again and Harry Hartz pushed past Lockhart into the lead but after just five laps in the lead, Hartz pitted on lap 98. Lockhart resumed the lead and built up a two-lap advantage over Hartz when the rains returned with the race stopped for good with 160 laps completed. A high attrition rate perhaps due to the newness of the 91-1/2 cubic inch cars, meant only 13 cars finished the 400 miles with the final finisher driven by Thane Houser, flagged 58 laps behind the rookie winner.

An interesting side story about the 1926 ‘500’ for racing historians is that of the Duesenberg that Kreis drove in 1925 and sold to Ben Jones.  Fred Duesenberg fitted the chassis with an experimental supercharged two-cycle engine but with no time for development and testing, the ground-breaking two-cycle engine arrived at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway untried.

Old-timers recalled that the two-cycle Duesenberg engine had the loudest exhaust on the track, which the Indianapolis News described as a “pleasing crack”. The team had considerable trouble starting the car each day, and it was not fast. Jones, a 23-year old rookie, posted a best lap speed of around 80 MPH before Peter DePaolo took some practice laps in the Duesenberg two-cycle and edged the speed up to 94 MPH. After veteran Ralph Mulford squeezed out a 95 MPH lap, Ben Jones qualified on May 28th with a four-lap average speed of 92.142 MPH to start from the 18th starting position.  

During the race, Jones’ car suddenly swerved and brushed the wall on lap 54. Subsequent investigation found one axle broken and the engine locked with one cylinder full of water. The Duesenberg factory in the midst of designing and developing the Model “J” abandoned further development of the two-cycle engine

After the bittersweet 500-mile race, as he watched another driver win the prestigious ‘500’ in his new car, Kreis traveled to Baltimore, picked up his ill mother from John Hopkins Hospital and returned her home in Knoxville.

By winning the 1926 International 500-mile Sweepstakes, the 23-year old Lockhart became a famous and wealthy man, as the winner’s share of the purse with lap prizes totaled $40,000 (equivalent to over half a million dollars in 2020).  Lockhart, Miller and Kreis worked out a deal for Frank to purchase the ‘500’ winning car for Lockhart to race in the next AAA championship race on the boards, the ‘Flag Day Classic’ at Altoona Pennsylvania on June 12.

Unfortunately the engine in Lockhart’s Indianapolis-winning machine suffered catastrophic failure in Altoona practice and Frank did not race. Pete Kreis appeared at the Altoona race with no intention to drive and the Altoona Tribune reporter described that Kreis appeared “a little pale despite his six feet in stature.”

Frank Lockhart entered the July 5th ‘Independence Day Classic’ at Rockingham Park in New Hampshire but controversy erupted when D H Jefferies the promoter of the AAA dirt track race at the West Texas Fair Speedway in Abilene Texas scheduled the same day stepped forward. Prior to the Indianapolis ‘500,’ Harry Miller entered Lockhart for the Abilene race in a new Miller 183 dirt car. “Lockhart’s first taste of fame,” the promoter claimed “made him forget the dirt track contests.”  

Lockhart claimed that he sent a 30-day notice letter of cancellation to the Abilene promoter, and after considerable back and forth, on June 27th the AAA Contest Board threatened to suspend Lockhart from AAA events if he failed to meet his Abilene obligation. Besides Lockhart the other “foremost racing stars” entered at Abilene included George Souders, Fred Lecklider, and Texans Elbert ‘Babe’ Stapp and Harry Milburn. Lockhart complied and a huge crowd of 10,000 fans saw Lockhart in the new Miller easily win both the Abilene races he entered, the 20- and 30-mile dashes.   

Kreis sat out much of the summer of 1926 as Harry Miller completed Kreis’ new 91-1/2 cubic inch front-drive machine, and thus Kreis missed the AAA races at Rockingham, Atlantic City and Charlotte. During this time, Pete regained his strength and took a more active role in his family’s engineering and construction company.

Kreis’ new cream and red car, the fifth front-drive Miller built, designated by the Miller factory as ‘2615-Y’ debuted in September at the Altoona Pennsylvania board track. Pete started 15th in the 18-car starting field while Lockhart started fifth and moved into the lead at the 50-mile mark of the 250-mile grind and beat Kreis to the finish line by a minute and 21 seconds for his fourth win of the season, while Pete scored his best-ever AAA finish.  

After middle of the pack finishes in the pair of short 25-mile preliminary “sprint” races on October 12 at the 1-1/4 mile Rockingham Speedway in New Hampshire, Kreis and his front-drive Miller #15 finished two laps behind winner Harry Hartz in the 160-lap (200 mile) feature, as he edged Leon Duray in a similar machine by 3/100 of a second at the finish line. 

Hartz dominated the first 100 miles, then inherited the lead after the leader Frank Lockhart’s Miller engine broke a connecting rod on lap 142.  With his win, Hartz clinched the 1926 AAA driver’s championship.

The 1926 AAA season closed on November 11 at Charlotte which used the preliminary and feature racing format. Kreis finished a distant fourth place in his 25-mile “heat race,” then in the “semi” Kreis’ day ended early with a broken supercharger after he started tenth in the 12-car field.  

At the end of the 1926 season, after he drove it in just three races, Kreis sold his front-drive Miller to Tommy Milton, who dissembled the machine and with the assistance of his friend and engineering partner, Cornelius Van Ranst, rebuilt it as the ‘Detroit Special’ for the 1927 Indianapolis 500-mile race in a program funded by General Motor heir and race driver Russell “Cliff” Durant.  Van Ranst, an engine engineering genius had designed winning race cars for the Frontenac and Duesenberg. The ‘Detroit Special’ built over the winter in a basement laboratory of the 1-million square foot General Motors Building in Detroit which gave the car its name.  

The ‘Detroit Special’ featured the world’s first two-stage supercharger invented by Dr. Sanford Moss of General Electric. Gases from the first stage of the front-mounted supercharger made a long loop, then after the second stage entered a long pipe that crossed over the hood to cool the charge air before it entered the intake manifold. The Detroit power plant with 6-to-1 compression and a massive 42 foot pounds of supercharged boost boasted over 300 horsepower.

The car’s other innovation, courtesy of Van Ranst, was the two-speed inline planetary transmission which transmitted power more smoothly than the Miller front-drives, and Van Ranst’s design allowed easy changes of the ring and pinion gears for gearing adjustments.  Automaker E L Cord was so impressed by Van Ranst and Milton’s work on the ‘Detroit Special’ transmission that he hired them as consultants on the Cord passenger car front-drive system.   

Similar to the later ‘NOVI’ race cars, the ‘Detroit Special’ achieved blinding straightaway speed, but despite 60% of the weight on the front axle experienced high tire wear, and as we shall see, the ‘Detroit Special’ was star-crossed like the ‘NOVI.’    

In a 1926 season shortened by illness and the delays waiting for the delivery of his new Miller front drive car, Pete Kreis still managed to finish ninth in the AAA championship with four top five finishes in ten race appearances.  As we shall see in future installments after 1926, Pete Kreis concentrated on the family business and began to curtail his number of racing appearances.   

 

 

   

 

 

 

   

 

     

 

        

 

 

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