The early history of lap prizes for the Indianapolis 500-mile race Part One

 

The early history of lap prizes for the Indianapolis 500-mile race

Most television viewers of the 2020 Indianapolis 500-mile race were probably unaware that 2020 marked an important anniversary at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as the 1920 race introduced the award of $100 per lap to the leader. 

The 2020 Indianapolis 500 Official Program included a brief article that touched on the history of the lap prize fund, but the author felt that racing historians might appreciate a more detailed history of the fund’s early struggles. 

1920 - The beginning

   

The 28-man Citizens of Indianapolis Lap Prize Committee, its membership equally divided among active and honorary members, began the first fund-raising effort in late March 1920. George M. Dickson, the President of the National Motor Vehicle Company, chaired the Citizen’s Lap Prize Committee, created by “Indianapolis Businessmen and Manufacturers to express appreciation of the value to Indianapolis of the annual International Sweepstakes, the world’s greatest race.”

Dickson started with National as its sales manager in 1907, rose to become the General Manager then became the company's President 1917.  George’s history with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and racing in general dated back to 1910, when as a member of the Manufacturers Contest Association, he wrote an article entitled “Speedways Develop Automobiles” which was published in newspapers across the nation.

Dickson later helped author the brochure that celebrated the victory by the National driven by Joe Dawson and Don Herr in the 1912 Indianapolis 500-mile race. In 1916, Dickson served as the starter of the International 300-mile Sweepstakes, the last race before the two-year Indianapolis race suspension due to America’s involvement in World War One.   

The first fund-raising effort was not without controversy. In early April 1920, committee member and local automobile dealer R. V. Law suggested in a meeting that in addition to the $100 lap prizes, certificates be awarded.

A debate broke out over how the committee could pay for the certificates until Theodore Myers, the General Manager of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, volunteered the Speedway to furnish the certificates,  so that all the money collected by the fund could be awarded to the competitors. The Speedway also provided the score card insert for the race day program which listed the names of the Citizen’s Lap Prize Committee members and the fund donors.

Initially, Dickson envisioned that donors would be assigned individual laps in the order that their donations were received, but eventually, the committee agreed that a drawing should be held to more fairly determine the order. 

On April 24 1920 A. H. Adams, the field manager for the committee, reported that with $7,000 already collected, the Indianapolis Merchants’ Association had officially endorsed the lap prize fund. 

Drivers Louis Chevrolet and Ralph DePalma both contributed to the lap prize fund before it closed on May 17, 1920, with the final donation, which meant the fund reached it's $20,000 goal, came from Indianapolis Motor Speedway co-founder James Allison’s Allison Experimental Company. The Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, the custodian of the fund, held the drawing for the sponsorship lap order at a luncheon on May 19 1920.  

The eighth annual International 500-mile Sweepstakes victory banquet, held on the evening of June 1 1920 in the Riley Ballroom at the plush Claypool Hotel, located at the corner of Illinois and Washington Streets in downtown Indianapolis. 

Barney Oldfield “the Master Driver,” served as the emcee, with five-time ‘500’ competitor with World War One flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker as the keynote speaker, but most attendees were there to collect their part of the total $93,550 race purse.

John Reynolds, secretary of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, awarded the lap prizes to Joe Boyer, who received $9,300, while Ralph DePalma collected $7,900.  The race winner, Gaston Chevrolet, picked up $1,400, Frenchman Rene Thomas received a $1,200 check, while Jean Chassagne and Art Klein each won $100.

The positive publicity created by the lap prize fund at Indianapolis led to a similar effort later in the year in Los Angeles, led by A. M. Young, for the 200-lap Thanksgiving Day race held at the high-speed 1-1/4 mile Los Angeles Motor Speedway board track in Beverley Hills.  Donors to the $5,000 Los Angles fund included the Beverley Hills Hotel, actors Wallace Reid and Tom Mix, retired racer Barney Oldfield, race car builder Harry A. Miller and the Gilmore Oil Company.

Jimmy Murphy got a check for $250 as he led the first lap of the Beverly Hills race, while Roscoe Sarles collected the balance of the fund as he led each of the race’s remaining 199 laps. Unfortunately, the Thanksgiving 1920 Beverly Hills race is remembered more because of the triple fatality.

The #6 Frontenac, driven by the reigning Indianapolis 500-mile race champion Gaston Chevrolet, tangled with the #9 Duesenberg driven by Eddie O'Donnell as they passed the slower car of Joe Thomas. Gaston, just 28 years old,  perished instantly in the accident, while 33-year old O’Donnell and his riding mechanic Lyall B. Jolls (given surname Headen) passed away the following day. The only survivor, John Bresnahan, Chevrolet’s mechanic, thrown from the car, slid down the banking to safety.

1921 - the ninth running

For 1921, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce pared the Citizen’s Committee down to ten members, and the donors from 1920 put on a “roll of honor” which gave them the opportunity to renew for 1921 before any new donors were approached. 

A. H. Adams served as the committee chairman with members that included Dickson and representatives of Indianapolis Power & Light, the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company and the Willard Storage Battery Company.  

On May 3, 1921, Adams reported that subscriptions to the lap prize fund passed the half-way mark, but with the United States economy in a recession, progress on fund-raising apparently stalled after Adams’ announcement. To remedy that situation, the Committee and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway scheduled the first “Drivers’ Day” on Saturday May 21 with all the money collected earmarked to complete the lap prize fund.

On May 21^st, race fans that paid 50 cents admission each watched as Seth Cline (Klein) the Speedway’s “official announcer” introduce   the drivers entered for the ‘500.’ Klein, who ran a radiator service shop at 820 North Meridian Street, later became the 500-mile race assistant starter in 1923 and the chief starter from 1935 through 1954.  

5,294 fans saw Ralph DePalma and Tommy Milton stage a short “dash,” followed by Howdy Wilcox, Jean Chassagne, and Bennett Hill in a three-way “brush.”  

The program also included appearances by Arthur Chevrolet, 1911 ‘500’ winner Ray Harroun, Barney Oldfield, and “the fastest car in world,” the twin-engine sixteen-cylinder Duesenberg that Tommy Milton drove in April 1920 to the 156.046 mile per hour (MPH) land speed record on the Daytona Beach sands. The Indianapolis Star reported that a crew towed the record-setting Duesenberg past the grandstands but the car did not make a lap. 

Unfortunately, after expenses “Driver’s Day” only collected  $2,382 which brought the lap prize fund total to $16,700. When the fund-raising closed five days later on Thursday May 26^th, the fund’s account contained only $17,150. 

Because of the shortfall, the fund paid the leader of each lap $100 up to lap 150, after which the fund paid $100 to the leader of alternating laps over the final 50 laps or 125 miles.  

Ralph DePalma led 108 laps in the '500' before his French Ballot broke a connecting rod, which handed the lead and the victory to Tommy Milton in a Frontenac, designed by his friend Cornelius "CW" Van Ranst and built by the Chevrolet brothers.  

At the Victory banquet, DePalma received $10,650 in lap prizes, while Milton won $6,300 and Joe Boyer, the leader at lap 2, and Roscoe Sarles, the leader at lap 6, each won $100. The firms and individuals that donated $100 each and the one $50 donor, the WB Burford Printing Company, were all identified in an article in the May 31 1921 edition of the Indianapolis Star newspaper.

1922 

After the 1921 lap prize fund shortfall, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce reduced the total lap prize fund to $10,000, to pay the leader $50 per lap during the 1922 International 500-mile Sweepstakes. 

The 1922 Committee members included Wallace O. Lee, the Vice-President of the Indianapolis Power & Light Company, Spanish-American War veteran Captain Harry M. Franklin and Carl H. Wallerich, an Indianapolis Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge dealer.

Born in Iowa in 1883, Carl came to Indianapolis in 1900 and in 1903 joined the new Overland Automobile Company (which later became Willys-Overland). Wallerich served as a “Clerk of the Course” and managed various aspects of track operations during the 1912 International 500-mile Sweepstakes.  

Several companies reportedly donated the same $100 amount as in previous years and claimed two laps. Committee chairman A.H. Adams announced on April 7 1922 that the fund already contained “about $3,000.” The Committee held its first meeting on Saturday May 13 and in his report Adams described the fund as “about half subscribed.” 

The Citizen’s Committee staged another “Drivers’ Day” on Saturday May 20 1922 but it appears that in the recession economy, the lap prize fund again fell short of the goal with a total of $8,375 collected. 

The race winner, Jimmy Murphy, led 153 laps from the pole position and received a payment of $6,300. Harry Hartz led 42 laps and received $1,825 and a $100 radio set, while Peter DePaolo led three laps and got $100, and Leon Duray led two laps and got $50, according to the report in the Indianapolis Star.      

1923

For 1923 the prize was back to a $100 a lap and on May 17 the Citizen’s Committee new chairman, Harold Hampton, kicked off the $20,000 lap prize fund subscription period with the “Drivers’ Day” at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway scheduled for Friday May 25^th.

In his Indianapolis Star column “Speedway Appetizers” on Thursday May 24^th William Sturm claimed that “businessmen have contributed $10,000.”  The newspaper advertisement for the 1923 “Drivers’ Day” promised thrills with “exhibition races,” and suggested attendance as a civic duty to support the fund. 

     

Once again, the 1923 lap prize fundraising fell short of the goal of $20,000, so the prizes were only awarded for the first 125 laps. The fund distributed $12,100 among five drivers, per the United Press International report. The race’s first two-time winner, Tommy Milton, led 128 laps and banked $8,500 in lap prizes, a small amount as many of his leading laps came late in the race including the final 50 laps.

Milton’s HCS Motor Company teammate, Howdy Wilcox, led 51 laps and received $2,000. Third place finisher Jimmy Murphy, the 1922 race winner, led eleven laps early in the race and got $1,100.  Russell “Cliff” Durant, earned $400 for four laps led, although Cliff scarcely needed the money since he was a multi-millionaire and owned eight of the cars entered in the 1923 race.  Harry Hartz, the second place finisher in a Durant entry, led twice for a total of six laps, but only got paid $100 for leading one of those laps.

1924

The May 14 1924 edition of the Indianapolis Star reported that the committee members were selected at a noontime Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Harold Hampton, the Chamber of Commerce athletic committee chairman, announced that for 1924, the prize would be $50 a lap and the article stated that Hampton “expressed belief that contributions this year would make this easily possible.”

Solicitations began immediately and after a follow-up meeting two days later, the Committee chairman, insurance agent Austin J. Edwards, told the Indianapolis Star  that the AAA and the local Yellow Cab Company each stepped up to sponsor two laps, while the Indiana Bell Telephone Company, the accounting firm Ernst & Ernst, and the Indianapolis Indians baseball club each sponsored one lap.

On Monday May 19, the Indianapolis Star printed an appeal from A. L. Block, the President of the prestigious L. Strauss & Company department store, which read in part “Indianapolis people cannot do too much toward helping the daring drivers whose feats have made the city internationally known.”  Block’s statement closed by saying that “my greatest hope is that each lap will have its award that the drivers may not think us ungrateful for their efforts.”       

Indianapolis Star sports editor W. Blaine Patton reported in his “Observed from the Speedway Pits” column in the May 21^st edition of the that the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, Polk Sanitary Milk Company, the L. S. Ayres & Company department store chain, Nordyke & Marmon and the Indianapolis Star newspaper all donated $100 to the fund.     

The Speedway held the annual “Drivers’ Day” on Tuesday afternoon May 27 1924 with 3,500 reported attendees which added $1,600 to the fund after expenses. The Indianapolis News reported that race car builder Harry A. Miller wrote a check for $200, which brought the fund total up to $5,900. Apparently, the 1924 fund topped out at $6,250 which paid the leader of each the race’s first 125 laps.

Austin J. Edwards the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce’s representative, distributed the lap prizes at the 1924 ‘500’ victory banquet, which was held in the Rainbow ballroom at the Casino Gardens clubhouse. Formerly known as the Indianapolis Canoe Club, the building still stands two miles east of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the west bank of the White River. 

Earl Cooper, the second place finisher, received $3,400, and third place finisher Jimmy Murphy received $2,800, while co-winner Joe Boyer (with L.L. Corum) got $50 as he led the first lap from his fourth place starting position.   

We will examine the fundraising and distribution for years 1925 and beyond in future installments.     

For fans interested in viewing the individual 500-mile race programs covers, the National Indy 500 Collector Club has an excellent website at  https://www.ni500cc.com

1972 Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing Team VPJ-1

1972 Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing Team VPJ-1

Maurice Philippe started his career designing airplanes before he joined Lotus Cars in 1965. Phillipe worked with Colin Chapman and redesigned the Lotus 39, and then drew the BRM-powered Lotus 43. The next Phillipe design was the classic Lotus 49 and later Philippe was involved in the design of the 1968 Lotus four-wheel drive turbine Indianapolis cars.

Phillipe’s master stroke was the Lotus 72, a dramatic Formula 1 design which broke new ground by mounting the radiators alongside the driver in sidepods, a design that McLaren Cars adapted for the M16 USAC car that won the Indianapolis pole position in 1971. In late 1971, Maurice left Lotus to work as a free-lance designer.

Philippe's 1972 design for the Vel’s Parnelli Jones (VPJ) Racing Team featured wings sprouting at a 45-degree angle off the monocoque known as dihedral wings which also contained the radiators. Most shocking there was no rear wing mounted behind the turbocharged Offenhauser engine.

The new Parnelli also featured new Phillipe-designed suspension technology known as dual camber compensators meant to keep the triangular shaped chassis monocoque level in all racing conditions.

The VPJ team was the first of the modern “super teams” with a lineup of top drivers, mechanics, and strong sponsorship so expectations were high for the new car. The team featured drivers Joe Leonard, Al Unser and Mario Andretti, Leonard was the defending United States Auto Club (USAC) national champion in the PJ Colt, a chassis that was copied from a Lola design.  

Unser was the two-time and defending Indianapolis 500-race race winner, while Andretti was a three-time USAC national champion and the 1969 Indianapolis champion. George Bignotti the multiple time Indianapolis winning mechanic was the team’s chief mechanic paired with mechanics John Capels and Jim McGee.  

Leonard’s car carried season long sponsorship from Samsonite luggage, while Andretti’s and Unser’s cars carried full sponsorship from Viceroy cigarettes. The sponsorship was supplemented with a massive influx of funding from the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which was engaged in a “tire war” with Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. 

A press photo from the 1972 VPJ-1

 unveiling at Ontario Motor Speedway

author's collection

  

The VPJ team and the national auto racing media gathered at the Ontario Motor Speedway in March 1972 for the car’s introduction, and after a coin flip with teammate Mario Andretti, Al Unser took the prototype out for its first laps. After several laps Unser pulled into the pits and Andretti then took the car out for some slow laps, then drove directly to the garage area. Shortly thereafter the press outing ended.  

Not disclosed to the press was the fact that the car, known as the VPJ-1 was a horrible combination – it was both scary and slow. The team went to work to revise the design and develop the VPJ-1. The team used the older Colt chassis at the season-opening race in Phoenix, then the new car debuted at Indianapolis minus the dihedral wings, with a conventional suspension system and more typical front and rear wings.

In the 1972 Indianapolis 500, the VPJ-1 finished second, third, and eighth.  Later in the 1972 USAC season, Joe Leonard won three consecutive races – a 200-mile race at Michigan, the Pocono 500-mile race, and the Tony Bettenhausen 200 at Milwaukee. On the strength of those results, Joe Leonard captured his second straight USAC national championship with Al Unser in fourth place in the 1972 points.

Despite the early problems, Maurice Phillipe penned the 1973 Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing Team entry, the VPJ-2, the VPJ-3 used sparingly in the 1974 USAC season (the team switched to 1974 AAR Eagle customer chassis for most of the season) and the VPJ-4 ill-fated Formula 1 car powered by a Cosworth engine.    

The Vintage Indy Registry displayed VPJ-1 chassis #102 owned by Chuck Jones was shown in its original dihedral wing configuration at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show. The car is expertly restored as it appeared in early season testing. 

This chassis was driven by Joe Leonard to a third-place finish at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Leonard drove chassis #102 to the three wins during the 1972 season at Michigan, Pocono, and Milwaukee until the was damaged in a tire testing crash before the season-ending race at Phoenix, and Leonard drove VPJ chassis 104 at Phoenix. 

Leonard crashed chassis #104 in practice and did not start the Best Western 150. Fortunately for Leonard, he had a commanding points lead over second place Billy Vukovich and claimed his second consecutive USAC National driving Championship.    

All photos by the author except as noted 

The historic1967 LeMans winner

 

Deservedly the centerpiece of the Ford Motor Company exhibit  at the 2017 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show was the 1967 24 Heures du Mans (24 hours of LeMans) winning Ford GT40 Mark IV chassis  number J-5.

 

 

This car represented the ultimate development of the Ford GT40 series which first appeared at LeMans in 1964, as Henry Ford II was driven to beat the Italian Ferrari team. The initial Ford Advanced Vehicles Limited effort with British built chassis originally designed by Lola Cars powered by Ford’s 260 cubic inch V-8 engines managed by John Wyer did not perform well, and for 1965 management of the program moved to Carrol Shelby’s Shelby American Racing Team.

In 1965 Shelby American was still pushing its Cobra Daytona coupe program and after a difficult 1965 LeMans appearance in which both the Mark IIs entered retired with transmission failure, in 1966 the Shelby American GT40 Mark IIs powered by Ford 427 engines dominated at LeMans. 

The 1966 finish was botched as Ford tried to stage the 1-2-3 finish and the team of Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon were declared the winners of race over the team of Ken Miles and Denis Hulme.  The next iteration of the GT40 known as the “J-car” (chassis J-2) was destroyed in testing and killed Ken Miles and Ford dropped its development.  GT40 Mark III were cars built for road use.

Six (6) GT40 Mark IV chassis were built at Kar Kraft Inc. in Detroit powered by the mighty 427 Ford V-8 engine with cast iron block and aluminum cylinder heads fed by a pair of Holley four barrel carburetors that developed an estimated 530 horsepower and carried the Mark IV to terminal speeds of 212 miles per hour on the 3-1/2 mile long Mulsanne Straight. Lessons learned from the deaths of Walter Hangsen and Ken Miles meant the Mark IVs were more stoutly built with a steel roll cage.

 

 

 

Four Mark IV chassis were entered for the 1967 LeMans 24 hour race, two cars by Shelby American on Goodyear tires consisted of the driver team of three-time Indianapolis 500-race winner AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney in the red #1 car and the other team of 1966 LeMans winner Bruce McLaren and Mark Donohue in the yellow #2 car.

The other two Ford GT 40 Mark IVs were entered by the Holman Moody team shod with Firestone tires driven by teams of Lucien Bianchi and Mario Andretti in the bronze #3 car and the other by Denis Hulme and Lloyd Ruby in the dark blue #4 car.  The red #1 car chassis J-5 was visually different from the other entries because of the “Gurney Bubble” over the driver’s seat to accommodate Dan Gurney’s 6-foot-3 inch height.

The car #2 of Donohue and McLaren finished fourth while the #3 car assigned to Bianchi and Andretti and the #4 car of Hulme and Ruby were both eliminated in accidents during the 19th hour.   Foyt and Gurney in the #1 car led the race for the last 23 ½ hours and completed 388 laps (3251 miles) at a record breaking average of 135.48 miles per hours and won by four laps over the Ferrari 330 P4 driven by Ludovico Scarfiotti and Michael Parks.

 

The car that crossed the finish line on June 11 1967 was truly “all American”- car built in Detroit powered by an American-built Ford engine riding on American Goodyear tires driven by a pair American drivers.  This car chassis J-5 only ran one race and today the conserved car is part of the collection of the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Michigan.

To learn more about Ford Motor Company’s racing program at LeMans in 1967 and view historic photographs visit https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/expert-sets/101482

William Clay Ford's midget race car

 

2016 photo courtesy of Hyman Ltd.

by enlarging you can see that this car

had a rear nerf bar - very unusual for the period

 

William Clay ‘Bill’ Ford, the youngest son of Edsel Ford, received this hand-built midget race car from his father and grandfather on the occasion of his 11th birthday on March 25 1936. The little car was powered not by a Ford flathead V8-60 engine as used in many racing midget cars of the era but by a 71-½ cubic inch side-valve inline four-cylinder engine fitted with a single downdraft carburetor from an English Ford Model C Ten. The little car was apparently driven periodically by Bill Ford on the roads around Edsel’s estate in Grosse Pointe Shores on the shore of Lake St. Clair and never was actually entered in racing competition.  

William Clay Ford served in the United States Navy Air Corps during World War II and when he returned home he married Martha Firestone. Ford attended Yale University and after graduation he was appointed to the Ford Motor Company Board of Directors in 1949. Bill Ford served as the chairman of the design committee for 32 years and briefly ran the Lincoln division where was responsible for shepherding the spectacular 1956 Lincoln Continental Mark II into production.  

Bill Ford served as the Chairman of the Board of The Henry Ford Museum (now known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation) founded by his grandfather in 1929 and held that position for 38 years, from 1951 to 1989 and was the largest individual donor in the history of that institution.  The author did not uncover any evidence that William Clay Ford ever owned any other race cars besides his childhood midget, but he drove the Pace Car for the start of the Indianapolis 500-mile race on two occasions.

The pace lap of the 1953 Indianapolis 500

with William Clay Ford driving the 1953 Ford Crestline Pace Car

courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection

Hollywood actress Jane Greer posed with the 1953 Ford Crestline Pace Car

courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection

Bill drove the flathead-powered sungate ivory 1953 Ford Crestline Pace Car equipped with a “Continental” rear spare tire for the start of the 1953 race with Hollywood actress Jane Greer and Speedway President Wilbur Shaw as his passengers.

William Clay Ford with Wilbur Shaw and "999" in 1953

courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection

William Clay Ford prepares to pull away from the pit area

 for a lap around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in "999" in 1953

courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection

 

In 1953, Ford Motor Company was celebrating its 50th anniversary and the company arranged to have Henry Ford’s original race car “the 999” at the track and Bill took a few laps around the Speedway in the 1155 cubic inch four-cylinder  wooden-frame “999.”  It is believed that Bill drove the original “999” since Ford Motor Company did not commission a replica until 1966.

The 1968 Ford Fairlane Torino Pace Car

driven by William Clay Ford leads the starting field on the pace lap

courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection

In 1968 Bill Ford returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and drove the Wimbledon white with blue trim Ford Fairlane Torino GT Pace Car, accompanied by Tony Hulman and Dennis “Duke” Nalon. At the time Torino was not a separate Ford nameplate, rather it was the highest trim level available for the Fairlane model which took its name from Henry Ford’s mansion. For the 1970 model year, that situation was reversed as the Fairlane became a sub-series model of the Ford Torino nameplate.   

Most sports fans not fans of auto racing history are more familiar with Bill Ford through his ownership of the Detroit Lions National Football League (NFL) franchise. Ford purchased the franchise in November 1963 and he remained an active NFL owner until March 9, 2014 when he passed away at age 88. Bill's widow Martha Firestone Ford is now the chairman of the team.

The first time the author saw the William Clay Ford midget was in 2008 when it was then owned by Ronald 'Bud' Melby and on display in his Museum of Mechanical Arts in Washington State.  ‘Bud’ Melby who founded and ran Metal Form Incorporated in Kent Washington for more than forty years, collected classic cars and his collection included 20 or more cars, most built before World War Two.

‘Bud’ also owned another midget race car, an un-assembled Solar kit, and was a member of Golden Wheels a Seattle-based vintage auto racing club. Bud also collected motorcycles, slot machines, gold pocket watches, antique firearms and silver dollars. All of his priceless collections were displayed at Melby’s seven-acre estate in Riversdale Washington which was also the site of the Museum of Mechanical Art.

Bud Melby with the WC Ford midget on the left- his Solar midget is on the right

2008 photo by George Hespe of Lake Stevens, WA

 

 The English Ford 4-cylinder engine in the WC Ford midget

2008 photo by George Hespe of Lake Stevens, WA

 

In 2008, the William Clay Ford midget race car was painted dark red and carried #11, but a recent photograph of the midget part of a 2016 holiday e-mail from Hyman Ltd. collector cars shows the car in black with no numbers. After purchasing the car from Melby’s family, the Hyman’s restoration department staff reported uncovered the car’s original livery and restored it to that appearance.

What remains untold is the story of the car’s history between the time William Clay Ford last drove it until ‘Bud’ Melby purchased the car; if our readers have any information about the ownership history of this  unique car, please contact the author.

Please visit the website of the current owners of the William Clay Ford midget race car at http://hymanltd.com/

Many thanks to the members of the Yahoo! Racing History Group for their assistance in researching this article. You too can join the group by visiting  https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RacingHistory/info

The racing life and times of Jerry Grant

Part seven – the 1974 season

Early in 1974, Jerry Grant signed to drive for Phoenix Arizona tire magnate Robert L. “Bob” Fletcher for the 1974 United States Auto Club season (USAC) as a teammate to sophomore driver Jimmy Caruthers and rookie Duane “Pancho” Carter.

Caruthers was the Cobre Firestone Tire team’s primary 1974 USAC national championship trail driver, while Carter ran an abbreviated schedule of eight championship races as he (successfully) chased the 1974 USAC National Sprint Car title, and Grant ran just five races during the 1974 USAC season.  

Both Caruthers and Carter  both sons of famous racers came up the USAC open-wheel ranks, having driven midget and sprint cars. Caruthers won the 1970 USAC National Midget Championship and finished runner-up in 1971 to his brother Danny, while Carter won the 1972 USAC national midget championship.   

Among the three drivers, the Cobre team had four cars - one updated 1972 All-American Racing  (AAR) Eagle, one updated 1973 AAR Eagle, and at least two 1974-spec AAR Eagles chassis, all powered by turbocharged Offenhauser engines.  Racing historians have been unable to determine conclusively which Fletcher Eagle was assigned to an individual driver at a specific race. 

Operating out of the team’s shop on 32nd Avenue in northwest Phoenix, for 1974 the Cobre team had three chief mechanics; Jim McGee, who had started out in racing working for Clint Brawner was assigned to work with Jimmy Caruthers, while Mike Devin worked with rookie “Pancho” Carter, and Ron Falk, who had worked for the STP Racing team from 1963 through 1973, was assigned to work with Jerry Grant. 

Fletcher, whose Cobre Tires chain in the American Southwest was at the time the largest Firestone tire distributor in the United States, fielded his teams with major financial support from the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company.  Fletcher entered USAC racing as a car owner in 1973, but at the team’s third race, Art Pollard crashed fatally at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway the morning of the first day of ‘500’ time trials.

The Pollard crash destroyed one of the Fletcher 1972 Eagles, so the Cobre team operated for much of the 1973 USAC season as a single car team with Clint Brawner as the chief mechanic for Jimmy Caruthers. In September after the Cobre team received a replacement Eagle chassis to replace the car destroyed in the Pollard crash, Bob Fletcher hired Ron Falk with work with newly hired driver Lee Kunzman of Guttenberg Iowa beginning with the 1973 ‘California 500.’

Lee Kunzman in 1970

photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

 IUPUI University Library Center for Digital studies.

 

 

Lee Kunzman’s blossoming career had been interrupted by a serious accident at I-70 Speedway in Odessa Missouri on June 5 1970 when the throttle of his sprint car hung open. The car tumbled over the wall and Lee received severe burns over 20% of his body as well as a broken neck and broken arm. 10 months later, Kunzman triumphantly returned to racing as he won a 40-lap sprint car race at I-70 Speedway. In 1972, Kunzman made his first Indianapolis ‘500’ start as he drove Myron Caves’s turbocharged Offenhauser powered Gerhardt chassis.

Kunzman joined forces with Coca-Cola millionaire Lindsey Hopkins for the first Milwaukee race in 1972 and completed that season and the first part of the 1973 USAC season with Hopkins. Lee was hired away by Bob Fletcher for the Cobre Firestone team beginning with the 1973 California ‘500.’ After a successful 1973 season which ended with two top five finishes, Fletcher, Kunzman, and Falk looked forward to the 1974 season.

On December 11 1973, during an off-season Firestone tire test at Ontario Motor Speedway, Kunzman crashed into the second turn concrete wall at an estimated 190 MPH, which destroyed the Cobre Tire 1973 Eagle and left Kunzman seriously injured for the second time in career. Initial news reports immediately after the accident indicated that Kunzman was in a coma with severe head injuries and paralysis of his left side. By Christmas, newspapers reported that Kunzman was awake and had moved his arms, but doctors thought he faced a long rehabilitation. 

On February 15 1974, Bob Fletcher hired Jerry Grant to replace Kunzman on the Cobre Firestone team for the California ‘500,’ as news articles at the time were optimistic about Kunzman’s return in time the 1974 Indianapolis ‘500.’ In fact, Lee Kunzman’s recovery from his head injuries took up the entire 1974 season. In August 1974 Lee had only regained 70% of the use of his left side, and suffered blurred vision. Jerry Grant was considered Kunzman’s replacement driver as Jerry drove the 1974 season with Kunzman’s previous car number, #55.    

The 1974 USAC championship car rules package reduced the size of the rear wings to a maximum width of 43 inches, and the wing could not extend more than 42 inches behind the center lines of the rear wheels and centered between the rear wheels.  For the first time USAC regulated the maximum “boost” level (turbocharger pressure) for Offenhauser engines to 80 inches of mercury (slightly more than 39 pounds per square inch) through the use of a pressure relief “pop off valve” mounted on the intake plenum. Additionally, to lower race speeds, the total fuel allowed to be used by each car to complete a 500-mile race was reduced to 280 gallons.

As outlined in a previous chapter, the financially troubled Ontario Motor Speedway and shifted the date of the ‘California 500’ which became 1974 season opening race but it came amid a nationwide crisis. The Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) instituted an oil embargo beginning in October 1973. The price of oil rose from $3 per barrel to $12, gasoline stations rationed their supplies, and the oil shortage triggered one of the worst economic downturns in modern history.

In response to the oil crisis, in January 1974, USAC announced a “fuel allocation formula” that also restricted the amount of methanol fuel that could be used in practice for Ontario to 200 gallons, 35 gallons for qualifying, and 55 gallons for the 100-mile qualifying heat races. It didn’t seem to matter to USAC that the race cars ran on methanol, not gasoline, their move made it appear to the general public that the club’s board was doing something.

In accordance with the recommendations of the National Motorsports Committee to reduce fuel consumption by 25 percent during the “energy crisis,” Ontario Motor Speedway for its part, cut back to four days of practice beginning February 26 with each practice session to last seven hours instead of the previous nine hours daily.  

After the completion of the March 3 qualifying heat races, teams would only have three hours of running time before the California 500 on March 10 1974. All these changes reportedly would reduce the California ‘500’ methanol use from 30,000 gallons to 23,000 gallons. “We feel this will make the race (the California 500) more competitive than it’s ever been before," Ontario General Manager Jim Cook told the Associated Press. “There will be less strain on the engines and combined with the milder March temperatures should keep more cars running longer.” 

Jerry Grant's official 1974 Indy 500 qualifying photo

courtesy of INDYCAR

During the final day of practice on Friday March 1, Grant lost control of the “Cobre Firestone Special” turquoise and copper colored #55 Eagle as he exited the fourth turn, executed a partial spin, brushed the inside retaining wall, and slightly damaged the left side suspension.  Grant was uninjured and the car promptly repaired for the next day’s qualifying session.

The start of qualifying for the 1974 California ‘500’ on March 2 was delayed five hours by rain, and lap speeds were indeed down as AJ Foyt won the pole position with a two-lap average speed of 190.617 MPH.  Foyt was the only car over 190 MPH, as second fastest qualifier Johnny Rutherford posted a 185.989 MPH average. Grant qualified tenth out of the twenty-nine qualifiers with a 183.150 MPH average speed. 

Grant was forced to run the 100-mile “heat race,” unlike 1973, when his front-row starting position allowed him the opportunity to sit out and preserve his equipment. On the positive side, whereas in 1973 the qualifying races paid no money, just USAC points, in 1974 the qualifying races offered a purse of $25,000 each, although the total purse for the California ‘500’ and the preliminary races remained at $300,000.

Grant started the second March 3 qualifying heat race from the fifth position but failed to finish the 40 laps, as the Offenhauser engine’s magneto failed on lap 14. That finish meant that Grant would start seventeenth in the middle of the sixth row between Gary Bettenhausen in the Penske Products McLaren and Gordon Johncock in the Patrick Racing Eagle.

In a local newspaper interview printed two days before the race, Grant told a reporter "we’re thinking that maybe things will swing around this time. The last two times I started from the front row, this time it’s the middle of the pack. Maybe we’ll break this spell I seem to be under.”  Grant said “I think we’re among the few cars that have enough mileage to finish the 500 miles. At the end of the race you’re likely to see a lot of people running out of gas.”

Drivers generally were critical of the USAC fuel cuts, as Al Unser told Bloys Britt of the Associated Press “they have finally cut the racing out of the race. All we do is go out and watch the fuel gauge.”  Eight cars ran out of fuel during the 100-mile qualifying heats, including Unser, Gordon Johncock, and Mario Andretti.

1974 California 500 race day program cover

The 1974 California ‘500’ featured seven yellow flag periods for a total of 39 laps, so fuel consumption proved not to be an issue. Pole position starter Foyt was out of lap 20 with a punctured oil tank, while Johncock and two-time USAC National Champion Joe Leonard were each eliminated in separate crashes. Leonard, who crashed after a left front tire failed, suffered a compound fracture of his lower left leg with his ankle was crushed and his foot nearly severed. It reportedly took rescuers nearly half an hour to extract him from the destroyed Vel’s Parnelli Eagle.  

At the finish of the 500 mile grind, Grant had moved up fourteen places from his starting position to finish third, one lap behind the brothers Unser, with his former teammate Bobby claiming the win. Grant’s new teammate Caruthers finished fourth a lap behind Grant who won $21,534 in prize money. The bad news was the reported attendance for the 1974 ‘California 500‘ was just 100,000 fans.

Joe Leonard missed the rest of the 1974 USAC racing season as he recovered from his injuries, and after eight months in a full-length cast, he attempted a comeback in March 1975 at age 41.  Before practice for the 1975 ‘California 500,’ USAC officials tested Leonard’s fitness and found that his left foot was not sufficiently healed as he could not fully depress the brake pedal of AJ Foyt’s backup car.  

Joe’s failed physical brought a sad end to his brilliant racing career that included three American Motorcycle Association (AMA) and two USAC national championships. Later in March 1975, Leonard’s attorneys James Boccardo and Bob Bohn announced to the Indianapolis Star newspaper writer Robin Miller that they had filed $1 million negligence suits against Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Ontario Motor Speedway, Leonard’s physician, and Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing, his car owner and employer at the time of the accident.    

Grant next raced in the ‘Trentonian 200’ at the New Jersey kidney-bean shaped one mile track nearly a month after the Ontario race. After he qualified twelfth, he officially finished in fifth place although the gearbox in his Eagle had broken and knocked him out of the race on lap 117 of the scheduled 134 lap race. Attrition was so high that April day at Trenton that only four of the original nineteen race starters were still running at the drop of the checkered flag.

As part of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s effort to address the nationwide fuel crisis the track did not open for practice until Monday May 6. The compressed schedule left teams with just five (5) scheduled 6-hour days of practice before “Pole Day” on May 11. Rather than the traditional four days of time trials, the 1974 schedule was reduced to two days on successive Saturdays.

In addition to the previously discussed changes to the cars, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway facility had changed. No longer was starter Pat Vidan stationed on a platform atop the wall that divided the racing surface from pit lane, instead Vidan was stationed on a platform attached to a new control tower perched high above the start/finish line on the outside of the track. The entry lane from the racing surface onto pit lane and the pit lane itself had been widened, the retaining walls around the track had been raised, and most importantly, the trackside seating on the outside of the main straightway had been removed.  

Jerry Grant’s #55 “Cobre Firestone Special” was scheduled to roll out fourteenth in the qualifying order on “Pole Day,” but after the typical scrambling with some cars pulled out of line, Grant’s Eagle was the eighth car out and he posted a conservative 181.781 MPH four-lap average. Shortly after Grant’s run, rain halted activity for three hours as the track dried. Five more cars qualified before rain fell again and closed the track for the day with 11 cars still guaranteed runs for the pole position. When the rain-shortened qualifying period was completed the following Saturday the 18th, Jerry Grant was slotted into the 17th starting position in the 33-car field, the middle of row six.

There were several controversies throughout and following time trials, the first of which concerned turbochargers and the boost limit. Patrick Racing team crew chief George Bignotti fitted the Offenhauser engines in his team’s cars with larger diameter turbochargers for qualifying, and intended to replace the larger turbochargers with smaller unit after qualifying.  

However, new Chief Steward Thomas Binford ruled that Wally Dallenbach’s and Gordon Johncock’s “STP” Eagles would have to race with the same turbocharger with which they qualified. Throughout the month many of teams publicly complained that the USAC-supplied “pop-off valves” opened before the 80 inches of Mercury pressure level was reached, and there were also numerous accusations of some teams “cheating” their pop-off valves.

As a result of the rain-shortened qualifying periods which further impacted the compressed schedule there eleven cars were left in line that had an opportunity to make a qualifying attempt when the final gun went off. Those teams were outraged as it had always been implied that everyone who wanted to make a run would at least just get a chance. Six of the wronged car owners threatened to file a lawsuit and in response, Binford offered to re-open time trials if the drivers of all 33 qualified cars agreed.  Binford’s compromise plan fell apart when Larry Cannon, driver of the Hoffman Racing “American Financial Special” the field’s slowest qualified car refused to sign the agreement.  

The lawsuit was filed which requested an injunction that will stop the 500-mile race from being held as scheduled. After a hearing held on Carburation Day, May 23, the following day Judge Frank A. Symmes of Marion County Superior Court threw out the suit and request for an injunction on the grounds that the plaintiffs had not exhausted all the available avenues in the USAC appeals process before they filed their lawsuit.

On Race Day, May 26, Grant and the Cobre Firestone Eagle, with injured teammate Lee Kunzman working behind the pit wall signaling on the signboard, struggled to a tenth place finish 25 laps behind winner Johnny Rutherford. Years later, it’s unclear what delayed Grant during the race, but the 1974 ‘500’ clearly was a race of attrition with a total of seven yellow flags displayed for 34 minutes and only twelve cars still running at the finish. Only second place finisher Bobby Unser was on the leader’s lap at the finish, 22 seconds in arrears.

To illustrate just how strange the 1974 ‘500’ was, the ninth place finisher, Lloyd Ruby, ran out of fuel on lap 187, and eleventh place finisher John Martin in the “Sea Snack Shrimp Cocktail Special” McLaren was six laps behind Grant, while the fourteenth place finisher Mike Hiss, the last car running, was flagged with just 158 laps completed.  At the ‘500’ Victory Banquet the next evening, Grant picked up a check for $21,266.06.

Two weeks after the Indianapolis ‘500,’ Grant and the #55 Cobre Firestone Eagle appeared in the Rex Mays Classic held on the Mile at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds. In time trials, Grant circulated around the flat one-mile in 30.27-seconds which slotted him in eighteenth place in the starting field, while his teammate Caruthers qualified thirteenth.  AJ Foyt qualified for his second straight pole position start with a 27.91 second lap and then led the first eleven laps, but Johnny Rutherford, who spun on the seventh lap, dominated the later stages of the 150-lap race to score his second consecutive win. Jerry Grant finished nine laps behind Rutherford in thirteenth place and won $1375.00.   

Two weeks later, Jerry Grant was one of five drivers who failed to qualify for the ‘Schafer 500’ at the triangular 2-1/2 mile Pocono Raceway. Qualifications were disrupted by rain with the second day of time trials on June 23 was washed out and somehow, Grant did not make the 33-car starting field. Though his USAC season was over, Grant stayed busy as a member of the Champion Spark Plug Company Highway Safety Team that toured the county speaking to high schools on driving safety and in the light of the energy crisis, Grant also offered tips on economical driving. 

Any chance that Grant had to re-sign with Bob Fletcher for another season evaporated in August 1974 when Firestone Tire and Rubber Company abruptly announced that it was quitting racing at the end of the 1974 season. Firestone’s decision ended the 10-year “tire war” with Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company which had led to a massive increase in USAC racing teams’ budgets and expenses.

The withdrawal placed several key USAC players such as team owners Parnelli Jones and Bob Fletcher, as well as leading drivers such as Mario Andretti who owned Firestone tire distributorships in awkward positions. Furthermore it appeared that it would take several years to untangle the mess, as several racing teams and drivers had long-term contracts with Firestone that ran through the 1977 USAC season.  

Firestone which had supplied tires used by Ray Harroun in the inaugural Indianapolis 500-mile race in 1911 stated that their withdrawal was a business decision, as their return on investment in racing tires no longer made sense to the Firestone Board of Directors.  “Costs have skyrocketed in the last few years and there seems to be no end in sight,” said A. E. “Scotty” Brubaker, Firestone's vice president of advertising and public relations.  Bill McCreary, the company's director of racing, told the New York Times writer Michael Katz that Firestone spent $386,000 for tire tests in one six‐month period from November 1972 to April 1973.

Consider that during tire testing sessions, the tire company had not only the expense of the tires, but also the track rental, safety personnel, and the salaries and travel expenses of its employees. Added to those costs were the travel expenses for the driver and his crew, and the rental cost for the race car which included the provision of the reimbursement to the car owner for any damage during testing. Firestone had an estimated racing budget in 1972 that ranged from $3 million to 8 million a year most of which was funneled to teams, earmarked for driver and crew chief salaries and engine development programs.  

Firestone’s departure along with the nation’s economic problems led to a financial crisis for many USAC teams such as Fletcher’s which without any outside sponsors was dependent on the “tire money.” By 1976, Fletcher’s “Cobre Tire” team shrank to a single car effort. Firestone’s withdrawal affected both Firestone and Goodyear teams, as without competition Goodyear no longer had to provide their teams with stipends.  Through the following years, the entry lists at USAC championship events shrank.

Officials from both the tire companies involved in racing had pressured USAC officials for years to reduce the costs of racing with ideas such as the replacement of the highly-stressed and expensive turbocharged racing engines with cheaper stock block-based engines. As discussed in a previous chapter, USAC officials during this time were negotiating with the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) on a joint car/engine rules package. 

Firestone’s departure should have been a red flag to the officials of both clubs, but it apparently was not and eventually those negotiations collapsed in October 1976. If even if an agreement could have been reached it would have come too late for Firestone which remained out of IndyCar racing until 1995.

In 1995, Firestone and Goodyear once again engaged in a battle for supremacy; with Firestone coming out of top in the second albeit shorter war when Goodyear withdrew from IndyCar competition after the 1999 season. Since than Firestone remained the exclusive INDYCAR tire supplier, some of the original “tire warriors,” such as AJ Foyt, still fight the war.

Foyt, who was instrumental in bringing Goodyear to Indianapolis in 1964, went so far as use a black Sharpie® pen to obscure his name on the special edition Firestone tires that listed all the previous winners of the race on Firestone tires used by his team in the 2016 Indianapolis 500. 

In addition to his Champion duties, Jerry Grant closed out his 1974 racing season as he raced Frank Arcerio’s Lola T-332 in the final three west coast rounds of the SCCA/USAC Formula 5000 series. In the 100-mile 1974 “California Grand Prix” event at the 2.9-mile Ontario Motor Speedway on September 1, Grant was one of five Indianapolis drivers entered along with Rutherford, Mario Andretti, Mickey Rupp, and Lloyd Ruby who raced in a turbocharged Offenhauser powered Eagle. Grant qualified 17th, finished ninth in his 17-lap preliminary heat and finished sixth in the feature to earn $1800 before a crowd of just 28,000 on a day when the daytime temperature peaked at 99 degrees.

At the penultimate 1974 SCCA/USAC Formula 5000 round at Laguna Seca Raceway near Salinas California in mid-October, Grant qualified the Arcerio Lola/Chevy 23rd fastest in time trials. Grant finished eighth in the first 27-lap heat race and eleventh in the 50-lap feature, three laps behind back-to-back winner Brian Redman. 

At the end of October Grant raced in the final 1974 SCCA/USAC Formula 5000 race held at the Riverside International Raceway but was the first car out of the feature race on lap four and finished in twenty-second position, scored ahead of two cars that failed to start the race.  Grant wound up scored in a three-way tie for nineteenth place in the 1974 USAC/SCCA Formula 5000 season point standings.

 In our next installment we'll look at Jerry Grant's time with Fred Carrillo's team