The Official Blog of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Indianapolis Motor Speedway played host to two very dedicated globetrotters in the last week. Both are parlaying their love of two-wheeled transportation into the trip of a lifetime.

Paolo kissing the bricks

Last week, Paolo Pirozzi of Italy stopped by to take a lap around the famed IMS oval on his Ducati motorcycle, affectionately named “Lidia.” Paolo is taking a year to ride around the world, making a point to stop by every MotoGP circuit on the globe in the process. So far, Paolo has taken seven months to cover 24 countries, starting in his native Italy and working through northern Europe, Russia into China, then back west across India and Pakistan and to Australia. He flew to Seattle and traveled down the west coast of the United States.

After Indy, Paolo traveled east to New York, and the plan is to hit Florida (who wouldn’t, in November!) and then work west then south through Mexico, Central and South America, and skip across the southern Atlantic from Brazil to Africa, then north toward home. I’m weary just thinking about it.

Follow Paolo at his website:  http://www.paolopirozzi.com/it/.

Az on the run at IMS

On Nov. 23, Az Heydari, one of the world’s newest yet most passionate MotoGP World Championship fans, ran the 2.621-mile road at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, site of the Red Bull Indianapolis GP.

Heydari, who attended her first MotoGP race at Estoril, Portugal in 2010 and immediately became a self-proclaimed MotoGP fanatic, is raising money for Riders for Health by running 16 of the 18 circuits upon which MotoGP runs around the world. Her goal is to raise 15,000 pounds; so far her running shoes and MotoGP fandom have raised more than 9,500 pounds.

The resident of Kent, England, left London on Nov. 6 and first ran the track at Qatar; she has ran most of the European circuits since and, after her run at IMS on a sunny-but-chilly day, she next heads west for Laguna Seca.

To track Az’s adventure, go here: http://www.justgiving.com/pablo46.

For more information on Riders for Health – a charity dedicated to humanitarian aid and relief in Africa – visit their website: http://www.riders.org/.

The stage is prepped for the ground breaking ceremonies

The Dallara factory groundbreaking on Main Street in Speedway, Ind., on Nov. 16 means that once again technology perfected in the shadow of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will “wow” fans at “The Racing Capital of the World.”

Indeed, “again” is the key word here, for in the 1910’s it was wholly common to see Indianapolis 500 thoroughbreds emerge from buildings along Speedway’s Main Street corridor – some from a now-historic building located right across the street from Dallara’s future home.

Former IndyCar driver and Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal is recognized at the ceremony.

In the years immediately after IMS co-founders Carl G. Fisher and James Allison built the Speedway, they along with local real estate expert Lem Trotter set about developing a planned community, “Speedway City,” in the area southwest of the track.

As IMS Historian Donald Davidson points out in his excellent book, “Autocourse Official History of the Indianapolis 500,” Fisher and Allison also began to acquire race cars in 1916 due to concern for a lack of entries, given the war raging in Europe. They formed the Indianapolis Speedway Team Company, bought two Peugeot racers and commissioned locally-based Premier Motor Company to build three more.

The team needed a home, and Allison built a factory in the 1200 block of Main Street to house it. Johnny Aitken earned the pole for the 1916 Indianapolis 500 driving the team’s No. 18 Peugeot, and three years later – but the first “500” since 1916 due to America’s involvement in World War I in 1917-18 – Howdy Wilcox earned a popular victory at the Indianapolis 500 with a Peugeot housed and prepared in Allison’s Main Street factory. His Indianapolis Speedway Team Company teammate, Jules Goux, finished third.

Today’s successor to Allison’s company – Allison Transmission – is a global leader in transmission production and technology and is headquartered at the corner of 10th and Main Streets – easily within view of the Dallara plant site.

Another major player in the present-day Town of Speedway (incorporated in 1926) economy, at the opposite end of Main Street from Allison Transmission, is Praxair.

Not surprisingly, it also has significant ties to Fisher and Allison, and has its own racing legacy. Praxair’s Speedway operations are the successor to the company that made Fisher and Allison very wealthy: Prest-O-Lite.

As Donald Davidson wrote in his “500” history book, in 1915 a young man came to Fisher and Allison and told them the Maxwell team was getting out of racing; Fisher and Allison’s response was to buy the team, rename it Prest-O-Lite Racing and move the cars and equipment into their factory, located literally across the street from Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Turn 1.

The young man, who was made team manager and also drove for Fisher and Allison, was none other than Eddie Rickenbacker. Two years later, when America entered World War I, he would earn his fame as a “flying ace” in air combat and in 1927 would buy the Speedway from the original ownership group.

Today’s celebratory groundbreaking on the Dallara factory is the first step in bring high-tech IZOD IndyCar Series chassis manufacturing back to the heart of open wheel racing, and in 2012, components built at Dallara’s Main Street factory will be on the car that enters Indianapolis 500 Victory Circle. It’s a repeat of history that Carl Fisher and Jim Allison would be extremely proud of.

The ground is broken for the new Dallara facility

Welcome to IMS!

Throughout the year, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway plays host to many special guests and tour groups. On Thursday, Nov. 4, we met with and showed around several journalists from the Chicago bureau of China’s state news agency, Xinhua. The journalists moved to Chicago in January and had never been to a racetrack before they visited the Racing Capital of the World.

The first order of business was to get them quickly up to speed on the Speedway’s history. After condensing 100 years into about 30 minutes, we were off for a tour of the infield.

Most of the tour was spent in the Media Center, but we drove around to Gasoline Alley, the MotoGP garages, Turn 1 and the various sections of the road course. The highlight of the tour was a guided tour through the IMS Hall of Fame Museum by IMS Historian Donald Davidson.

The Chinese journalists will be back at IMS in May 2011 to report on the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500, so we must have impressed them!

Henry Ford, Arthur Newby, Frank Wheeler, Carl Fisher, James Allison

The Founding Four with Henry Ford

A.J. Watson with the #5 Car (1959)

Donald Davidson talks about A.J. Watson

1969 Practice- Mario Andretti

Mario Andretti 1969 Champion

Donald Davidson

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Historian Donald Davidson has been the expert on the history of the Racing Capital of the World since he arrived in Central Indiana in the mid-1960s. Now 2010 Auto Racing Hall of Fame inductee Davidson is answering your questions periodically in this blog!

Q: When did the “500″ first go to the three-abreast start?

– Ted Crawford

A: The answer is 1921. For the first two years—1911 and 1912—the cars lined up five abreast, although in the first year, the Pace Car sat in the spot known as the pole position, with four cars next to it and then five per row behind that. In 1912, five cars were on the front row with the Pace Car out in front. It was then four per row from 1913 until 1920, with the tradition of three abreast having remained unbroken ever since 1921.

Q: I have read in different places that Howdy Wilcox, the 1919 winner, and Howdy Wilcox, the runner-up in 1932, were father and son, that they were uncle/nephew and that they were not related at all. Which is correct?

– Jason Deming

A: As strange as it may seem, they were not related at all. By the time the “other” Howdy Wilcox began to come to the fore in Indiana dirt track racing in the late 1920s, the immediate family of the 1919 winner, Howard Samuel Wilcox, suspected the newcomer might simply be using the name in order to capitalize on the immense popularity of the champion, who by then was deceased. In fact, Howdy Wilcox II, as he was dubbed by the media, was born Howard Omar Wilcox on Feb. 20, 1905, which is before the “original” Howdy had even begun to race. Howard S. Wilcox Jr., the son of the 1919 winner, never did race but was a prominent “500″ and United States Auto Club official. At one time or another serving as the head of the Indianapolis Junior Chamber of Commerce, the Indiana National Guard and the Five Hundred Festival Committee, he is the man who, in 1950, created Indiana University’s Little 500 bicycle race.

Click here to ask your questions to Donald about the people and races that have formed a century of rich history at IMS. Include your complete name and city and state/country of residence.

Send us your questions, and keep your eyes on this blog for answers to selected questions from Donald!

Driver Lewis Strang visited Indianapolis on March 9, 1909 and looked at a model of IMS, which was under construction. This iconic photo became known as "The Vision."

Oct. 22, 1910 isn’t one of those red-letter dates associated with the infancy of the Indianapolis 500 like May 30, 1911, the date of the inaugural race. But maybe it should be, because a significant moment in the history of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” occurred 100 years ago today.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway received the first-ever entry for the Indianapolis 500 on Oct. 22, 1910, a Case entered by the J.I. Case Threshing Machine Co. of Racine, Wis., to be driven by Lewis Strang. The entry fee for the inaugural race was $500, which equals about $11,600 at 2009 U.S. currency rates. Track official T.E. “Pop” Myers wrote Strang’s name into a ledger to signify the first entry, and history was made.

There also was a huge competitive significance to Strang’s entry because the starting lineup for the inaugural Indianapolis 500 in 1911 was determined by the order in which IMS officials received entries. The only qualifying requirement for the first “500″ was the completion of a flying quarter-mile at an average speed of 75 mph, a task for which drivers received three tries.

Strang completed that requirement with other drivers May 27-28, 1911 and started on the pole — all because the Case entry for his car was received first Oct. 22, 1910, 100 years ago today.

1922 Indianapolis 500

Donald Davidson discusses the 1922 line-up

1968 Parade Lap

Donald Davidson discusses the 1968 Parade Lap