Douglas Hawkes at
Indianapolis
We are back after a week in Indianapolis and today we share the story of an obscure British racer who participated in two Indianapolis 500-mile races four years apart.
Part one – 1922
On April 28 1922, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway received an
overseas cable from Wallace Douglas Hawkes with his formal entry for the 10th
International 500-mile sweepstakes scheduled for May 30. Hawkes who was an engineer at the Bentley Motors Limited North
London factory entered a 1922 3-liter Bentley, the first and only entry of the
marque in the Indianapolis ‘500.’
At the time Bentley Motors was still a very young company as
the first Bentley rolling chassis was delivered in September 1921. Prior to the outbreak of World War One in
August 1914, the founder of the company, Walter Owen “WO” Bentley and his
brother Horace Millner Bentley sold the French-built DFP (Doriot, Flandrin & Parant) automobile
from their showroom in London.
When hostilities in Europe ended that business, WO Bentley
felt his knowledge of engine technology could help the war effort - he suggested the use of aluminum pistons in aircraft engines. Bentley’s experience dated
to 1912, after D.F.P. introduced side-valve engines for their 2-liter 4-cylinder
15-horsepower cars, ‘W O’ raced a DFP he built with aluminum alloy pistons on the
famed Brooklands oval track. Convinced of their viability, the DFP factory used
used aluminum pistons in the 1914 6-cylinder 40-horsepower production cars.
Lieutenant Bentley was assigned to the experimental
department at Rolls-Royce and later Humber Limited where he designed the
Bentley Radial 1 (BR1) nine-cylinder 150 horsepower radial engine with aluminum
pistons a derivative of the Clerget design. This engine originally known as the AR1
(Admiralty Radial 1) was used in the Sopwith Camel fighter plane later made
famous by the Peanuts cartoon character ‘Snoopy.’ Later ‘W O’ designed a more powerful, nine-cylinder
230-horsepower engine, the BR2 which was used in the Sopwith Snipe and
Salmander fighter planes. WO founded
Bentley Motors in early 1919 with the money he had earned from his two aircraft
engine designs.
The 3 liter (183 cubic inch) 4-cylinder engine used in the
first Bentley automobile borrowed many design features from a pre-war Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft
(DMG) (translated as Daimler Motors
Corporation) engine. The 4 ½ liter DMG M93654 four-cylinder engine
used in the Mercedes 1914 Grand Prix cars featured a bevel-gear driven single
overhead camshaft with a four-valve hemispherical cylinder head design. The
engine used individual steel cylinders, steel connecting rods, and steel
crankshaft with an aluminum crankcase. The long-stroke engine with two spark
plugs per cylinder produced 105 horsepower at 3000 revolutions per minute
(RPM).
Lautenschlager at speed during the 1914 French GP
Photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection
in the Center for Digital Studies at the IUPUI University Library
DMG built six cars powered by the M93654 engine and five
were entered in the 1914 French Grand Prix. In a shocking result, Mercedes cars
swept the podium, led by Christian Lautenschlager who would later compete with
a Mercedes in the 1923 Indianapolis 500-mile race. Frenchman Louis Wagner who
would appear in the 1919 Liberty ‘500’ finished second in the French Grand Prix
while Otto Salzer finished third in the car later driven by Ralph DePalma to
victory in the 1915 Indianapolis ‘500.’
The sixth Mercedes Grand Prix car was later placed on display
in the central London showroom of Daimler Motor Company Limited, also known as British
Mercedes Motor Limited. The car was still on display on August 4 1914 when the United
Kingdom of Great Britain declared war on The German Empire. The car was confiscated
by the British government in early 1915 reportedly at the suggestion of W.O.
Bentley and was dismantled at Rolls-Royce under Bentley’s supervision. With the knowledge he gained, “WO” later “reverse
engineered” the M93654 technology for the new Bentley 3-liter engine.
The long-stroke Bentley engine used two spark plugs per
cylinder, and pent-roof hemispherical 4-valve combustion chambers. The Bentley 3-liter engine was one of the
first production car engines to feature dry-sump lubrication a shaft-driven
overhead camshaft and when fitted with twin SU carburetors produced 70 horsepower.
The entrant and driver of the 1922 Indianapolis ‘500’ entry
Bentley, Wallace Douglas Hawkes described in the United States newspapers as “a
London Engineer.” Hawkes was born on September
11 1893 and started racing as an amateur in 1914 with small displacement sports
cars principally at the Brooklands course. Like many others, Hawkes’ racing
career was interrupted by World War One during which he served as a Captain in
the Royal Air Force. After the war “little
Doug” Hawkes, so-called because of his slight build, resumed racing and was
fairly successful.
1922 Bentley IndyCar
author photos
The machine Hawkes entered for the 1922 International
500-mile Sweepstakes was simply a Bentley production car minus the fenders,
windshield and headlights with a new streamlined aluminum tail section behind
the cockpit. The 108-inch wheelbase
chassis utilized a front beam axle, semi-elliptical leaf spring suspension,
rear live axle and four-wheel drum brakes. Instead of English brand tires, the
car was fitted with wire wheels designed to accept the typical straight-sided Firestone
tires. The American press was so unfamiliar with the marque that it was
frequently misspelled “Bently.”
Hawkes accompanied by Bentley factory mechanics Leonard Ford
and Herbert. S. “Bertie” Browning (both formers aviators) sailed across the Atlantic
Ocean from Liverpool to New York on the White Star Lines HMS Cedric and arrived
in Indianapolis on May 19. Browning who had
received his pilot’s wings two weeks after the end of World War was nominated as
the Bentley’s riding mechanic.
After the British visitors spent their first day spent
looking over the track and facilities, the Indianapolis Star newspaper reported
the following day that a search of local railroad yards “had not turned up the
Bentley as yet.” The car was located the following day which provided Hawkes
ample time to become familiar with the nearly 2-ton car’s handling on the big,
flat 2-1/2 brick oval. Hawkes qualified on the first day of time trials, Thursday
May 25 as the silver #22 Bentley completed its four-lap ten-mile timed run with
an average speed of 81.9 miles per hour (MPH), just a few ticks above the
Speedway’s 80 MPH minimum.
Though Hawkes, Browning and the Bentley started the ‘500’
from 19th position on the inside of the seventh row, it was the slowest car of
the 26 cars that qualified for the starting field, over 18 MPH slower than
pole-sitter Jimmy Murphy’s Miller-powered Duesenberg hybrid. In 1922, the
Speedway was faced with a short starting field, so qualifying was extended
beyond the originally scheduled three days. Two cars, Howdy Wilcox and Art
Klein qualified on Monday May 28 and three more cars were allowed the
opportunity to make timed runs on the eve of the race.
None of last three cars qualified. William Gardner’s Benz
broke down in warmups, and the rotary valve engine in Frank Davidson’s rotary
valve D’Wehr Special blew up during his run. Tommy Mulligan the designated relief driver of
the #18 Frontenac-Ford crashed while warming up before qualifying. After qualifying closed, Automobile
Association of America (AAA) contest board officials huddled and announced that
since the #18 car had shown speed in excess of the 80 MPH minimum in practice
run it could start the race.
The #18 Frontenac-Ford one of two cars entered by the
Chevrolet brothers was powered by a four-cylinder Model T Ford engine fitted
with a Frontenac “R” cylinder head which used one intake port and three exhaust
ports, a racing carburetor and exhaust manifold. After repairs, the car’s original driver Jack
Curtner from Greenville Ohio tagged the back of the field in 27th place to race
“for official standing only” and was not eligible for prize money. The prize
money would have been a moot point to the Chevrolet brothers anyway, as their
primary interest was the promotion of their speed parts through participation
in the biggest race in the world.
The cover of the 1922 Indianapolis 500 Official Program
Photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection
in the Center for Digital Studies at the IUPUI University Library
During the 1922 Decoration Day 500-mile race, the speed of Hawkes’
Bentley proved no match for the speed of the pure racing machines, but at least
it was steady. Hawkes and Browning made only one pit stop for gasoline and oil
on lap 154. In their post-race report, the Indianapolis Star reported
that during the stop Hawkes asked his crew for a stick of chewing gum, then “bathed
his face with cold water and resumed the race.”
The Bentley completed the full 500 mile distance more than
one and twenty-three minutes after the winner, Jimmy Murphy, with an elapsed time
of six hours and 40 minutes, and average of 74.95 MPH. The Automotive Journal
commented in its June 1922 race report that “the pluck of Hawkes won the
admiration of the crowd. Outclassed by many miles in speed the British machine
nevertheless showed remarkable endurance” and finished thirteenth.
The day following the ‘500,’ Hawkes, Browning and Leonard
Ford departed Indianapolis for their long trip home to England. Hawkes and Browning
arrived home in time to drive a Bentley 3-liter car to a fifth place finish in
the 1922 Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy race held June 20 on the Isle of Man.
Bentley 3-liter cars proved successful at the Circuit de la Sarthe as it won
the 1924 and 1924 24 hour endurance races.
Two
years later Wallace Douglas Hawkes returned to race on the bricks of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
in another unique entry, the Eldridge Special. We will share the details in the
next installment of the Hawkes story.
