Bill
Cummings
An
Indianapolis hero- part two
Bill Cummings and Earl Unvershaw shown here in 1931
won the 1934 "500' from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection
in IUPUI University Center for Digital Studies
In February 1935, 1934 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Bill Cummings
traveled to Daytona Beach Florida where he drove Clessie Cummins’ 364-cubic
inch supercharged six-cylinder two-stroke diesel powered 1934 Indianapolis
‘500’ entry in record attempts on the beach while fellow Indianapolis driver
Dave Evans piloted the competing Waukesha ‘Silver Comet’ diesel powered
machine. Evans first set a new record of 125.065 miles per hour (MPH), which
Cummings eclipsed on March 1 with a two-way run that averaged 133.023 MPH.
Before he left the beach the next day, Cummings set a mark of 137.195 MPH.
In May 1935, defending Indianapolis ‘500’ champions Cummings
and his friend and riding mechanic Earl Unversaw qualified the 1934 Boyle
front-drive Miller fifth in the starting field and were considered the
favorites to repeat their victory in the Decoration Day race. The pair never
led a lap and finished third, four minutes behind the Offenhauser-powered car
driven by the winner Cavino “Kelly” Petillo who broke Cumming’s 500-mile speed
record by over one mile per hour.
Later in the 1935 American Automobile Association (AAA)
racing season, Cummings finished second to Petillo at the Minnesota State
fairgrounds in St. Paul then finished second again behind Billy Winn at the New
York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse. Cummings closed out the season with a sixth
place finish on the new Altoona mile and an eighth dirt track located in Tipton
Pennsylvania. Cummings the defending champion skipped two races on the schedule
and finished as the runner-up in the 1935 AAA National Championship behind
Petillo.
According to Bill Neely’s book Daytona USA on March 8
1936 the AAA sanctioned a “strictly stock car” 250-mile race on a 3-mile
combination road and beach course at Daytona Beach Florida. With a $5,000
purse, entries came from open wheel racers Bill Cummings, Milt Marion, Bob
Sall, as well as George ‘Doc’ MacKenzie in a Buick and Bill Schnidler prior to
the loss of his left leg in the race’s lone Dodge. Cummings, the fastest
qualifier at over 70 MPH in Michael J Boyle’s supercharged Auburn 851 Speedster,
started last in the fully-inverted 27-car field that went off in one–minute
intervals in a handicap start.
The Schweitzer supercharged straight-8 Lycoming engine in
Cummings’ Auburn failed after 16 laps and he finished 26th. The race was
stopped at 241 miles with Milt Marion in the lead in a 1936 Ford V-8 when the
tide came in and blocked the course. The
fifth place finisher in a 1935 Ford was a local service station owner named
William “Big Bill” France, who later formed his own stock car racing
sanctioning body twelve years later. Bill France told author Neely that due to
the large number of fans who watched the race with buying a ticket, race
promoter (and former IMCA big car champion) “Sig” Haugdahl allegedly lost $22,000
(equivalent to $380,000 today).
For unknown reasons at the 1936 Indianapolis ‘500,’ the team
of Bill Cummings and riding mechanic Earl Unversaw separated after they had run
the five previous races together. Reportedly the two were such close friends
that Cummings named his only daughter, Earlene, after Unversaw, although this
appears to be wishful thinking as Earlene was born in 1928. Earl who rode with
Mauri Rose in 1936 and 1937 died in 1990 in Whiteland Indiana at age 95.
The 1936 ‘500’ was an embarrassing defeat for Cummings and
mechanic Henning – after he qualified thirteenth, on Decoration Day, the clutch
in the Boyle Miller front drive machine overheated on the grid. When the
Packard 120 pace car with Tommy Milton behind the wheel pulled away, Cummings’
car did not join the field and he finished dead last. News reports of the day
stated that Cummings was the first driver in Indianapolis ‘500’ history that
lined up on the grid but did not make the start of the race.
After the ‘500,’ Cummings’ faithful Miller front-drive chassis
was fitted with a 255 cubic inch four cylinder Offenhauser engine and the
results were forgettable in the three remaining AAA points-paying races all of
which were held in New York State. Bill started and finished eleventh in the
‘Goshen 100’ race held at the Good Times Park thoroughbred track in southern
New York, and then was involved in a three-car crash with Shaw and Gardner in
turn one on the first lap at Syracuse. Cummings finished seventh in the
Vanderbilt Cup on the twisting Roosevelt Raceway road course in the wholly
unsuitable Boyle Miller front drive machine.
In January 1937, Cummings returned to his roots and was one
of 98 riders in the first Daytona 200 race for motorcycles held on a two-mile
beach/asphalt loop at Daytona Beach Florida. For the 1937 Indianapolis ‘500,’
Cummings was paired with a new riding mechanic Frankie DelRoy, who would later
become a Speedway chief mechanic and was the chair of the technical committee
for the United States Auto Club when he and six other officials perished in the
1978 USAC plane crash. In time trials
the 255 cubic inch Offenhauser powered Boyle #16 set a new one-lap speed record of 125.19 MPH and Cummings started
for the pole position at Indianapolis for the second time in his career.
At the drop of the green flag, Herb Ardinger in Lew Welch’s
supercharged Offenhauser powered car shot into the lead from the outside of the
front row. The fuel limitations of the last four races were gone, so the race
pace was faster. Cummings finished sixth behind first time winner Wilbur Shaw
who drove a car that Shaw owned and had built with the assistance of Ford
Moyer. Cummings made just one other AAA
appearance during 1937, in the Vanderbilt Cup race at the much-revised
Roosevelt Raceway, and repeated his previous result with a seventh place
finish.
A candid 1938 photograph of Cummings
from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection
in IUPUI University Center for Digital Studies
For the 1938 Indianapolis ‘500,’ Cummings drove the same
eleven-year old Boyle front-drive entry as in previous years but with a narrowed chassis and new body powered by a 268 cubic inch engine as the AAA "junk formula" era had ended. The 1938
Boyle entry carried sponsorship from the labor union with which car owner Boyle
was associated, the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers (IBEW).
Cummings qualified a disappointing 16th and dropped out of
the ‘500’ on lap 72 with a radiator leak. Cummings attempted to qualify an
unidentified Maserati at for the race at the Springfield Illinois state
fairgrounds and then finished eighth at Syracuse in Russell Snowberger’s “Loop
Café Special’ (the old Boyle front-drive Miller) after mid-race relief from his
car owner to close out his 1938 racing season.
On Monday night February 6, 1939, as he drove his passenger
automobile along State Route 29, now known as Southeastern Avenue, Cummings
dropped the car’s right front wheel onto the soft shoulder. The car veered,
plunged through the wooden guardrail on the bridge approach near Adina
Boulevard and traveled an estimated 50 feet into the waters of Lick Creek below.
Passing motorists who witnessed the accident found Cummings beside the wreckage
of the car face lying down in approximately 18 inches of water.
The March 1930 issue of Motor Age
contained these two photos of Cummings accident
Three men pulled the unconscious Cummings from the water and
saved him from drowning; when he arrived at Methodist Hospital ten miles away
he was admitted in critical condition with a concussion. The next day, doctors
performed emergency surgery to relieve the pressure on Bill’s brain but later
that night, Cummings began to slip away.
The Indianapolis Star newspaper reported that “doctors
injected insulin into his blood and his heart rallied for several hours but he
died at 6 o'clock in the morning.” Cummings never regained consciousness after
the accident before he died on Wednesday morning February 8 at age 32 survived
by his widow Leota and 10 year old daughter Earlene.
700 people attended services held on Saturday afternoon
February 11 at the Royster & Askln Mortuary located at 1902 North Meridian
Street in Indianapolis presided over by evangelist Raymond G. Hoekstra. Among the guests who attended the service
were Harry A. Miller, Roscoe Dunning, (mechanic and car builder), driver Louis
‘Billy’ Devore, riding mechanic Lawson Harris (who would die later that year in
a crash with Babe Stapp during a tire test at the Speedway), and Earl Twining
of the Champion Spark Plug Company.
Other attendees at Cumming’s funeral service included car
owner Bill White, Fred Lockwood of the Borg-Warner Corporation, former driver
and AAA official Charles Merz, and a pair of Bill’s former dirt track
competitors from the early days Howard ‘Howdy’ Wilcox II and Frank Sweigert.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway General Manager Theodore E “Pop” Myers, Mauri Rose,
and Peter DePaolo also attended.
At the conclusion of the service, Cummings’ casket was carried
down the mortuary steps to the waiting hearse by the six of his fellow racing
drivers; Wilbur Shaw, ‘Shorty’ Cantlon, Deacon Lltz, Lou Moore, Chet Miller,
and Russell Snowberger. The hearse carried Bill Cummings’ remains east on
Washington Street to the Memorial Park Cemetery for the graveside service. As
Cummings’ casket was lowered into the grave an airplane piloted by Lawrence
“Gene” Genaro a test pilot for the Civil Aeronautics Administration circled
overhead and dropped flowers. Genaro pioneered the aerial filming of the
Indianapolis ‘500’ and helped Cummings earn his pilot’s license in 1932.
A widely circulated article headlined Cummings planned a
comeback was written after his death by Bob Consodine of Randolph Hearst’s
International News Service. The article inaccurately stated that Cummings “won about $50,000” for winning the 1934
Indianapolis ‘500’ as it was actually $29,725 some of which had of course gone
to car owner Michael Boyle.
Consodine wrote of Cummings “he cashed in on his new fame. Big car companies signed him up to
extoll the merits of their cars, the accessory companies paid him for his stamp
of approval, and the jerk-town tracks that once paid him off in hot dogs gave
him good guarantees just to appear.”
A brochure drawings of a 1935 Chevrolet master Deluxe Sedan
the model that Cummings drove
Like many other top drivers Cummings endorsed the use of
Richfield gasoline, Champion Spark Plugs, and Pyroil oil additive. The author
also found a 1935 newspaper advertisement that stated “’Wild Bill’ Cummings, National AAA racing champion, recently took
delivery of his second Chevrolet - a new 1935 Master Deluxe sedan with which he
is pictured. Cummings became a Chevrolet owner following his victory at
Indianapolis last Decoration Day.”
A 1936 advertisement in Popular Science magazine for the
“turret-top” 1936 Chevrolet contained a photo of Cummings and famed British
land speed and boat racer Kaye Don as they examined the all-steel roof of a new
Chevrolet which was advertised as being both safer and cooler than a fabric
insert.
Notice that Cummings is wearing a helmet
in his official 1934 IMS photo he wore a cloth helmet.
This style helmet was required at Indianapolis in 1935
Research also uncovered Cummings’ June 1934 nationwide
endorsement of Camel cigarettes, complete with headshots of Bill in a
hard-shell helmet and text that quoted the 1934 Indianapolis 500 winner “I felt pretty well played out at the end of
the race. My mechanic and I turned to Camels for that first luxurious smoke
that chases that tired feeling away.”
Consodine’s article continued “with the coming of that dough he got soft - the hungrier more
desperate men became to pass him even on the turns. The glamour peeled off him
and in a little while he was broke again and for the first time he knew doubt.
When at last he hit bottom, he started back and his reflexes dulled by success
became razor sharp again.”
Mr. Consodine’s claim that Cummings became ‘soft’ after his
Indianapolis victory and subsequent rebound is just not supported by the facts.
Cummings was the fastest qualifier in two 1934 races after his ‘500’ win and
Bill made a strong defense of his Indianapolis win and AAA national
championship title in 1935. While the results of his disappointing 1936 season
marred by a crash and mechanical failures was certainly sub-par, Cummings had
another successful season in 1937 before his puzzling poor last season in 1938.
To characterize Cummings as “broke” at one point is probably
a case of journalistic embellishment. Cummings bought a tavern in Indianapolis
and built a home in the Five Points suburb of Indianapolis, though at the time
of his death, Cummings reportedly worked between races during the offseason as
a car salesman.
The mention of a “comeback” is odd, as Cummings was just 32
years old, and no racing historians are aware of any Cummings retirement
announcement. The article mentioned that Boyle mechanic ‘Cotton’ Henning was headed
to Italy to pick up an Alfa Romeo which Cummings hoped would return him to the
top, but that statement is erroneous.
Henning did travel to Italy not to buy an
Alfa Romeo, but the Maserati 8CTF which Wilbur Shaw drove to back to back wins
for Boyle Racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1939 and 1940. If he had
not crashed into Lick Creek that February night, could that have been Bill
Cummings behind the wheel of the Boyle Maserati in 1939?
For his accomplishments, William C Cummings Junior was
inducted in 1970 as a member of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Auto Racing
Hall of Fame.
