The Pete Kreis story Part four - 1929 through 1931

 

The Pete Kreis story

Part four - 1929 through 1931

In February 1929, 29-year-old Albert Jacob ‘Pete’ Kreis was named in a lawsuit by a dancer named Irma Sedivic for injuries she suffered in a brawl in the Avalon nightclub in St Louis on December 22 1928. Ms. Sedivic alleged in her suit that Kreis threw a glass goblet during a club melee that injured her eye and asked for $25,000 in actual damages and $25,000 in punitive damages. 

In response, Pete told Knoxville reporters that it was a case of mistaken identity, saying “I had nothing to do with throwing that goblet.” The author has been unable to find any information about the final outcome of the case.  

When entries closed for the 17^th running of the International 500-mile Sweepstakes on May 30 1929 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, no team nominated Pete Kreis as a driver. Kreis nonetheless made his annual trip from Knoxville Tennessee to Indianapolis in May to watch practice and visit his friends in the racing community.

All the racers knew that this would be the last time that they would race under the 91-1/2 cubic inch rules package. On January 17 1929, the American Automobile Association (AAA) Contest Board published the new rules package for the 1930 Indianapolis 500- mile race pushed through by Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Eddie Rickenbacker.

As the AAA stated, "At the request of the Speedway, engineers drew up a set of regulations designed to return a type of car less expensive, less specialized and calculated to furnish experimental departments with more constant and tangible lessons of value in every-day motor car designing and building."  

Throughout the month of May 1929, Tommy Milton and the ‘Detroit Special’ team tested the car which Milton and Van Ranst refined over the long winter. Van Ranst and Milton developed new designs for the engine block, timing gears, and valve springs to deal with the engine’s high boost pressure. Chief among the new innovations were the enlarged “pop-off valves” in the supercharger piping system which now sported a large external intercooler.  

These valves redesigned by Cornelius Van Ranst with larger surface areas were located in the supercharger piping and designed to open when the supercharger or engine backfired to relieve pressure rather than wreck the manifolds on the straight-eight Miller engine. Van Ranst also designed a new rubber coupling for the supercharger drive.    

As he waited for mechanic Harry “Cotton” Henning to reassemble the Miller front drive entered for him by Santa Ana California oil company executive M R. “Dick” Dodd, Milton’s protégé Bob McDonogh turned many laps of practice over the 2-1/2 mile brick oval in the ‘Detroit Special’ as the Milton team waited for the car owner - multi-millionaire sportsman, financier and driver - Russell “Cliff” Durant to appear.

Cliff Durant photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection 

On the evening of May 22^nd, just two days before time trials began, the hard-living Durant announced the end of his 14-year race car driving career at age 38 and named Pete Kreis as his replacement. “Time has taken its toll” said Durant in an Indianapolis Star interview, “I could not give the car which Milton has prepared the ride it deserves.” 

With little time to test, Pete Kreis drove the ‘Detroit Special’ to the second fastest qualifying time on the second day of time of Sunday May 26^th.  Johnny Seymour in a Cooper Engineering Company front-drive (Marmon did not renew the 1928 sponsorship) qualified with a 114 MPH average followed by Kreis in the ‘Detroit Special’ at 112.528 MPH. The pair started the 1929 Indianapolis 500-mile race side by side in the seventh row.   

The 1929 Indianapolis 500-mile race starting field included two cars with female owners. Maude Yagle of Philadelphia owned the #2 Simplex Piston Ring Special formerly owned by Frank Lockhart and driven by Ray Keech, while Marion Batten the widow of Norm Batten lost at sea in the sinking of the SS Vestris in November 1928 owned the #49 Miller driven by Wes Crawford.

Pete Kreis and the Detroit Special in the garage area in 1929 

Contemporary new reports suggest that Kreis and the ‘Detroit Special’ ran well, in the top five as they neared the 200-mile mark, but the engine seized on course on its 91^st lap. Pete returned to the pit area and relieved Cliff Bergere behind the wheel of the ‘Armacost Special ‘Miller front-drive for 54 laps. Pete turned the car back over to Cliff on lap 146 and Bergere drove the rest of the way to finish in ninth place and earn $1,500.

Pete Kreis left Indianapolis with the knowledge that if he drove at the Speedway again in 1930, the cars would be fair different than the small jewel-like Miller machines with which he became familiar. In general, the new rules package for the 1930 Indianapolis 500-mile race were in the AAA’s words  “designed to produce either (a) a car susceptible of adaption from production car chassis or (b) development cars that embody new engineering principles or adaptions as contrasted against what may be termed ‘normal’ cars.”  Rickenbacker and the AAA officials believed that passenger car manufacturers would become involved in racing in a big way.

Beginning with the 1930 ‘500,’ engine size was limited to 366 cubic inches with a maximum of two valves per cylinder no supercharging allowed and a maximum of two carburetors. Each race car weighed a minimum of 7-1/2 pounds per cubic inch of engine displacement and not less than 1750 pounds in any case. By comparison a 1929 Miller 91 typically weighed 1450 pounds. Finally, each car would carry both a driver and a riding mechanic. Today, historians derisively refer to this rules package as the “Junk Formula.”

Harry Hartz recovered from burns and back in racing as a car builder and owner bought the Miller front-drive chassis #2703 built for Peter DePaolo in 1927 that had been driven by Bob McDonogh in 1929 for car owner Dick Dodd.  With the help of metalsmith Phil Sommers Hartz converted the car into the required two-man configuration. For power, Hartz built a 152-cubic inch Miller engine with his stash of leftover Miller 122-cubic inch parts.

Early in the month of May 1930 Hartz, Ralph Hepburn, and Billy Arnold all took practice laps in the car (Miller-Hartz 1) which led to speculation who would drive the car in the race. On the first day of time trials, Hartz took the car out, made a single timed lap at 110 MPH and returned to the pit area.

Later in the day, Arnold took the car out for a qualifying attempt with William “Spider” Matlock as his riding mechanic. The pair won the coveted pole position with a speed of 113. 268 MPH, the fastest car by over two miles an hour. Peter Kreis spent the month of May 1930 in Indianapolis but never landed a ride. After the race, Pete returned to his construction project in Kansas.

On Race Day 1930, second fastest qualifier Louis Meyer the 1928 500-mile race winner took the early lead, but Arnold passed him on lap three and never looked back. Arnold led a record 198 laps and won by seven minutes (estimated as four laps) over William “Shorty” Cantlon in a 183-cubic inch Miller powered machine owned by Bill “Hollywood” White.

Lou Moore and Floyd Sparks built two front-drive machines for the 1930 Indianapolis ‘500’ the Coleman Motors Company that built four-wheel drive trucks. Coleman intended for Joe Unser (uncle to Al Senior and Bobby) to drive one car and Moore the other but Unser died in an accident and was replaced by Phil “Red” Shafer. Both Coleman cars, which reportedly used parts from Coleman production vehicles, qualified for the 1930 ‘500.’ The #14 Coleman driven by Moore and mechanic Sparks wound up perched on top of the third turn wall after a six-car tangle on lap 23 while and Shafer finished in seventh after he started eighth with mechanic Terry Curley who started his riding career in 1922. 

For 1931, Coleman Motors entered a single car fitted with both the Miller 183 cubic inch engines to drive the front wheels. Driver Lou Moore found the beast uncontrollable and withdrew to join the Boyle Valve team. Late in the month, Pete Kreis agreed to give the car a shot. While it was undoubtedly powerful as with two engines it pushed the 366 cubic inch maximum engine size requirement, the Coleman had to be a handful to drive. On May 27, Pete qualified the Coleman Special at 102.860 MPH but subsequent clutch troubles led the team to withdraw the machine before the race.

Harry Hartz still dabbled as a driver and took test laps in Arnold’s machine during practice for the 1931 Indianapolis 500-mile race. Arnold did not qualify well, but on Race Day Arnold in the Miller-Hartz 1 passed seventeen cars and took the lead on lap 7. Arnold and riding mechanic Spider Matlock led the next 155 laps through intermittent rain showers that slowed the field twice. On lap 162, with a five-lap lead, Arnold spun in oil on the track in turn three and collided with Luther Johnson’s Studebaker.   

The Miller-Hartz hit the north short chute wall rolled over and both Arnold and Matlock were injured as Arnold suffered a broken pelvis and Matlock a broken collar bone. A wheel off the car flew over the wall bounced, rolled and struck young Wilbur Brink playing in the front yard of his family home on Georgetown Road. The 11-year old boy later died from his injuries.

After crews cleared the accident, Indianapolis police officer Louis Schenider took the lead in the Bowes Seal Fast-sponsored Miller-powered machine and won in the 1930 International 500-mile Sweepstakes by 43 seconds over Fred Frame in Hartz’ second entry, a 142-cubic inch Duesenberg powered machine.    

During the 1931 500-mile race, records credit Pete Kreis with 53 laps driven in relief of Ralph Hepburn in Harry Miller’s entry. On lap 144, Hepburn returned to the seat and finished the race in third place. The local Knoxville newspapers suggested that without Kreis’ assistance, Hepburn would not have finished in third place. Depending on which paper you read, Kreis drove either 250 or 300 miles. The Knoxville News-Sentinel claimed that Pete’s performance “marks him as one of the outstanding drivers in the game.”

Less than a month after the 1931 ‘500,’ Kreis announced that he had accepted the role of manager at the Morristown Speedway in Morristown Tennessee and that his first race promotion would be on July 4^th. 

Alternately known as Inskip Speedway, the ¾-mile dirt oval built in 1928 by a group of six men led by Fred Wallace. The track near the community of Inskip planned to stage its first race on Labor Day 1928, but rain ruined the opening. The track known as the Knoxville Motor Speedway set its opening for September 8 1928 but continued rains postponed the opening to Sunday September 16 1928. The selection of this date immediately caused controversy as ten local pastors protested races held on Sunday but manager Frank Easley ignored the outcry and staged the races anyway.

The opening day’s races boasted 8000 fans who saw Homer Linebaugh win the 50-lap feature in his Essex after early leader Al Romans’ Frontenac Ford overheated while he held a lap and a half lead.  Gordon Willis won the 14-lap and 25-lap races in the second event held on Sunday October 14, and it appears that the season finale set for Armistice Day November 11 1928 rained out.   

During the winter of 1928-1929 Easley proposed a slate of four races for 1929 on Decoration Day, Jul 4^th, Labor Day and Armistice Day but in early March the original ownership was replaced by a new group led by Joe B “JB” Cate.  “JB” came to Knoxville in 1923 as a traveling demonstrator of the Rickenbacker automobile then stayed in town and worked as a real estate salesman and later finance company official.

The new group which boasted $50,000 in capitalization planned eight races for 1929, with the planned construction of a 30,000-seat grandstand and the track was rebuilt with 90-foot radius turns with 8 feet of banking and 70-foot wide straightaways. 

After successful 1929 and 1930 racing seasons which drew big-name drivers to Knoxville that included Al Theisen in the Witte “Dayton Special” and Mauri Rose in the John Vance Special from Dayton the future appeared bright. But in late October 1930 Cate was charged with theft and in March 1931 the Knox County Grand Jury indicted Cate for the alleged embezzlement of $500 from the Knoxville Motor Speedway involving a stock sale.

Cate’s involvement with the Inskip Speedway ended with his indictment, and Pete Kreis temporarily took over as track manager for several months.  Cate pled not guilty and a jury acquitted him in October 1931.  The Knoxville track continued to operate under a succession of different managers through the 1935 season.

Our final installment will review Pete Kreis’ life after 1931.