Persistence - the Rudolph Wehr story 

part two 

Throughout the long history of American automobile racing, few men have personified persistence as did Rudolph K. B. Wehr. The previous chapter dealt with Wehr’s efforts through 1932;  this chapter will pick up with his entries for the 1934 Indianapolis 500 and carry through his last Indianapolis attempt in 1940.   

1934 Indianapolis 500 

Sometime after the running of the 1933 Indianapolis ‘500’ Wehr purchased the two quasi-factory Hudson entries built by former driver Russell G. “Buddy” Marr, an employee of the Hudson factory experimental department. In 1928, Marr successfully qualified the #35 supercharged Miller owned by B.W. Cooke owner of the Chicago based Coyne Electrical School for the ‘500’ field at 109.685 MPH. Marr was scheduled to start 28th in the 1928 ‘500,’ but the day before the race, his designated relief driver, a 25-year old rookie driver named Clarence “Chet” Miller took the car out for practice and crashed which damaged the Miller beyond repair.  Marr evidently held no ill will towards Chet Miller, as Miller drove Marr’s Hudson entries in the 1931, 1932 and 1933 Indianapolis 500-mile races, the last two teamed with the unrelated Allen Miller. 

Willard Prentiss looks over the Wehr powerplant in 1934

photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection

IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies 

Denver driver Willard Prentiss was the nominated driver of the #64 ‘Wehr Rotary Valve Special’ for the 1934 Indianapolis 500 powered by a Wehr rotary valve engine the details of which are unknown to the author. After the Wehr car proved to be too slow, Prentiss replaced Lockbourne, Ohio’s Bill Chittum as the driver of the #59 “G & P Hudson Special.” Prentiss qualified on May 28th with a 107.797 MPH average for his 25-mile time trial run, initially good enough for the 30th starting position, but he was later bumped and wound up on Race Day as the first alternate.

 1937 Indianapolis 500

Three years passed before Rudolph Wehr made another Indianapolis attempt, when he posted two entries for the 25th running of the International 500-mile Sweepstakes.  The two Hudson chassis, fitted with new awkward-looking grille shells, were powered by all-new 4-cylinder two-cycle supercharged rotary valve engines. There had been previous experiments with two-cycle engines at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway first with Fred Duesenberg’s factory two-cycle entry for the 1926 ‘500’, followed by Leon Duray’s 1931 supercharged “U” (cylinder side-by-side) 16-cylinder monster, and Clessie Cummins’ 1934 oil-burning two-cycle experiment, all of which were later deemed failures by their builders.

The June 1937 issue of the Automotive Trade Journal provided technical details of the Wehr entries. Each cylinder of the Wehr engine measured a 4-inch bore while the piston had a 4 ¼-inch stroke for a total engine displacement of 213 cubic inches. The rear-mounted Roots supercharger was fed by a single Winfield down-draft carburetor, with the fuel mixture ignited by Champion Spark plugs supplied energy through Packard ignition cables from the Bosch magneto. Each wheel of the 1931 Hudson chassis was equipped a Hartford-Fageol friction disk shock absorber from Oakland California and mechanical brakes, and each car weighed 1986 pounds dry.     

A May 19, 1937 article in the Indianapolis Star explained the advantage of the unique rotary valve design as “it eliminates most of the up-and-down motion in the motor, except that of the pistons. The two-cycle engine is intended get twice the explosions that a four-cycle engine. The rotary valves, according to the inventor, do away with much of the intricate machinery of the engine and do not even require a camshaft in the motor. According to experts, the principle is perfect, but it merely doesn't function.” 

"When it does work," proclaimed Wehr, "I will have done away with all valve trouble not only in automobiles but also in airplanes. It will make plane travel safer than ever.” The Star article went on to state that Wehr’s “principal fear was that the motor will become overheated. Since bringing the two cars here several weeks ago he has spent hours in the garages trying to overcome his problem and has signed up two drivers to qualify them.”

The drivers were identified in the Star as Frank Wearne and Thomas Cosman, described as “two newcomers to Indianapolis who have been racing on the Pacific Coast for several years. Both are inclined mechanically and are working with Wehr in ironing out his problems.”  "I don't expect to set any speed records with my cars," Wehr said, "All I want to do is make them run fast enough to qualify, say around 114 miles an hour. I want my rotary valve and two-cycle engine to run in the race."

The May 19 1937 Indianapolis Star article wrapped up with a depressing recounting of Wehr’s history with rotary valves at the Speedway which began “in 1916 when Wehr built his first rotary valve motor for a racing automobile. It failed.” After the historical recap, the article closed by stating that “these are the one hundred and seventh (107) and one hundred and eighth (108) engines that Wehr has built with rotary valves. Not one has worked.”  Rudolph Wehr was persistent if nothing else.

According to the author’s friend and fellow racing historian Jim Thurman, Thomas Charles “Tommy” Cosman, born on May 13 1908 in Pennsylvania, had a decent racing career in California, twice finishing in the top 30 (28th in 1933) (35 in 1934) in AAA Pacific Coast points, and apparently finished 11th in the 1933 Legion Ascot "Class B" classification. When not racing, Cosman ran a car wrecking business, and after he failed to qualify the #63 ‘Wehr 2-cycle Rotary Valve Special’ for the 1937 ‘500,’ he never returned to the Speedway. Cosman passed away in 1973 and is buried in Whittier California.

Frank Wearne in 1939 

photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection

IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies 

Frank Wearne was another Legion Ascot veteran who for a period drove the Frank Kurtis-bodied ‘Atlas Chrome Special,’ one of the top rides on the AAA Pacific Coast ‘big car’ circuit. After his #64 ‘Wehr 2-cycle Rotary Valve Special’ was withdrawn during the month of May with terminal engine problems, Wearne picked up the ride in Leon Duray’s Miller-powered Stevens chassis for his first Indianapolis ‘500’ start.  Wearne went on to race in seven consecutive Indianapolis 500-mile races, with his best finish of seventh in the “Boyle Valve Special” Stevens-Miller in 1940.  

While the author does not profess to be expert on the theories of the operation of an internal combustion engine, it appears as though a rotary valve design could have several significant advantages over a conventional poppet valve train. The rotary valve assembly is less complex and more compact than a conventional pushrod system, which would result in a lighter weight cylinder head.

The rotary valve engine would have the potential for a higher compression ratio and without the weak point of valve springs, the engine could turn more revolutions per minutes (RPM) than a conventional design. However, the rotary valves cylinder head design would require special attention to valve lubrication and cooling to prevent the valve from overheating.  Valve overheating was apparently the problem with which Wehr most struggled, the failure of which newspapers referred to as “frozen valves” and catastrophic engine failures.  

1939 Indianapolis 500 

For his fifth Indianapolis entry in 1939, Rudolph Wehr and his new partner, Edwin Anderson entered the #23 “Wehr-Anderson Rotary Valve Special” powered by a supercharged four-cylinder four-stoke rotary valve 181 cubic inch engine without a driver named. The 1939 chassis which weighed a hefty 2021 pounds, rode on 18-inch wheels, and carried 4-wheel hydraulic brakes and Delco shock absorbers with the engine fed by a single “Speed” side-draft carburetor and the Roots-type centrifugal supercharger.    

Author's copy of the 1939 AAA technical specifications sheet

 for the Wehr-Anderson Rotary Valve Special 

George Robson a rookie driver from Huntington Beach California took his rookie test in the “Wehr-Anderson Rotary Valve Special,” and then drove it in practice. Towards the end of the month of May the Indianapolis Star newspaper proclaimed that “if she (the car) manages to go all the way through the race, Robson will earn the undying gratitude of a man (Wehr) who has stuck with an idea despite obstacles which would have throttled the ordinary person years and years ago.” Alas, by the final day of qualifying, Robson abandoned Wehr’s rotary valve entry for a more competitive machine. 

George was the eldest of the three racing Robson brothers, born in Newcastle England in February 1909, before the Robson family relocated to Canada and eventually in Huntington Beach California around 1924. Harold Junior “Hal” was born in Canada in 1911, followed by James “Jimmy,” born in 1917, Albert, and the family’s youngest child, daughter Amy. All the brothers worked in their father Harold’s machine shop, Robson Engineering, and three of the brothers- George, Hall and Jimmy- raced. 

The two older Robson brothers both began racing in 1930 but eventually the Robson trio advanced to race “big cars” up and down the West Coast, particularly at the half-mile dirt Southern Ascot Speedway in South Gate, the third Los Angeles area “Ascot” track which operated from 1937 until the cessation of racing due to World War 2 in 1942.

George Robson 1941 Maserati 

photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection

IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies 

.

On the final day of 1939 Indianapolis ‘500’ time trials, George qualified Artha B “Deacon” Litz’ Maserati for the starting field with a 4-lap time trial run that averaged 116.305 MPH for the 28th spot but was the slowest car in the field. Litz’ Maserati Tipo V8RI, chassis # 4501, was powered by an unsupercharged 4 ½ liter (270 cubic inch) V-8 engine fed by four Linkert motorcycle-type carburetors. The 225-pound Litz (billed as the “biggest race car driver in the world”) had earlier abandoned his own entry in favor of Dick Wharton’s similar Maserati Tipo V8RI chassis #4502 powered by a supercharged 3-liter (182 cubic inch) engine that Litz qualified for the starting field at 117.979 MPH.

Louis Tomei easily qualified Frank Griswold’s supercharged 8-cylinder Alfa Romeo for the final starting spot with a run of 118.454 MPH and the field was filled. Billy Devore, the son of racer Earl Devore, in Leon Duray’s four-cylinder supercharged ‘Barbasol Special’ made a qualifying attempt, but during his run the brake handle broke and he coasted over the last lap and posted a four-lap average of 104 MPH, below the required 110 MPH minimum. Mechanics quickly repaired Devore’s car, but he stalled as he left the pit area for second attempt.

Duray’s mechanics pulled the car back, restarted it and Devore was pushed off just two minutes before the final gun sounded to end time trials. Devore’s first lap was too slow at 115.207 MPH, but over the next three laps Devore picked up his pace and completed his 10-mile time trial run with an average speed of 116.527 MPH, and “crowded out,” or bumped, George Robson out of the field. All this exciting action occurred while the “Wehr-Anderson Rotary Valve Special” sat in the dark inside garage #17 and once again in 1937 Rudolph Wehr’s creation missed “the big show.”

George Robson would qualify for the Indianapolis ‘500’ starting field again in 1940 and 1941, then he was joined in the 1946 ‘500’ by younger brother Hal.  Jimmy Robson never made it to Indianapolis, as he retired from race driving after he suffered severe injuries in an American Racing Association (ARA) “big car” crash in 1941 at the high-banked Oakland Speedway as he practiced for a Labor Day 500-lap race.

Hal Robson at Funk's Speedway in 1948

author's collection

George Robson, the surprising 1946 ‘500’ champion, was killed during a 100-lap race at Georgia’s dusty Lakewood Speedway on September 2 1946 in an accident that also killed George Barringer.  According to historian Norm Bogan, Hal Robson was originally scheduled to drive the #7 Wolfe Special in place of Barringer.

1940 Indianapolis 500

Rudolph Wehr and partner Edwin Anderson’s entry of their #51 “Wehr & Anderson Special” for the 29th running of the International 500-Mile Sweepstakes was received in the Speedway offices on May 2.  The same machine as the 1939 entry, the entry blank arrived at the Speedway without a driver named, but the following day, Emrel Gene “Port” DeFraties, a one-time outlaw “big car” racer during the nineteen thirties on the Illinois and Kansas fairground circuits, was named as the driver. “Port” practiced the “Wehr & Anderson Special” but never made a qualifying attempt.   

Later after he retired from driving, DeFraties became a traveling announcer with the AAA Midwest midget circuit before he started his own hardtop sanctioning body in 1949. Through the nineteen fifties the “DeFraties Circuit” made weekly stops during the racing season at track located in Springfield, Farmer City, Macon, Lincoln, Mazon, and Peoria Illinois. 

Rudolph Wehr never returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway after his sixth failed attempt to qualify a car in 1940, but he had established a record of persistence in the face of adversity. 

Rotary valve development after Indy by Wehr and others 

The author found a reference to Rudolph Wehr in Paul Smith’s book Merchants of Speed which a stoty that in 1953 Chet Herbert found a Wehr 183-cubic inch rotary valve two-cycle four-cylinder engine in a junkyard that he planned to use a power plant for his Bonneville car.

Herbert found the engine had 14:1 compression ratio and used piston rings to seal the rotary valves a system which did not work (Wehr’s final patent #2368956 attempted to address the sealing issue).  Chet fitted the Wehr engine with a hydraulic-actuated tapered cone system of his own design to seal the rotary valves and fitted the engine with a GMC supercharger. During testing the revamped engine reportedly self-destructed on the dynamometer.

The book erroneously attributes to engine to an Wehr 1932 Indianapolis attempt, which of course did not occur.  Most likely what Herbert found was the 1932 Legion Ascot ‘big car’ engine although that engine was not described as a two-cycle engine. 

The Crosley rotary valve engine 

the author suspects this was Wehr's work 

According to Daniel Strohl’s article in the February 2016 issue of Hemmings’ Classic Car magazine after World War 2, Rudolph Wehr worked to develop a rotary valve cylinder head for the Crosley overhead valve four-cylinder engine for midget racing, an example of which the author believes  is on display at the Museum of American Speed.

Photo of Wehr patterns by Daniel Strohl 

Daniel Strohl also reported that a number of Wehr’s parts and wooden patterns were offered for sale by Wehr family members at the October 2015 Hershey, Pennsylvania Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) swap meet.  The author would appreciate any leads to these sellers, as he would like to obtain one of these patterns - please contact the author at kevracer@aol.com

Smith's rotary valve patent drawing

In the nineteen thirties San Angelo Texas inventor Thomas Noah Smith developed a rotary valve system which  received US patent 2336756 in 1943.  However this is not "true" rotary valve system, as the rotary valves work in concert with a center "master" poppet valve. Smith had a big car built by Harry Lewis (who also built Ted Horn's "Baby" big car) which reportedly raced only once before it was parked in a garage in San Antonio for 50 years. The restored Smith car resides in Ed Justice's museum.   

exploded view of Rotax 532 

In the modern era, Austrian engine manufacturer Rotax used rotary intake valves in their now out-of-production two-cylinder two-stroke 31 cubic inch engine design the 532 for ultralight aircraft and continues to use rotary intake valves in the 532's larger successor, the 36 cubic inch Rotax 582

Coates International Limited currently builds and markets the Coates C86GE engine-generator system which with a 855-cubic inch displacement Inline 6-cylinder engine which can run on natural gas, propane, digested land fill gas, hydrogen, and other fuels such as diesel which the manufacturer claims can develop up to 400 horsepower. The engine uses the” Coates Spherical Rotary Valve System” which replaces the poppet valve system with a pair of rotary valves (one intake and one outlet) operated by overhead shafts.  

Persistence - the Rudolph Wehr story

The Oxford dictionary defines persistence as “the continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty.” Throughout the long history of American automobile racing, few men have personified persistence as did Rudolph K. B. Wehr, who brought unique cars to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway six times during the 18-year period between 1922 and 1940, yet of all the cars that Wehr designed and built, none never ever qualified for the 500-mile race.

Born in Hungary around 1882, Rudolph Wehr attended the University of Budapest before he immigrated to the United States and took a job as a mechanic and chauffeur for J. W. O’Bannon, a wealthy New York bookbinder. A chauffeur's job was dangerous in those early days of automobile travel. Late one night in early August 1910 as Wehr drove his employer and R.L. Gilmore, a real estate investor home to Manhattan from Westchester County they stopped for what appeared to be a pair of stranded motorists but soon revealed themselves to be armed robbers. The New York Times newspaper reported that the robbers relieved the Good Samaritans of a total of $55 ($1,375 today) before they fled into the night.

While still employed by O’Bannon, Wehr began to experiment in his free time with rotary valves. Wehr eventually started the Wehr Motor Company in a shop on New York City’s Upper West Side and built his first working prototype of a rotary valve engine during 1916.

Most automobile engines use spring loaded poppet style valves; in the nineteen twenties there was development of the production “sleeve valve” engine, but Wehr seems to be one of the few men who ever attempted to develop a rotary valve racing engine.  A rotary valve works by the rotation of a plug with passages inside a cylinder that regulates the flow of liquid or gas.  Typically used in brass musical instruments, a rotary valve can also be used as a metering device to regulate the flow of a product.

On June 1 1918, Wehr raced his “Wehr Special” which was described by the New York Sun newspaper as “a car of his own make” in a non-championship AAA-sanctioned 100-mile race promoted by William Wellman. The race held on the great 2-mile Sheepshead Bay board track in Brooklyn New York once the site of a failed thoroughbred track was for the Harkness Auto Handicap Trophy, named in honor of the track’s principal investor, Standard Oil heir Harry Harkness. The race was originally been scheduled for Decoration Day, Thursday May 30, but had to be postponed twice due to misty conditions that created a wet track surface. The sport’s top cars and drivers of the day were on hand for this race which was held during the time that the Indianapolis 500-mile race was suspended due to the Great War.

Ralph DePalma's 1918 Packard at Sheepshead Bay 

Photo from the Bain Collection in the Library of Congress Collection. Photographer unknown 

Reports in Motor Age and Automotive Industries magazines explained that as a handicap event the cars started the race based on the lineup established by starter and handicapper Fred J. Wagner. The fastest car, as determined by Wagner, started last or “scratch” and then chased down and passed the earlier starters.  The New York Tribune newspaper stated that “henceforth handicap racing will prevail in the automotive realm, as the virtual unknown having hypothetically at least as much chance for victory as the world’s champion.” 

Rudolph Wehr and his car started first, followed by Percy Ford’s unidentified machine one minute later, and then so on through the fifteen starters that included Ira Vail’s Hudson, Tommy Milton and Eddie Hearne in Duesenbergs, and Barney Oldfield in the formerly enclosed cockpit Miller-built ‘Golden Submarine.’ The pattern continued until Wagner released the two fastest cars, Ralph DePalma’s cream-colored #4 Packard powered by a 12-cylinder 299-cubic inch aircraft engine, five minutes behind Wehr, and Louis Chevrolet’s #3 Frontenac that started “scratch,” six minutes after Wehr.

Ralph DePalma won the Harkness Auto Handicap race with the mighty Packard, and finished the 100-mile distance in 58 minutes and 21 seconds at an average speed of 102.8 miles per hour (MPH), just ten seconds ahead of Tommy Milton, with Oldfield third in the ‘Golden Submarine.’ Louis Chevrolet lost his chance for victory when he was forced to make three pit stops and finished a distant seventh. The published results of the race list Wehr in last place without details or explanation.  

Wehr's earliest patent design for 

use of two rotary valves per cylinder 

Rudolph, who was not yet a United States citizen and technically still a subject of the King of Hungary, applied for his first United States patent to protect his idea for the use rotary valves with internal combustion engines in June 1917, and in July 1918 he was issued patent #1273433.  On May 2 1919 now a United States citizen, Rudolph submitted for a patent his idea of a combined rotary intake and exhaust valve cylinder head for an internal combustion engine and received patent #1347978 on June 27 1920.  

Wehr's 1922 patent application drawing

for a single valve

The first try- the 1922 Indianapolis ‘500’

On May 21 1922, the New York Times newspaper reported that three men, Rudolph Wehr, Joseph H. Lehman and L.P. Come had entered a “mystery car in the big sweepstakes” to be held on Memorial Day in Indianapolis. During the interview in their “little office in a grimy shop or the upper west side they somewhat reluctantly disclosed some of the details.” Wehr explained his years of study on the use of rotary valves in an automobile engine, which he claimed was 25% lighter in weight, with 100 fewer parts, that resulted in increased efficiency and less fuel consumption.

Wehr’s partner Lehmann, who was an electrical equipment manufacturer, had invented an alternating electric current ignition system which meant according to Lehman “higher speed, a twin spark working from a single break” and the elimination of the pitting of the spark point.   The shadowy Mr. Come, said to be managing their affairs, stated that the car was due to be shipped to Indianapolis the next day. 

The three men refused to discuss the speed of the car beyond stating that it had been tested on “lonely roads about New York ….at over 110 miles per hour.”   The Times article closed by simply stating that “Frank E. Davidson will be the pilot,” although AAA records also list Wehr as the driver. Davidson was later identified in subsequent press reports as “an engineer” “famed dirt track racer,” and at times the owner of the machine.

The #28 “D’Wehr Special” was a curiosity as it was the only car entered in the Indianapolis race that took advantage of the new for 1922 AAA (American Automobile Association) racing rules. The New York Times article stated that the 120-cubic inch engine’s cylinders had a “bore of 2-5/16 inches with a stroke of 4 ¾ inches,” which through calculation means Wehr built it as a six-cylinder engine. 

Since 1920, AAA rules had allowed entries with an engine that displaced from 123 cubic inches up to 183 cubic inches a minimum car weight of 1650 pounds less gas oil or ballast.   New AAA 122-cubic inch single-seat rules were set to go into effect for the 1923 ‘500,’ but in the meantime, the 1922 AAA rules package contained “weight breaks” for cars whose engines displaced less than two liters (122 cubic inches).

A 1922 Indianapolis entry with an engine of less than 122 cubic inches but more than 1-1/2 liters (91.5 cubic inches) was allowed a minimum weight of 1400 pounds, while a car equipped with an engine that displaced less than 91.5 cubic inches would be allowed to weight as little as 1200 pounds, but for the 1922 Indianapolis ‘500,’ no such small engine cars were entered; the D’Wehr featured the smallest engine among the 1922 Indianapolis entries.   

Frank Davidson in the single-seat D'Wehr Specail

photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection 

IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

With an engine that only displaced 122 cubic inches the “D’Wehr Special” was also allowed to compete without a “mechanician” (riding mechanic). Frank Davidson rode alone with a rear view mirror, which harkened back to Ray Harroun and the 1911 Marmon ‘Wasp.’  With the new AAA rules package, the riding mechanic required since 1912, would become optional with the 1923 running Indianapolis ‘500’ and remain an option until 1930 when the “mechanician” again became mandatory. 

Fifteen years later, a May 16 1937 Indianapolis Star article related what allegedly happened after the “D’Wehr Special” arrived at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 22, 1922. “When they took it out on the track, it simply would not go fast enough. Wehr was almost in despair when Ralph DePalma, then at his peak, driving for the Duesenberg team, happened along and volunteered a solution. "When I go out to qualify," he told Wehr, "have your driver get on the track at the same time, get in my 'tow' and you'll get in with me."

According to the 1937 Star article, “Davidson followed these instructions, and DePalma roared down the straightaway at more than one hundred miles an hour.  So did the rotary valve racer, but only for a brief stretch. The pace was more than the engine could stand, and it threw rods all over the track.” Reportedly Wehr’s reaction was “I’ll be back,” an utterance that predated Arnold Schwarzenegger’s film statement by more than 60 years.  Davidson and the “D’Wehr Special” was one of only two cars on the grounds that failed to qualify for the 27-car 1922 starting field.

A basic problem for rotary valves come from the pressures in the cylinder of an internal combustion engine are high, due to both the compression stroke and the explosion of the fuel-air mixture. This produces large forces on the valve system, but with the poppet valve system those forces simply push the valve tighter against its seat, and have no effect at all on the valve-actuating mechanism.

Rudolph Wehr did not return to the Speedway with another rotary valve entry until 1931, and in the meantime he had moved his base of operations to the Los Angeles area and had five more patents to his name. During his lifetime, Rudolph Wehr obtained ten United States patents, all related to rotary valves, with the last issued in 1945.

The 1931 Indianapolis ‘500’

For his 1931 Indianapolis 500 ‘entry’, Wehr built a 170-cubic inch displacement engine that was apparently based on the block of a Miller 122-cubic inch engine fitted with a rotary valve head in a revamped Miller 122 chassis widened to accommodate a two-man cockpit.  Wehr’s driver was none other than Raffaele “Ralph” DePalma, whom news reports called “the grand old Roman of the auto racing world,” and the 1915 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner in a four-cylinder Mercedes. DePalma had raced at the Speedway before the bricks were set, but his racing career had gone into steep decline after the 1923 Packard Motor Car Company fiasco. Ralph now 48 years old, had last raced in the ‘International 500-mile Sweepstakes’ in 1925.   

In a bizarre decision, DePalma and the team drove the “Wehr-Miller Special” to Speedway Indiana from the West Coast as part of a caravan that arrived in Indianapolis on Sunday May 24, as reported in the following day’s Indianapolis Star. There were five people and two cars reported in the DePalma party. Riding with Ralph in the racing car was Ralph Powers, while following in a touring car, also fitted with a Wehr rotary valve head engine, was Rudolph Wehr, accompanied by Harvey Heller, the pattern maker for the Wehr Motor Company, and Frank J. Fabian, described as an “old time racing mechanic,” who had worked with Fred Duesenberg and Ira Vail during their golden racing years.

In order to generate interest in his moribund career and probably generate some much needed cash DePalma contributed a story about a 1917 Providence Rhode Island race  with “his oldest and greatest rival”  Barney Oldfield to the Western Newspaper Union’s (WNU) nationwide syndicated sports column series entitled My Greatest Thrill in Sport. Other WNU columns in the series featured stories by such sports luminaries as football coach John W. Heisman, swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, and boxers Jack Dempsey and “Gentleman Jim” Corbett.   Unfortunately, DePalma’s column appeared nationwide on May 22, while DePalma was still enroute to the Speedway.

The Star reported “Wind-blown and sun-burned, Ralph DePalma, racing hero of a million Americans for a score of years, got into the speedway grounds as dusk was falling Sunday evening. He had driven his Miller-Wehr racing car from Los Angeles to Indianapolis since last Tuesday” (May 19). The Star reporter wrote that DePalma’s “golf hose were once gray, but were now spattered with dust and grease. His gray slip-on sweater looked like it might have belonged to a longshoreman, it was that bedraggled.”

The unidentified Star reporter colorfully noted that DePalma’s “gray hair, now thinning on the sides to leave a fairway down the middle, was brushed or blown back from his forehead. His hands were grease-grimed and his face, forehead and hands were the color of an aborigine.” And the ‘Wehr-Miller Special’ was described as “a companion piece to its master, for it too was greasy and muddy. One does not amble from the west coast to Indianapolis without leaving some travel stains on master and servant ....”

The article continued “No sooner had he parked his car in the the alley of the long line of garages than he called for some fresh spark plugs and with a wrench himself went to work at making the change from old ones to new. DePalma then had all the appearance, in fact, of a racing driver, but it was tough seeing DePalma wheeling a racing car into the grounds instead of rolling in aboard a Packard. It was like seeing a scion of a noble line getting back to bedrock from whence started his family.”

This must have been a trying personal period for Ralph DePalma, as sixteen years after his “500’ victory, DePalma was reportedly nearly broke. His wife, Clara, had been granted a divorce in Los Angeles Superior Court after nearly 22 years of marriage on April 2 on grounds of desertion and Ralph agreed to pay her $25 a week in alimony (nearly $400 in 2016). DePalma later filed for personal bankruptcy in a Los Angeles courtroom in August 1931 and cited $10,000 in assets, mostly real estate, and over $50,000 in liabilities.

   

The May 25, 1931 Indianapolis Star article closed by stating “Anyhow, DePalma is now here with his racing car, which is one of his own. It Is Miller-built, fitted with the Wehr rotary valve type of head. Ralph says that he breezed it up to as high as 100 miles an hour (MPH) during his trip east. DePalma is expected to give his car a trial Monday and if things go well, he will attempt qualification either late Monday or more possibly Tuesday.”

In 1931, the Speedway scheduled three weeks of practice sessions before time trials commenced for five consecutive days beginning on May 23, so Wehr and DePalma had cut their schedule close by arriving on the evening of May 24, after nineteen cars were already qualified for the starting field. It was reported on Tuesday morning that “the journey was too much for it (referring to the Wehr entry), and the engine needed much readjustment before it could even attempt to qualify.”  

On Wednesday May 27 the ‘Wehr-Miller Special’ did not show sufficient speed in practice, as the 1930 requirement was a 90 MPH minimum speed average for four laps. DePalma nonetheless got in line to attempt a time trial but the American Automobile Association (AAA) race stewards ruled that DePalma could not complete his attempt to "crowd.” or bump. his way into the 40-car starting field as the ‘Wehr-Miller Special’ was not in motion when the sun set which officially ended qualifications. This sad end with the Wehr entry marked Ralph DePalma’s final appearance as a driver at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

1932 Legion Ascot Speedway

In May 1932, Wehr who lived with his wife Theresa in a five-unit apartment building at 318 West 84th Place in Los Angeles, and Frank Fabian bought a Miller AAA ‘big car’ chassis which according to Michael Ferner’s research was originally built in 1930. As the #40 ‘Billy Arnold Special’ it was driven by Ernest “Ernie” Triplett in late 1930 and throughout the 1931 season during which Triplett won his first AAA Pacific Coast championship.

Photo of the Jack Buxton, Frank Fabian, and the Rotary Valve Special

photo appeared in John Lucero's  Legion Ascot Speedway

The ‘big car’ came to Wehr and Fabian without an engine, which was not a problem as Wehr still had the Wehr-Miller hybrid engine that now displaced 183 cubic inches.  The #29 car, dubbed the “Rotary Valve Special” was driven early in in the 1932 season at Legion Ascot and other AA Pacific Coast events by Jack Buxton and later in the year by former Legion Ascot ‘Class B’ driver Bill Hart, neither with great success and after the end of the season the rolling car was sold to Clarence Tarbot who installed a Cragar engine. 

  

Buxton, a Canadian by birth who lived in Los Angeles, was the 1928 National Auto Racing Association (NARA) (frequently listed in error as the AAA Southwest) champion also well known for his detailed pencil sketches of fellow Legion Ascot drivers and visitors, which appeared in the race programs and in issues of the Coast Auto Racing newspaper. Buxton died on May 13 1935 in the Palmdale California hospital following a passenger car roll-over accident near the village of Little Rock in northern Los Angeles County. 

We will continue with the second and final chapter of the story of Rudolph Wehr’s dogged persistence with the application of rotary valves on racing engines in a few days.