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 22^nd.

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 21^st 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 11^th, 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 29^th.

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 29^th, 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 10^th 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 22^nd 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 27^th 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 29^th, posted a safe four-lap average of 95.78 MPH, good enough to start the 1926 ‘500’ from 20^th 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 28^th with a four-lap average speed of 92.142 MPH to start from the 18^th 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 5^th ‘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 27^th 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 15^th 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.   

 

 

   

 

 

 

   

 

     

 

        

 

 

Rapid Response

A film review

The author recently had the opportunity to watch the documentary film Rapid Response based on Dr. Stephen Olvey’s excellent book of the same name. The author highly recommends this film  - all automobile racing fans and particularly open wheel racing fans need to see this two-hour film, which was directed, edited, and produced by Indianapolis native Michael Miles through Mile A Way Productions.

This film uses vintage footage provided by First Turn Productions and still photos from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway film archives, which are a real treat for racing historians. The film opens with historical color footage that features the Cummins Diesel Special starting from the pole position and Troy Ruttman winning the 1952 ‘500,’ and then continues with historical footage of crashes through the years at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS).

The film weaves the story of Dr. Olvey into the history of safety developments of our sport, beginning with his days working for IMS’s Dr. Tom Hanna because he wanted to “help the drivers.” Interspersed with the historical footage are recent interviews with Mario Andretti, Al and Bobby Unser and Parnelli Jones that add flavor of what safety was like in the “old days.”  

Olvey tells the story of his role that helped improve medical response at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway through the years, and tells the story of the eventual formation of a dedicated safety team that traveled the USAC Championship Trail created by Steve Edwards to provide “consistency of performance by qualified capable people.”

The film then introduces orthopedic surgeon Dr. Terry Trammell and follows his story from his days as volunteer medical student who worked at IMS in 1973, to his treatment of Danny Ongais after his awful Indianapolis crash in 1981. Together through the 1980’s and 1990’s Trammell and Olvey worked together to improve the response to accidents and later to the collection of scientific data to help redesign the race cars to better protect drivers.

The film focuses on critical events such as Rick Mears’ Sanair accident and Chip Ganssi’s Michigan accident in 1984, complete with interviews with Mears and Ganassi. Olvey reviews the events that led to the cancellation of the CART race at the Texas Motor Speedway in 2001, and the film closes with the story of Alex Zanardi’s gruesome accident at the Eurosport oval in Germany and his triumphant return to racing.  

The film Rapid Response is unrated and contains footage of fatal accidents. 

Visit the film’s website at   https://rapidresponsemovie.com/ to find a theater near you.

Track Roadster re-creation

In the late 1940’s "hot rod roadster" or track roadster racing was the rage, with clubs across the United States, but there were three prominent clubs – Mutual Roadster Association in the Midwest, the California Roadster Association in Southern California, and the Northern California Roadster Racing Associatio - that shaped the sport. Many "hot road roadster" racers  advanced to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, namely '500' race winners Troy Ruttman and Bob Sweikert.

In Bakersfield California, Fay Mooney and JT “Spud” Simkins built a hot rod roadster of their own that used a 1925 Ford Model T body on a custom-built frame powered by an inline 6-cylinder GMC engine fitted with three carburetors.

Their very attractive car was built for both show and go as it appeared at the 1950 Oakland Roadster Show and in the pages of the January 1950 Hot Rod magazine, as well as on race tracks at Bakersfield, Porterville, Gardena and Culver City California driven by Simkins, Earl “Rosie” Roussel, and Harold Hall.   

With the original car lost to history, Mooney’s son Paul, commissioned Image Street Rods of Santa Maria California to build this accurate re-creation using period photographs.  The finished car was shown at the Coker Tire display at the 2018 SEMA show in Las Vegas.

All photos by the author

Ed Carpenter's quarter midget at PRI 2018 

One might ask how did a man who has started from the coveted pole position for the Indianapolis 500-mile race three times and finished as the runner-up in the 2018 Indianapolis ‘500’ get his start in racing?

The answer is quarter midget racing, and Ed Carpenter’s quarter midget was part of the “Hoosier Thunder: Indiana’s Short Track Heritage” exhibit. at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show in Indianapolis.

Ed began to race his quarter midget in 1989 at age eight, comparatively old for that type of car, as some quarter midget drivers start at age four. Before he moved up to up to three-quarter midgets at age 16, Ed won several local and regional titles. At age 17, Carpenter debuted in full-size midgets and during his career, he has driven in all three of the USAC national series - midget, sprint and Silver Crown championship cars.

Carpenter started in the Indy Lights series in 2001 and the Indy Racing League (run by his step-father Tony George) in 2003. Ed has won three IndyCars races - in 2011 at Kentucky Speedway, 2012 at Fontana Speedway and Texas Speedway in 2014. 

Carpenter started from the pole position at the Indianapolis ‘500’ in 2013, 2014, and 2018. As an IndyCar owner/driver since 2011,Ed Carpenter has only driven on oval tracks in IndyCar since 2014. 

For comparison, we share photos of a modern quarter midget race car as shown at the Bilstein booth at the PRI show. Compare with Ed Carpenter's 1990's era quarter midget to see how technology has advanced. 

All photos by the author 

Hanford Motor Speedway‘s heyday

Part four of the rich history of the first superspeedway west of the Mississippi

In early 1964 KS Racing Enterprises Inc. (KSRE) signed a 20-year lease with track builder and owner Bircha Lewis “B.L”. Marchbanks for the facility, which included a paved ½-mile, oiled dirt 1/3-mile and 1-3/8-mile high banked paved tri-oval, on property located southeast of Hanford California. KSRE operated by Kalmon “Kal” Simon and T L “Tommy” Francis renamed the facility Hanford Speedway and aimed to book USAC (United States Auto Club) National Championship Indianapolis car races for the big tri-oval

For the 1964 and 1965 seasons, Hanford Speedway hosted a late season USAC stock car race, but was unable to land the desired National Championship race. In 1966, the facility reached its nadir of racing activity, with no major events reported in news outlets.   

Finally, in 1967 the newly re-named Hanford Motor Speedway landed a USAC National Championship race but only because the race was promoted by Joshua “JC” Agajanian, owner of the 1952 and 1963 Indianapolis winning cars and the West’s foremost racing promoter. Agajanian, a founding USAC board member, famed for his promotion of the half-mile dirt Ascot Park track located at 183^rd Street and Vermont Avenue in Gardena, also promoted annual USAC National Championship races at the Phoenix International Raceway and the California State Fairgrounds in Sacramento.   

The new Hanford Motor Speedway date became part of a four-race western swing that comprised the final two months of the 1967 USAC schedule, along with Phoenix, Sacramento and the addition of a new date and venue for the season finale ‘Rex Mays 300’ booked for the Riverside International Raceway. Agajanian proudly proclaimed that the inaugural ‘California 200’ at Hanford would be the first time for rear engine Indianapolis cars to race in California.  

The initial entry list released in late September listed AJ Foyt, who had won his third Indianapolis ‘500’ in May, joined by Mario Andretti, Bill Vukovich Junior, Roger McCluskey, Jim McElereath, Joe Leonard, Al and Bobby Unser and Gordon Johncock. Agajanian stated that the 26-car starting field would include “most of the Indy 500 field,” and that Parnelli Jones would make pre-race speed runs in the STP turbine car and then would pace the start of the race.

Both the major tire companies conducted pre-race tire testing at Hanford. AJ Foyt in his Ford-powered Coyote tested Goodyear tire compounds and ran multiple laps at 151 miles per hour (MPH). Agajanian, ever the great promoter claimed in newspaper interviews that Foyt told him that “it was the finest track he had ever raced on.” Art Pollard ran the Firestone tire tests in Fred Gerhardt’s turbocharged Offenhauser powered Gerhardt chassis with his faster lap reported as 154 MPH.

Days before the race, the Bakersfield Californian announced that four additional drivers had been added to the entry list – USAC regulars Chuck Hulse, Johnny Rutherford, Ronnie Duman and Wally Dallenbach.

When the gates at Hanford swung open at 9 AM on October 22, 1967 there were 7,000 general admission seats still available at $6.00 apiece. Qualifying runs for the 31 cars entered began at noon with the race scheduled to take the green flag at 3 PM.

Art Pollard in Fred Gerhardt’s turbocharged Offenhauser powered ‘Thermo King Auto Air Conditioning Special’ ran the fastest lap clocked at 154.816 MPH as Gordon Johncock in his similar Gerhardt chassis, the ‘Gilmore Broadcasting Special’ powered by a DOHC Ford engine, ran the second-best lap with an average speed of 154.26 MPH.  Al Unser in the Retzloff Chemicals Lola/Ford was third fastest, with Mario Andretti in the Dean Van Lines Ford-powered Brawner Hawk in the fourth starting position.

Towering above the field of 25 low slung rear-engine cars was the ‘Joe Hunt Magneto Special’ a Lujie Lesovsky built Offenhauser powered front engine dirt car driven by Gary Bettenhausen in just his third USAC championship start. Tommy Copp, Bob Harkey and Sonny Ates failed to qualify, while Bruce Walkup crashed in practice and Dempsey Wilson’s car broke a piston in practice. To confirm JC Agajanian’s pre-race claim that most of the Indy ‘500’ field would be Hanford for the ‘California 200,’ 20 of the 26 starters had competed in the 1967 Indianapolis 500-mile race.   

Race day dawned with cold temperatures and valley fog, but the sun broke through just before the command to start engines. At the drop of the green flag, Pollard rushed into the lead and led the first 108 laps, while challengers Al Unser and Andretti were both eliminated in a first turn crash on the 18^th lap.

Pollard was passed by Joe Leonard in the ‘Vel’s Ford Sales’ DOHC Ford powered Mongoose on the 109^th lap, and Joe led until he spun in turn one on the 129^th lap, which handed the lead to Johncock. Gordon led the final four circuits around the 1-1/2-mile tri-oval to claim his first USAC championship victory and a $15,000 check out of the total $60,000 purse.

Bobby Unser in the Rislone Oil Treatment/Leader Cards Eagle/Ford crossed beneath Shim Malone’s checkered flag five seconds behind Johncock. Lloyd Ruby in the American Red Ball Special was third one lap behind with Foyt fourth and Pollard in fifth position as Leonard recovered from his late race spin to finish seventh as he had lost two laps.

Bettenhausen in the Hunt dirt car finished in 11^th place, five laps in arrears just ahead of McElreath in the second Leader Cards entry which was the final car to finish. The race was completed in one hour 34 minutes and 34 seconds with an average speed of 127.531 MPH for the 201-mile race distance.

Post-race press reports were enthusiastic as JC Agajanian reported gate admissions of $121,000, with the crowd count reported as both 18,000 and 20,0000.  Jack Lattimer with the San Mateo Times newspaper reported the higher head count and stated that “on more times than we can recount, we watched the cars race three abreast” but eluded to some complaints from drivers regarding dusty track conditions that caused several of the cars to spin. 

Lattimer claimed that “when the drivers get the ‘feel’ of the track Hanford is in for some headlines, although a little more time and money must be spent to put the grounds in shape, but the superspeedway is excellent.”  Lattimer claimed that Agajanian told him that he planned two visits per year of the Indianapolis cars in the future. Larry Press’ column in the Bakersfield Californian newspaper reported 18,000 attendees and noted that “seating, concession and restroom facilities all are temporary and there is room for improvement in those areas.” 

True to Agajanian’s promise following the October 1967 race, the USAC championship cars were booked for two races for the 1968 season, with dates that bookended the season with races scheduled in February and November to avoid the intense heat of California Central Valley summers. The 1968 USAC season opener, the second annual ‘California 200,’ was set for Sunday March 17, with reserved seats tickets priced at $10 for those closest to the start-finish line with advance sale seats at the ends of the grandstand available at $8 each.

In the weeks leading up to the race, Bobby Unser tested tires for Goodyear and reportedly recorded a lap in his turbocharged Offenhauser Eagle of 156.069 MPH, faster than Pollard’s 1967 pole-winning speed. Pre-race news articles quoted a press release that stated that “during the winter months many improvements have been made to the Hanford site.

New bleachers were brought in and placed farther from the track for better viewing. Many more restroom and concession stands have also been added for race fan’s convenience.” An article by Al Auger in the Hayward Daily Review claimed that “the track has been completely modernized with a new surface,” but this claim years later remains unsubstantiated.

In qualifying for the second ‘California 200,’ Bobby Unser set a new track record with an average speed of 155.709 MPH which outpaced Art Pollard, Mario Andretti, Lloyd Ruby and Roger McCluskey. Once again, Gary Bettenhausen put the ‘Joe Hunt Magneto Special’ into the starting field, but this time his upright dirt car was joined by sprint car veteran Charles “Sonny” Ates in a Turner chassis front engine upright dirt car and George Benson in the Vince Conze-owned Watson roadster.

The appearance of Conze’s Watson roadster, which had finished second in the 1960 Indianapolis ‘500’ driven by Rodger Ward, powered by a 220-cubic inch Offenhauser engine, marked the final instance of a Watson roadster in the starting field for a USAC race according to author Joe Scalzo.  In a field filled with cars equipped with Offenhauser and Ford engines, four cars powered by stock-block Chevrolet power plants made the 26-car starting field: Ates’ upright front engine machine owned by Hoosier muffler shop chain owner Boyce Holt, and the rear-engine cars of Max Dudley, Dempsey Wilson and Johnny Rutherford in the Jerry Eisert entry. 

USAC sophomore driver Jim Malloy in the ‘Jim Robbins Seat Belt Special’ Vollstedt was the only car that failed to record a lap fast enough to qualify, as Bob Hurt’s entry broke an oil line and drag racer Danny Ongais, in his first Indianapolis-car appearance, crashed the rear-engine Chevrolet-powered Mickey Thompson entry in practice after it caught fire.

The first twenty laps of the race saw furious action at the front, as Pollard, Bobby Unser, and McCluskey each took turns at the point until Unser established himself as the leader. Bobby led until lap 91, then with his pit stop, Pollard and McCluskey got past Unser and the pair exchanged the lead over the next 14 laps.

Unser’s Eagle reassumed the lead on lap 105 and Bobby looked to be cruising for the victory until he spun in traffic on lap 120 and Art Pollard hit the wall in the ‘Thermo King Auto Air Conditioning Special’ to avoid Unser’s spinning ‘Rislone Special.’  Bobby lost a lap with his spin and fell to sixth place with his brother Al and Gordon Johncock at the front of the field.   

Johncock assumed the lead and repelled Al’s late attempts to pass and led the final 14 laps to claim his second consecutive “California 200’ victory. Lloyd Ruby finished in third position, and AJ Foyt fourth as Bobby Unser recovered to finish fifth. Mario Andretti, now a car owner following the death of benefactor Al Dean, started what would be an unhappy 1968 season, a retired early when his Brawner Hawk broke a half shaft after just 40 laps.

Attrition was much less of a factor in the 1967 “California 200,’ as 17 of the 26 starters finished the race, which finished in an hour and 39 minutes with a record average speed of 155.709 MPH. The racing was good with ten recorded lead changes, but attendance was down from the inaugural event, with only 15,000 fans reportedly on hand.

There were apparently no other major races held at Hanford Motor Speedway during the Summer months of 1968, but a major event occurred that did not bode well for the long-term survival of the facility. On July 9, 1968, the sale of $25.5 million in mortgage bonds were completed to finance the construction of the Ontario Motor Speedway. The new facility west of the Los Angeles metropolitan area would feature a 2-1/2-mile oval and infield road course was planned to be the world’s most modern multi-purpose racing facility with seating for 95,000 fans. With the general contractor Stole, Inc. already under contract, the new facility was set to open with a USAC Indianapolis-car race in the Fall of 1970.

In the lead-up to the November 3, 1968 ‘California 250’ race, much of the publicity focused on the appearance of a pair of STP-sponsored Lotus 56 machines powered by Pratt & Whitney ST6N-74 gas turbine engines. The door-stop shaped dayglo red turbine cars had been a sensation in their debut at the Indianapolis ‘500,’ and a turbine car came within nine laps of winning the race.

Two weeks after the ‘500,’ ownership of the turbine cars shifted from STP Oil Treatment president Andy Granatelli to Parnelli Jones and they had appeared in a handful of USAC races, mainly road courses. The four-wheel drive turbines proved to be fast in qualifying but suffered from numerous mechanical maladies and brake problems in races which had limited their finishes.

‘California 250’ ticket prices increased over the Spring race, with starting line area seats priced at $12 each, with outer area reserved grandstand seats $10 and day of the race general admission seats $8 apiece. JC Agajanian who had posted a guaranteed purse of $25,000, featured the entries of three drivers in piston engine cars to battle the turbines – Roger McCluskey, Al Unser and Bill Vukovich Jr.  McCluskey a two-time USAC sprint car champion and Vukovich from Fresno, the 1968 Indianapolis Rookie of the Year were entered in cars powered by turbocharged Offenhauser engines, while Unser was entered in a Lola powered by 750-horsepower turbocharged Ford engine.

There was a three-hour practice session held on Saturday November 2, with qualifying on Sunday at noon followed by the start of the race at 2:30 PM. Defending champion Gordon Johncock crashed in Saturday practice and Pollard in one of the turbines broke a differential and neither car could be repaired in time.  In qualifying, Joe Leonard in the STP turbine obliterated the previous track record with a best lap of 163.093 MPH trailed by USAC points leader Mario Andretti, Lloyd Ruby and the 1968 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Bobby Unser, as all four drivers posted laps which were faster than the old track record.     

At the drop of the green flag by JC Agajanian, Leonard in the #60 turbine seized the lead and led the first 93 circuits until he pitted for a kerosene fill-up and new tires on lap 94.  While Leonard was stopped, the yellow flag flew which allowed AJ Foyt, Bobby Unser and Andretti to pit under caution and dropped Leonard to fourth place. Unser and Andretti battled for the lead over the next 29 laps before AJ Foyt took the lead for good on lap 132 and led the final 36 circuits.

Foyt’s Coyote crossed the finish line three seconds ahead of Unser with Andretti in third one car length behind Bobby. Leonard wound up in fourth place on the lead lap, the best-ever finish for the STP turbine with Jim McElreath in fifth place three laps in arrears to the winner.

Foyt’s win marked the first USAC championship victory for the turbocharged Ford engine as Andretti’s points lead fell to 72 markers with two races remaining on the 1968 schedule. Post-race newspaper articles  the next day optimistically reported attendance of 15,000, but a later local newspaper article stated that “promoter Agajanian barely escaped with his shirt.”  

In our next installment, we will look at the 1969 season as the 18-year old Hanford Motor Speedway facility began to encounter serious financial difficulties.

IndyCar racing after reunification

 

Author's note: This article previously appeared in print in The Classic Racing Times. Subscribe to this fine auto racing history journal at http://www.theclassicracingtimes.com/subscribe

After the final Champ Car World Series (CCWS) event was held at Long Beach in April 2008, the 2008 major league American open-wheel racing season was held under the banner of the Indy Racing League. Big league open-wheel racing achieved peace after twenty-nine years of turmoil which began with the initial CART (Championship Auto Racing teams) split away from the United States Auto Club (USAC) in 1979.

One key factor in the successful reunification was the establishment of the TEAM (Team Enhancement and Allocation Matrix) system which encouraged race team’s full-time series participation.  Aside from the jewel of the series, the Indianapolis 500, individual race purses were eliminated and teams were scheduled to receive a minimum of $1.2 million for each car that completed the full IRL season schedule, supplement by “special cash bonuses” for the top five finishers in each race. 

One immediate improvement with the TEAM program for the reunited series was the increased car count. In 2007, the year prior to reunification, the Champ Car World Series (CCWS) and Indy Racing League (IRL) had averaged 17 cars at each event, but for 2008 the IRL series averaged over 27 cars at each of the fourteen North America venues except for the Indianapolis 500-mile race.

The 2008 IRL schedule was predominantly was dominated by oval track venue, a stark change from the 2007 CCWS schedule which had been comprised entirely of road and street courses. The 2008 IRL champion was Ganassi/Target Racing’s Scott Dixon who had started in the CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) series in 2001, but who had competed in the IRL series since 2003.

Dixon was the fastest qualifier at seven races won four of those races from the pole position with a total of six wins on the season including the Indianapolis 500-mile race. The 2008 IRL championship runner-up Helio Castroneves from the other series powerhouse, Team Penske, had a remarkably consistent season with eight second-place finishes and five top-five finishes to go along with two wins.

The April 19-20 2008 “split weekend” occurred as the former CCWS teams raced at Long Beach in order to complete the CCWS series contract with the Long Beach Grand Prix organizers. Meanwhile the IRL teams raced at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan and history was made when a woman, Danica Patrick, won the first ever championship car race for her gender.

The 2009 IRL series schedule was largely unchanged with the loss of one venue, the street course on Belle Isle in Detroit, and Long Beach came into the IRL fold.   During the 2009 season there was final surprising victim of the second open wheel racing sanctioning civil war - Tony George the IRL ‘s founder.   In late June 2009 the Hulman & Company board that controls the IRL and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) largely comprised of his sisters and mother removed Tony George from his leadership roles at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy Racing League. 

During the early years of IRL, series sponsorship did not appear to be a pressing priority and there was the public perception that due to the massive income derived from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the deep financial pockets of the family-controlled Hulman & Company provided an income cushion.  During the IRL series’ 1996 and 1997 seasons, the IRL had no presenting sponsor, then for the 1998 and 1999 seasons the series was known as the “Pep Boys Indy Racing League,” with sponsorship from the national auto parts and service chain. For the 2000 season, the series naming rights were sold to Northern Light, an internet search engine.

Although the Northern Light, agreement was set to run for five years, after two years Northern Light discontinued the public side of its business and dropped the sponsorship.  The IRL continued to operate without a presenting sponsor through the 2009 season, but in July 2009 the Hulman & Company board members’ reached the end of their rope regarding the ongoing losses which press reports later claimed totaled $600 million over 13 years. 

"Our board had asked Tony to structure our executive staff to create efficiencies in our business structure and to concentrate his leadership efforts in the Indy Racing League," said Mari Hulman George, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) chairman of the board and Tony’s mother, stated in a press release.  "He (Tony) has decided that with the recent unification of open-wheel racing and the experienced management team IMS has cultivated over the years, now would be the time for him to concentrate on his team ownership of Vision Racing with his family and other personal business interests he and his family share.” 

With Tony George removed from his leadership positions, he was replaced by Jeff G. Belskus as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Speedway while Terry Angstadt was promoted to head the commercial division of the IRL with Brian Barnhardt in charge of the competition division. 

The 2009 IRL racing season was again dominated by the Ganassi and Penske teams as between them the teams won 16 of the series’ 17 races. Ganassi captured the championship with driver Dario Franchitti followed by his teammate Scott Dixon, with Penske drivers Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves.

The 2010 IRL season saw four remarkable changes. First while the Indy Racing League continued as the name of the sanctioning body the series began to be called the IndyCar series.   In November 2009, it was announced that the men’s clothier brand IZOD would be the series' title sponsor for a five-year term beginning in 2010 with the IZOD title sponsorship deal worth $10 million per year according to journalist Robin Miller. The IZOD sponsorship the third title sponsor in the series' history, and the first since the departure of Northern Light in 2001 reportedly included the addition of $100,000 per car, per year for teams on the TEAM revenue-sharing program. 

The 2010 IRL season schedule began to shift away from the oval heavy mix off IRL’s early years, as the traditional post-Indianapolis date at the Milwaukee Mile was dropped along after years of problems with the promoter as well as the ¾-mile Richmond International Raceway date after the loss of SunTrust bank as the sponsor.  In addition to an overall series champion, IRL announced the establishment of the AJ Foyt Oval Championship and the Mario Andretti Road Course Champion. Unfortunately after several years these two championships which provided a connection to our sport’s history, but which the series never properly promoted faded from view.  

In the place of the two short ovals dropped from the 2010 schedule were new dates at the permanent road course at Barber Motorsports Park and a temporary street course in Sao Paulo Brazil.  IRL Commercial division chief Angstadt claimed that each participating team for Sao Paulo would receive a six-figure sum from the event promoters in addition to having all their expenses paid. Unfortunately after three years the Sao Paulo dropped from the schedule, although there were several failed later efforts to resuscitate the promotion. 

A major controversy erupted after the February 2010 hiring of Randy Bernard as the CEO of IndyCar with a five-year contract. Bernard, the former CEO of the Professional Bull Riders Inc. was tasked by the Hulman & Company to lead the series into the future, most notably the selection of a new chassis design, new engine suppliers and possibly new tire manufacturers. The man with no experience in motorsports faced an uphill fight to win over drivers, teams and fans before he could complete his goals.

In the meantime the 2010 IRL series was contested by all drivers in cars which used Dallara Chassis, Honda power and Firestone tires. Franchitti repeated as the series champion, with the top five finishers in the championship members of the Ganassi and Penske teams.

On January 1, 2011, the Indy Racing League LLC officially adopted the trade name INDYCAR while all legal and official documents to this day still list the series operator as “Indy Racing League LLC d/b/a INDYCAR." For 2011 the INDYCAR series again changed up the schedule mix as four tracks owned by the International Speedway Corporation (controlled by the France family) were dropped from the schedule - ovals at Joliet Illinois, Homestead Florida and Kansas City Kansas and the permanent road course at Watkins Glen New York.

In place of those four tracks, INDYCAR added a second 275-mile back-to-back race date at Texas Motor Speedway, with new dates added for the New Hampshire Motor Speedway oval in Loudon, New Hampshire, and a street course date at Baltimore Maryland. The 2011 series was scheduled to end with the IZOD IndyCar World Championships presented by Honda at the other schedule addition the high-banked 1-1/2 mile oval Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

One of the advertised features of the World Championship race was Bernard’s offer of a $5,000,000 prize for any  driver “outside of the IZOD IndyCar Series” to start the race from the back of the pack and win the race.  His remarkable offer was intended to attract interest from drivers that regularly competed on the Formula 1 or NASCAR circuits, but responses from drivers in those series came with conditions such as a demand to drive for only either the competitive Ganassi or Penske teams. Faced with a lack of expected responses to his original offer, Bernard later revised the challenge to include drivers who had only competed in IndyCar part-time during the 2011 season and the 2011 Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon accepted the challenge.

The IZOD INDYCAR series during 2011 had again been dominated by the Ganassi and Penske teams as between them they won 12 of the seventeen races before the finale at Las Vegas.  Ganassi’s Dario Franchitti led the points with Penske’s Will Power trailing but still in contention for the championship.  During the season, Benard had overseen the INDYCAR ICONIC (Innovative, Competitive, Open-wheel, New, Industry-relevant, Cost-effective) program to select the suppliers for the new chassis/engine packages to replace the 2003 INDYCAR Dallara chassis scheduled to debut with the 2012 season. 

The ICONIC committee requested designs from automobile manufacturers as well as non-automotive companies such as Lockheed Martin and General Electric. In the end Dallara’s chassis design was selected over the radical 'Deltawing' concept, and turbocharged V-6 engine proposals were accepted from Chevrolet, Honda and Lotus.

34 cars qualified for the IZOD IndyCar World Championship race scheduled for 200 laps, and  the first twenty cars in the field posted an average lap speed of over 220 miles per hour (MPH), and the slowest car over 218 MPH. The race’s pole sitter, Brazilian Tony Kanaan led the first ten laps with the field tightly bunched in his wake. As the field entered turn one on the eleventh lap, the car piloted by rookie Wade Cunningham touched wheels with the car of fellow rookie James Hinchcliffe.  

Drivers in the tightly bunched pack of cars behind this initial incident had little time to react and nowhere to escape.  The crash eventually involved fifteen cars, which included Wheldon’s machine which launched into the air, inverted and struck the second turn outer fence on the cockpit side. The remaining cars completed one additional lap before INDYCAR officials stopped the race with the track was littered with debris and the catch fencing badly damaged.    

Wheldon, Power, Hildebrand, and Pippa Mann were all injured in the crash; Wheldon suffered fatal head injuries and was pronounced dead on arrival via helicopter at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada. Mann and Hildebrand were kept overnight for treatment while Power was evaluated and released. Mann later underwent several surgeries to repair her hand injury. Wheldon’s death was the first in INDYCAR since Paul Dana’s accident at Homestead in March 2006

Hours after the accident an emergency drivers' meeting was held which followed by Benard’s brief statement broadcast live on ESPN sports television, Bernard revealed Wheldon's death and stated that the remaining drivers and teams agreed not to continue the race but would  pay tribute to Wheldon with  a five-lap salute.

The IZOD IndyCar World Championships presented by Honda is considered as abandoned or cancelled by INDYCAR after twelve laps and is not recorded as an official race and no points were awarded.  Dario Franchitti received his third straight INDYCAR championship trophy in February 2012 after the planned awards ceremony following the Las Vegas race was cancelled.

INDYCAR completed an investigation of the Las Vegas accident in an attempt to stem criticism that the track was too steeply banked (18 to 20 degrees) for the tightly bunched field of high-speed open wheel cars. Several drivers admitted that they had been uneasy before the event; Oriel Servia stated “we all had a bad feeling about this place.”  Driver Will Power was quoted that the Wheldon tragedy was "an accident waiting to happen," and Dario Franchitti told ABC News that Las Vegas “was not a suitable track” as it offered “nowhere to get away from anybody."

The Las Vegas tragedy resulted in massive changes in INDYCAR.  Benard stated in December 2011 that INDYCAR felt “we need to give our technical team ample time to conduct thorough testing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, once we complete our ongoing investigation.” It is widely believed that driver objections are the primary reason for the cancellation and the reason that INDYCAR has never raced again at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. 

Five drivers that were entered that tragic day- Davey Hamilton, Alex Lloyd, Vitor Meira, Buddy Rice, Tomas Scheckter, and Paul Tracy- never drove in INDYCAR again after the Las Vegas race. The new ICONIC car with many new safety features was renamed the “DW12” in honor of Wheldon who had been intimately involved with the testing and development of the new much safer machine.  

The 2012 season schedule saw the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix return to schedule, and in place of the finale at Las Vegas, the season concluded with a 500-mile race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. The series did not return to the New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Motegi Twin-Ring in Japan or the Kentucky Speedway.

With much fanfare, the INDYCAR series was scheduled to visit the huge potential market of China for the first time in 2012. The ‘Indy Qingdao 600’ was to be held on a 3.87-mile street circuit in the eastern coastal city of 9 million people on August 20. With little fanfare, the race was cancelled by the promoter on June 13 2012 and was not replaced on the schedule.

The new DW-12 chassis was quite successful in its inaugural season, and the Chevrolet and Honda engines proved reliable and racy. The same could not be said for the ill-fated Lotus engine program, which started late,  arrived at the first race in St. Petersburg with little testing and proved to lack power and reliability. Of the five drivers that began the 2012 season with Lotus power, only one – Simona de Silvestro - completed a trying season with the hapless Lotus engine.  

In April 2012 Honda and Chevrolet engaged in a rules dispute that came to be known as “turbogate.”  Despite that fact that Chevrolet had won all the 2012 INDYCAR races to that point, claimed that Honda had illegally switched turbocharger housing designs after the start of the season. Following the protracted protest and appeal process Honda eventually prevailed in early May as retired Indiana Supreme Court Justice Theodore Boehm denied the Chevrolet claim following the final appeal hearing.  

In the end, it was a moot point as Chevrolet powered driver Ryan Hunter-Reay who drove for Michael Andretti’s team won the 2012 IZOD championship as he edged out fellow Chevrolet driver Will Power. Since the end of the end of the 2012 INDYCAR season, all races have featured only two engine manufacturers- Chevrolet and Honda.

After the 2012 season ended, the INDYCAR world faced another shock, as INDYCAR CEO Randy Benard either quit under pressure or was fired with two years remaining on his contract during an emergency meeting of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway board of directors.  Benard was thought to have mishandled “turbogate,” and had come under increasing criticism for his proposal to introduce differentiating DW-12 bodywork kits for the competing engine manufacturers. 

The INDYCAR owners group opposed Benard’s idea and also complained that Dallara replacement parts were too expensive. Benard have never escaped the criticisms from members of the INDYCAR community for the Las Vegas tragedy, but in end the unraveling of the China race which meant INDYCAR lost a potential cash source to offset the ongoing series financial deficits appeared to cost Benard his job.

After his departure Benard issued a statement through the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that noted that “we created a foundation for IndyCar that positions it to grow over the next several years”.  With the foundation established by Benard and under the steady guidance of Hulman & Company CEO Mark Miles and his leadership team, INDYCAR added a new title sponsor, the telecommunications giant Verizon in 2014 that replaced the departing IZOD sponsorship. 

Through the years since its introduction the DW-12 chassis has proved to be a safe stable predictable race car, despite the ill-fated engine manufacturer body kits in use for the last three seasons. Through recent testing, the new universal 2018 INDYCAR body kit has proven to be very popular with both drivers and teams alike and promises a new era of exciting INDYCAR racing. The DW-12 chassis is scheduled to remain in service through the 2020 season when it will replaced by a new chassis developed and built by the series current chassis supplier, Dallara Automobili, in its Speedway Indiana factory. 

Which is not to say that INDYCAR does not face challenges in the future; namely the aging of the sport’s biggest names, the replacement of Verizon as the title sponsor for 2019, additional engine suppliers, and securing broadcast rights for digital and television platforms in the future, but for now the future appears bright.

Sixteen of the 17 races from the 2017 INDYCAR schedule return in 2018, with the newcomer to the schedule Portland International Raceway, which hosted races under CART and CCWS sanction from 1984 through 2007, with the Portland race set for Labor Day weekend.