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by olderfan
Which would expire in 25-50 laps if run at full boost. So, what's the point?
Interesting technical exercise, and part of the technical diversity that was once a part of the 500, though.
And how, exactly was Penske cheating? The Mercedes engine fully complied with the rules as they existed at the time, as did the Buick. And if you're saying that Penske so easily manipulated IMS & USAC into the rules changes needed to make the Mercedes engine possible, then what does that say about the abilities of IMS (and it's puppet organization USAC) to effectively manage the 500, much less an entire series?
And changing the rules "mid stream" would just be another example of how IMS & USAC were woefully unprepared, and unqualified to manage the evolving environment of modern, high horsepower open wheel racing, and some would argue those traits are evident still today.
And if you read "The Beast" then you also know that despite the money, and miles of testing and hours of dyno work, it was only shortly before that years 500 that Penske & Ilmor got an engine to last 500 miles. So despite the advantages in torque & horsepower, which were derived TOTALLY within what was then the current regulations (which Menard also took advantage of with the Buick V-6 project (oh, remember when there was variety at Indy...) there was still a lot of doubt that the engines would last the race distance. And in the race itself, Paul Tracy's engine was not healthy, and was down on power.
Racing is (or used to be) about pushing the limits, within the rules. Its up to the ruling bodies to produce enforceable regulations, and then police them effectively. You may not like what Penske did, but to call it cheating is a stretch. But if the "answer" to that is the current plague of "spec", or near spec racing then I'm afraid that the interest will (and has) decline in the 500 after this monumental 100th running, and the future isn't very bright for any motorsport.

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SVRA: Brickyard Invitational - Return of the Indigo Twins

Saturday, 18 June 2016
Mark Dill (words and pics) Charles Test (19) and Brian Blain (20) during Friday's oval exhibition runs. (photo: RIS Don Andersen).
One of the darlings of early 20th century Indianapolis was the National Motor Vehicle Company, a bustling factory in the Hoosier capital's burgeoning automotive industry. The city rivaled Detroit for automobile production at the time and National, along with Nordyke & Marmon, Cole and Marion, was among its leading manufacturers. Arthur C. Newby and Charles Test were founding fathers of the successful enterprise that employed hundreds of workers. Newby was also one of the four founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1909. By 1910 Test was gone but Newby led the way and demonstrated the quality and reliability of the company's product through auto racing. His star drivers in 1910 were a pair of very close friends, Johnny Aitken and his younger teammate, Tom Kincaid.

Aitken and Kincaid were top drivers of the era. Both had won several major American Automobile Association (AAA) races and the local newspapers embraced them as hometown heroes. Always eager to ballyhoo home teams to sell their papers – there were three major dailies in Indianapolis at the time – the two men were nicknamed, "The Indigo Twins." The moniker reflected not only the closeness and cooperation of the teammates but also National's team colors: midnight blue.
The fact that Aitken, two years older than Kincaid, was a mentor and even a kind of "big brother" to his 23-year-old teammate, gave all the more reason for the label. In May 1910 at the first Memorial Day weekend of racing at the newly paved Indianapolis Motor Speedway – already dubbed "The Brickyard" by locals – both Aitken and Kincaid picked off victories. It was a three-day weekend race meet chockfull of short sprint races – in that regard similar to this weekend's Brickyard Invitational. Aitken won two contests of 10miles while Kincaid picked off the Friday feature, the 100-mile Prest-O-Lite Trophy.
Brian Blain (foreground) and Charles Test channel the original "Indigo Twins" with period apparel.
Fast-forward 106 years and a new set of "Indigo Twins" has arrived at the Brickyard with hugely relevant ties to both National and the Speedway's early days. Enter Brian Blain and Charles Test, the great-grandson and namesake of Art Newby's business partner mentioned above.
In this case Brian is the mentor and Charles is relatively new to the vintage racing game. Blain, the founding director of the Blain Motorsports Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the preservation of racing history and especially important racecars demonstrating advances in technology, started vintage racing in 1983. He is a regular competitor with the SVRA and with a collection of over 20 cars he gets a vast range of driving experiences. At the recent Sonoma Historic Motorsports festival he not only had his 1911 National "40" on the track but also a 1969 Lola T-163 Can-Am racer.
"It's fun to experience different cars of vastly different design technologies," Brian says. "But I also notice similarities that are surprising. For example, the braking points for the National and some more modern cars can be very similar. The National has much lower horsepower but the brakes are almost non-existent so I have get on them at about the same point as with a car going maybe 80mph faster."

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Above: National's star driver Johnny Aitken is surrounded by, left to right, company founder Arthur Newby, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Shank, Mrs. Shank, Harry McIntyre and stage actors Lelia McIntyre and John Hyams. (photo Charles Test)

Blain's National, which he acquired in 1992, is pretty special. It is the same car that Charlie Merz drove to seventh place in the first Indianapolis 500 back in 1911.

Racing cars of the day were not really purpose-built but actually chopped and slightly reconfigured stock cars. The machines were meant to be raced and that is what Blain is all about. While he is an advocate of the vintage racing culture that does not tolerate anything close to bump drafting, trading paint or optimistic pass attempts he still wants to push even his oldest racecar to its limits.
"We are really racing, this is no parade," Blain asserts. "And for me, I want to feel what it was like for Charlie Merz. I want to begin to imagine what he felt in 1911. I look at old photos of Charlie and think about what was going through his mind. Even daily things, such as concerns about his family or just what he wanted for dinner."
Blain also takes joy at the idea of sharing his cars and knowledge with spectators. He loves fans who try to imagine what it was like for the spectators of ages past to watch the amazing heroes of their time gun their roaring engines in anger and fly through turns with amazing cars at the brink of control. That's no surprise coming from a man who founded an official, government-registered foundation for the preservation of motorsports history.
He is so enthusiastic and so committed to sharing what he owns and knows he produces elaborate displays and events. Last September at the SVRA's Coronado Island Speed Festival in San Diego Blain created homage to the 100th anniversary of the Point Loma road race. That 1915 contest included many superstar drivers of the day such as Barney Oldfield, Bob Burman, Eddie Rickenbacker and Earl Cooper.
The downside of this passion is that his hard driving takes a toll on a 105-year-old machine. He had his Merz National at last year's Brickyard Invitational and all that driving in anger produced cracks in an engine cylinder and the crankcase. Pistons were scored too, and that meant expensive, custom-made replacements.
"It's getting really difficult to maintain the car," he says. "You break things and you have to go to a foundry. The cost is astronomical. It's the price you pay to play."
Blain has assisted Test in coming up to speed with vintage racing. Test, as the namesake of his great-grandfather, developed an understandable interest in the original Test's exploits as a successful and prominent businessman in Indianapolis over 100 years ago. He now races a second 1911 National in support of the Blain Motorsports Foundation. He is also the world's foremost historian on the National Motor Vehicle Company and hosts a free website full of information.
While the records of the National Charles Test drives are less detailed than the Merz car, both he and Blain believe it was raced. The difference is that it was a legitimate stock car that was stripped down to reduce wind resistance for racing.
"It was pretty common for these Nationals to be raced by their owners," Test explains. "They would strip down the body and enter it in local hill climbs or locally organized race meets on roads or horse tracks. Documentation of those events is sketchy at best. Also, a lot of times the owners did not want it known they raced the car because they believed it reduced the value if they ever tried to sell it."
Test isn't completely new to the game of climbing behind the wheel of a vintage racecar. He joined Blain in Sonoma two weeks ago and in April was at another SVRA event at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in Southern California. This weekend they re-emerge just in time to invoke the Indigo Twins of old.
National still has a presence in Indianapolis, but you have to know where to look. One interesting spot is wherever the National racecar that Joe Dawson drove to victory in the 1912 500 sits at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. It gets shuffled around a bit, but it is always on display. Donald Davidson, the Speedway's historian and this weekend's Brickyard Invitational grand marshal, never fails to point out that both Dawson's winner and the famous Marmon Wasp, the winner of the first Indianapolis 500, are among the most faithfully documented historic racecars in the world.
"We know exactly where both these cars came from and where they have been," Donaldson assures.
The National factory where all the company's cars were constructed is abandoned but still stands in Indianapolis.
The winning National came from the same place as the two Nationals racing this weekend in the pre-war run group of the 2016 Brickyard Invitational. They came from the National Motor Vehicle Company factory at 1101-47 E. 22nd Street in Indianapolis. The building still stands, a portion of it used by an elementary charter school. At least three quarters of the structure, though, is vacant and in need of refurbishing. Its historic character begs for intervention.
As for the original Indigo Twins, fate was not kind. Tom Kincaid had less than two months to live after his Prest-O-Lite Trophy victory. He perished in a brutal accident on the backstretch of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during test runs on July 7, 1910. Both Aitken and Newby, a man with a reputation for deep compassion, were stunned. They suspended racing operations for a while but returned with the announcement of plans for the inaugural Indianapolis 500 the next year.
Aitken raced in the initial "500," and even goes down in history as the first man to lead a lap of the historic race. He retired shortly after and then went on to manage the winning teams for drivers Joe Dawson and Jules Goux in the next two Indianapolis 500s. He returned to the wheel in 1916 and won the pole for the great race. That same year he also chased Dario Resta to the wire for the AAA's first Indy car national points championship – finishing in the runner-up spot. It is a little-known fact that he holds the all-time record for race victories at IMS with 15. His life ended not at the wheel of a racecar but as a casualty of the great flu pandemic of 1918.
To Brian Blain's point – and the mission of his foundation - the Brickyard Invitational gives everyone a chance to imagine what it was like in those days of the Heroic Age - what it was like for fans generations ago to marvel at the daring of the original Indigo Twins.

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SVRA Video: Robin Miller with Paul Tracy Saturday, 18 June 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja-UDjTPawE

Robin Miller talks to Paul Tracy, who is competing in the "Indy Legends" Charity Pro-Am during the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA)'s third annual Brickyard Invitational.

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SVRA: Brabham back in a Brabham at the Brickyard Invitational

Friday, 17 June 2016

Mark Dill / Images by Randy Harbaugh (top) and Mark Dill
Not since the 1969 and '70 Indianapolis 500s has a driver named Brabham raced a car of the same name at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In those days it was Sir Jack Brabham, aka "Black Jack," knighted by the Queen of England, a three-time Formula 1 world champion and the driver of the 1961 Cooper-Climax that launched the rear-engine revolution at IMS. Jack Brabham is also the only man to design a car and then drive it to the world championship. Until this weekend he was the only Brabham to race a Brabham racecar at the Speedway.
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see post #105 in this very thread, for Jack Brabham Senior
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/g...history-3.html
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That changes as Sir Jack's son Geoff straps himself into a 1971 Brabham BT-35 Formula Three racecar this weekend at the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association's Brickyard Invitational.
You could say Geoff, an accomplished driver in his own right with victories in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 12 Hours of Sebring and 23 other IMSA wins, came about the opportunity as a result of his dad. After Jack's passing in 2014 just before the first Brickyard Invitational, SVRA officials announced a special trophy in his memory. The idea was to present the award to the owner of the best example of a Brabham racecar at each Brickyard race meet. Geoff was asked to make the trophy presentation at the Saturday evening banquet in the track's Pagoda Plaza. The winner last year was long-time vintage racer Ron Hornig who has been in the game since 1992.
Ron has three BT-35s, all immaculately prepared. One of them is already Gold Medallion certified, the SVRA's strictest classification for authentically prepared racers. The one Geoff is driving this weekend carries the special distinction of having once been campaigned by former Ferrari F1 driver and Indianapolis 500 veteran Stefan Johansson. When Geoff presented Ron with the Brabham Trophy last year the two ended up in a special conversation. Geoff shared that he had only raced a Brabham one other time in his life, in an historic event that was a prelude to a V8 Supercar race in Australia some 15 years ago. He also told Ron that no one in his family other than his father had ever owned a Brabham.
"The more I reflected on that conversation, the more I thought it wasn't right," Ron says. "A few weeks later I reached out to him and offered him a ride. I really didn't know what he would say. Now that we're here I just hope he has fun, and has a great Father's Day."
"I'm going to enjoy this," says Geoff (left). "I'm here to have fun, and just to experience the cars that my father drove is really important to me."
Like all vintage drivers, Geoff – who is also racing a B Production 1963 Corvette in the feature event of the weekend, Saturday's "Indy Legends" Charity Pro-Am – understands the "flag-football" culture of vintage racing. The job is to go fast, make a clean pass if you can and enjoy the competition. Still, when drivers are dicing on the track very few can deny the competitive juices start to flow. In the only other race Geoff drove a Brabham – that exhibition down in Australia – one of his competitors was his father.
"Dad drove me out to the pit wall when I tried to put a pass on him," Geoff says with a smile born of a fond memory, not a complaint.
For Geoff to remember his father this Father's Day weekend is certainly appropriate. Joining him in his double-header adventure is his son Matt, one of the most recently minted Indy 500 veterans with his 22nd-place finish in last month's 100th running of the historic race. Speaking of history, Matt made a little of his own by becoming only the third person to become a third generation driver in the iconic contest. Two other legendary family names, Vukovich and Andretti, are in that club.
"I was cleaning his helmet all last month," Geoff quips. "He needs to help me for a change."
Left to right: Jeremy Hornig, Ron Hornig, Matt Brabham and Geoff Brabham.
The BT-35 Geoff will pilot is virtually pristine. When he and Ron agreed months ago to give it a go, a painstaking process of preparation ensued. The No. 2 BT-35 Ron is driving has full FIA documentation. Ron's no stranger to delivering some of the best-prepared cars in a paddock. At the SVRA's Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival two weeks ago, Steve Earle – founder of the Monterey Motorsports Reunion – presented Ron with another trophy for "Best Presentation and Performance." The recognition also earned a premium bottle of champagne right from the heart of Wine Country.
Ron takes tremendous pride in his cars and vintage race team. He purchased the first of his three BT-35s in 2004, painted it blue and campaigned it in various vintage race events for five years. In 2009 he discovered the history of his car. It was one of two racers from the Torsten Palm Swedish race team from the early 1970s. Palm was the 1971 Formula 3 champion of Sweden. The discovery also established the connection to driver Stefan Johansson, who won Sweden's 1973 F3 championship. The new information also piqued Ron's interest in acquiring the second team car.
The search for the team car required two years. It was located in Sweden, secured and transported to America for restoration by J.D. McDermott of Front Range Motorsports. Ron had McDermott restore both cars to the original yellow livery and car numbers of the Torsten Palm team. Usually Ron, a serious vintage racer who races to win and finished third in his class at the SVRA national championships last year at COTA, brings both cars so he has a backup. With Geoff in one of the seats this weekend there won't be a second chance.
Obviously Ron, whose son Jeremy is also joining him this weekend, has a great respect and love for Brabham cars. The turn of events that makes Geoff Brabham his teammate this weekend has him a bit in awe.
"It just feels like I have gone to another level of racing," Ron says, stressing that he makes that comment out of deepest respect for the Brabham family. "J.D. and I have gone to every effort to make the cars equal. This means so much. I don't have a lot of regrets, but I do regret not going to the effort to meet Jack Brabham. There will never be another one like him."
While Ron never met Jack Brabham, he'll never deny he is creating an extra special lifetime memory with the great champion's son this Father's Day weekend.

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History of the Indy 500
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQBSp6kgezY
by Marcelo Otárola

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MILLER: Ganassi & Target - Partnership for the ages

Thursday, 28 July 2016


Robin Miller / Images by Marshall Pruett, LAT, IMS Photo
Through the years there have been some really solid relationships between IndyCar owners, drivers and sponsors. Roger Penske had a 21-year-run with Marlboro and Phillip Morris that produced 71 wins, four championships and seven Indianapolis 500 victories. Kmart sponsored Newman/Haas, the Andretti family, Nigel Mansell and Cristiano da Matta through 13 years, 46 wins and three titles, sharing space with Texaco/Havoline for 10 of those seasons. Copenhagen funded A.J. Foyt for 12 years and Miller Brewing backed Bobby Rahal's team for 10 years. ABC Supply has been with Foyt since 2005, which is a lifetime nowadays.
But the longest and one of the most successful sponsorships in IndyCar history also launched a neophyte owner into the rarified air that only The Captain breathed.
The 27-year-run of Target with Chip Ganassi garnered 101 victories, 11 championships and four trips to Victory Lane at Indianapolis and was a partnership that likely will never be seen again.
"They were the greatest sponsor ever," Ganassi said on Wednesday afternoon, a few hours after it was revealed that Target was ending its IndyCar association after five more races. "And they were with us for all these years because it made sense for their business and because it was good for their company. They changed my life."
It all started in 1990, when Ganassi started his team after buying Patrick Racing. "A girl that Danny Sullivan knew worked for Target and they expressed some interest in IndyCar racing," he recalled. "That's how it all started and nobody could have imagined we'd be together for almost three decades."
What people might not remember is that it was not an overnight success story in terms of the on-track product. The Target/Ganassi colors didn't fly in the winner's circle until the fifth year, when Michael Andretti won twice.
But those were the beginnings of CART's golden years in terms of attendance, awareness, television ratings, manufacturers and prestige, and Target, which made the most of using its vendors, was delighted with the exposure.
"It was a way for Target to enhance its marketing through vendor participation," Ganassi said. "It enhanced good relationships with good partners and the vendors found a lot of value."
Beginning in 1996, Ganassi Racing found its groove and Target found its red Reynard/Hondas with lightning bolts getting maximum exposure as Jimmy Vasser took the CART championship and newcomer Alex Zanardi took people's breath away with his aggressive driving.
It only got better as Zanardi claimed back-to-back CART crowns in 1997 and 1998 (on the strength of 12 wins) only to head to Formula One and be replaced by a rookie that was even more breathtaking: Juan Montoya, who rang up seven wins and Ganassi's fourth consecutive championship.
Target was good for Ganassi, but even better for CART because it produced clever national TV commercials using Vasser, Zanardi and Montoya in addition to running full-page ads in USA Today and other publications.
It was the first time since the glory days of Foyt, Andretti, Parnelli Jones and the Unsers that open-wheel racers had a national presence – and that was without the Indy 500 because of the split in 1996.
But that all changed in 2000 when Chip crossed the picket line during May and Montoya mopped up the Indy Racing League regulars with a masterful triumph at IMS. Target blanketed newspapers and magazines with its celebration ads.
Scott Dixon has been the face of the No. 9 Target car since 2002, scoring 38 wins, four IndyCar titles and one Indy 500, while Dario Franchitti delivered 14 wins, three championships and a pair of Indy 500s in the No. 10 Target car.
Only Penske's 32 years with Miller Brewing (28 in NASCAR and four in IndyCar) can top the era that will end Sept. 18th in Sonoma.
"It was a helluva run for Chip," said Don "The Snake" Prudomme, drag racing icon and one of Ganassi's best friends. "I had Skoal for 20 years and that was an eternity, but 27 years is just hard to fathom."
Of course, all the experts are claiming poor TV ratings, the disastrous attempt to expand in Canada and the security breach of credit cards as the reasons Target is leaving, but let's get serious here, folks. Maybe after 27 years it was simply time.
Ganassi is humbled by the amazing partnership, but sounds prepared for what's next.
"It's been so much bigger than just a sponsor and I've developed so many great relationships through the years," he said. "I've still got Target in NASCAR (for Kyle Larson) and I still plan on running four cars in IndyCar. We'll be fine."
And, as long as they've got Dixon, Ganassi Racing will still have a target on its back – just not on the sidepods.
Click on the thumbnails below for larger images.



Eddie Cheever, Portland, 1990

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The Hupp Comet was driven by Russ Snowberger to 5th Place at the 1932 Indianapolis 500 after qualifying 4th

Mecom Auction Estimate $450,000 - $600,000 Highlights:

• The Hupp Comet was driven by Russ Snowberger to 5th Place at the 1932 Indianapolis 500 after qualifying 4th
• Snowberger became a member of the 100 MPH Club in the race
• Russ Snowberger started 15 Indianapolis 500 races, placing in the Top 5 twice with five straight Top 10 finishes
• Snowberger was an icon in racing as a driver, chief mechanic, builder, designer and owner for five decades
• This was the only car with a Hupmobile engine to ever compete in the Indianapolis 500
• Snowberger prepared the motor himself and stamped it HC001
• This car was built by his son, John Snowberger with the original Hupmobile inline 8 engine that ran at Indy in 1932
• John Snowberger is known for rebuilding several of his father's race cars and making very high quality 1/8 model cars
• Driven in the 2009 Indy 500 parade and is a regular Miller Meet participant at the Milwaukee Mile
• Sold on bill of sale
• Russell Snowberger isn’t the household name of some of his contemporaries, even among fans of the era’s racing. But as anyone who drove against the builder/driver could attest, he was among the best who ever raced and a fixture of Indy Car racing for more than 50 years. One of the charter members of the 100 MPH Club, he achieved the feat in 1934. The ealiest members of the 100 MPH Club during the 1930s attained a celebrity status that could be compared to being an Astronaut in the 1960s.

He started racing in 1921 at age 20, on the dirt tracks of Mid-Atlantic fairgrounds, but quickly graduated to higher levels of competition. By 1928, he had joined the American Automobile Association and qualified for the Indianapolis 500 in a Marmon. He led that race for four laps before retiring with supercharger failure, but he was back every year for the next 14 races.
Snowberger’s immense skill—he landed in pole position for 1931—could have landed him a ride with any of the large teams of the era, but instead, he resolutely pursued his own course, with homebuilt race cars that proved every bit the equal of the mighty Studebakers, Duesenbergs and Millers of the era.
For the 1932 race, he did have sponsorship, of a sort, as Hupmobile wanted to field an entry and convinced Snowberger to remove the Studebaker engine from his 1931 chassis, and replace it with a quad-carbureted Hupmobile Eight stamped HC001 that Snowberger prepared for the race himself. The Hupmobile Comet improved Snowberger’s qualifying speed by 2 MPH over the prior year, and he started in fourth position. He finished 200 laps on the lead lap and tied for his best-ever finish, fifth place and an average speed of 100.791 MPH. He finished the season fourth in points overall.
Despite the fantastic result, Hupp ran out of sponsorship money and in 1932 Snowberger returned the race engine (the only Hupmobile engine to run the Indy 500) and other parts. Hupmobile sold the engine in 1933, and it ended up in the famous Bonneville Hupp, a speedster which hit 146 MPH at Bonneville.
Many years later, Russell Snowberger’s son John, with an understandable interest in vintage race cars, resurrected the Comet around the original Hupp engine that finished the 1932 Indianapolis 500 race. After completing a restoration (one of two of his father’s cars he restored), John Snowberger returned with his own son to Indy in 2009. Together, they ran Russ Snowberger’s Hupmobile Comet at the Brickyard in the parade before the race, 77 years after its last run there.
For five years straight starting in 1930, Russell Snowberger finished in the top five at Indy, every one of those in a homebuilt car. Ira “Cotter Pin” Vail was asked in "Automobile Quarterly" to name the five best drivers, in ability, against whom he had driven. He listed Louis Chevrolet, Tommy Milton, Ralph DePalma, Frank Lockhart and "my fifth one will surprise you, because I have to include Russ Snowberger due to his great mechanical ability. As a mechanic-driver, he was the best."

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INDYCAR: Bill Alsup 1938 - 2016

SPOTLIGHT: ALSUP'S 1979 INDY 500 - THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
Alsup's month of May in 1979 has to rank as one of the most frustrating, uplifting and devastating in IMS history.
A 40-year-old rookie with an old McLaren/Offy and not much money, Alsup lost four engines and couldn't reach qualifying speed in his own car, so he worked up the courage to ask Roger Penske about borrowing a spare motor on the final Sunday of time trials.
The Captain did one better: he offered Alsup a ride in his third PC-7 - the slick ground-effect chassis already qualified by Rick Mears and Bobby Unser. In 10 hot laps the '78 Super Vee champ was already running 187mph, and he qualified an hour later with a 189 mph average, which would have been good for Row 3 a week earlier. But as he was celebrating, Alsup got the news that USAC was disqualifying his car because he'd used the same engine as Unser to qualify. Penske disputed it and filed a protest, but it was denied.
So early in the week Alsup was packing up to head back to Vermont when he heard that USAC was going to allow a special round of qualifying on Saturday - the day before the race! In the wake of all the cheating during the month with the pop-off valve to gain horsepower, USAC ruled that several drivers would get one shot at running 184mph to make the show.
Spike Gehlhausen offered Alsup a ride in his older but updated Eagle, and after a few practice laps he went for it. His opening lap was 186, followed by a 189 and he was easily going to be in the field until he slammed the wall in Turn 1 at the start of his third lap.

"The car felt good at 189 and you're supposed to drive them fast,so I'm not apologizing," he he said afterwards.
Alsup would get bumped in 1980 and make his only Indy start in 1981 - driving for Penske (BELOW) - when he finished 11th.

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[h=1]1935 Miller Ford V-8 Special Indy Car[/h] [h=2]AACA Senior and Race Car Certification star[/h]

• 65
• 6
• 6

• [h=5]Engine[/h]220 CI
• [h=5]Color[/h]Red/White
• [h=5]Interior[/h]Red
• [h=5]VIN/Serial[/h]SOLD ON BILL OF SALE

[h=3]Estimate[/h] $450,000 - $550,000

[h=3]Highlights[/h]

• One of 10 1935 Miller Ford V-8 Specials
• Ford Motor Company racing project
• Designed under the supervision of the legendary Harry Miller for competition in the Indianapolis 500
• Produced in Dearborn, Michigan by a joint venture of Harry Miller and Preston Tucker known as Miller-Tucker Inc.
• Revolutionary in concept
• 220 CI Ford flathead V-8 engine
• 2-speed manual transmission
• Front wheel drive
• Red-white exterior
• Red interior
• 4-wheel independent suspension
• Low-slung design
• AACA Senior and Race Car Certification

This stunning red and white #23 1935 Miller Ford V-8 Special Indy Car is a product of the genius of Harry Miller, a man whose legend only seems to grow over time. Miller was a brilliant man who built equipment that dominated the Indianapolis 500 for decades. He was a man of many ideas. Some worked brilliantly and others failed, but he was imaginative and innovative, leaving an imprint on racing that outlived his time on Earth. In spite of his overwhelming success he had fallen on hard financial times by the mid-1930s due to the Great Depression. That certainly did not lessen his standing in the racing world. If you wanted to succeed there was no better bet than Miller. In preparation for the 1935 Indianapolis 500, Miller unveiled one of his grandest ideas ever: mating a state of the art Miller chassis to a production-based Ford Flathead V-8 engine and conquering the World's Greatest Race. In partnership with the irrepressible Preston Tucker and with funding from an influential group of Ford dealers, Miller proceeded to build 10 identical Miller-Fords for an all-out assault on Indianapolis. Though the cars themselves were revolutionary in concept, they had several design defects that were not worked out prior to arriving in Indianapolis during the month of May. The main reason for the deficiencies can be debated, but there is no doubt that proper testing of the unique cars prior to their arrival would have allowed for time to iron out the kinks. Unquestionably the most serious problem was the placement of the steering assembly much too near the engine block. The Ford Flathead V-8 tended to run hotter when stressed than the purebred racing engines that Miller himself was building, causing an expansion of the steering gears which led to steering failure where the unit would actually freeze in place—a scary thought at the breakneck speeds around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Beset by problems, only four of the cars made the race and each suffered steering failure. In the wake of this debacle, Henry Ford was furious and ordered the cars disassembled. The parts would be reassembled from several of the cars and they would eventually fall into the hands of privateers; who often fitted them with pure racing engines like the Miller-derived Offenhauser. Ironically, the cars proved competitive with some minor steering box changes and the new engines. Even in failure Miller's idea had been validated. This is a rare opportunity to acquire an original Miller-Ford V-8 Special that holds AACA Senior and Race Car Certification and is eligible for many different vintage oval track racing events.