senor honda

I had posted photographs of every INDY 500 winner since the beginning.
They got deleted under TR's new format.
That's not good.
I apologize to the writers doing racing research. It was not my doing.-Bob

You should always see the latest posts quickly
because the pictures go away after a period of time.
Pictures from facebook go away the fastest.
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The very first Indy 500 1911
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj_hlbNDGds

Silent film......sand on the track....two people per car....
Driving a Marmon "Wasp," Ray Harroun won in 6 hours, 42 minutes and took home $10,000. He beat Fiats, Mercedes, Buicks and other makers who are still with us today. Others like Simplex, National, Pope Hartford, Cole, Case, Westcott and more have faded from the scene.

1952 Indianapolis 500
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGt7ONY9CB4

In the early days, the films were made by sponsors
who are mentioned during the race.

senor honda

1911 [h=1]First Indianapolis 500 is run[/h] On May 30, 1911, the inaugural Indianapolis 500 is run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana. The 200-lap, two-and-a-half mile race has since become a Memorial Day weekend tradition. With the exception of a break in 1917 and 1918 for World War I and from 1942 to 1945 for World War II, it has been run every year since, and is now the largest sporting event in the world, attended by about 270,000 spectators annually.
When the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was designed, the track was meant to have a crushed rock and tar surface. That surface was abandoned after only a few races in 1909, due to fatal results caused by unevenness. The rock and tar was replaced by over 3 million street-paving bricks that were filled in with sand and then mortar for strength. The track has since been referred to as “the brickyard,” although subsequent resurfacing has covered all but about three feet of the bricks.
At the first Indy 500 in 1911, 40 cars met the qualifications to race. Track founder Carl Fisher felt the large number could lead to danger, so he decided to lead the first lap around the track at about 40 or 45 miles per hour, before pulling off to the side. The “pace car” has since become standard practice at all auto races.
In the 30th mile of the race, 80,000 spectators watched as a driver from Chicago lost a front wheel, which caused his car to turn over on the track. Both the driver and his mechanic, who rode in the front seat with him, were thrown from the car. The mechanic landed against a fence and was killed instantly, while the driver escaped with a broken arm. The race continued, and the crowd watched nervously as accidents piled up, knowing another fatality could take place at any moment. None did, and Ray Harroun, driving a Marmon, was declared the winner with a time of 06:41:08. Harroun was the only driver in the race who didn’t ride with a mechanic. Instead, he employed a rear-view mirror, his own invention, to keep an eye on the other cars on the track.

senor honda

1970 Indianapolis 500
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sQ64ArmhHE

senor honda

1953 Indianapolis 500 No roll bars and shorty helmets.....trees 20 feet from the track, no wall between pits and race course......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aojtFbRURo

Asianorama
For many years it was presumed that this was the hottest '500' on record.But a few years ago historian Donald Davidson said that 1937 was actually warmer by a degree or two.Although it isn't related on this video Carl Scarborough tragically died of heat prostration after being pulled from his car.But Bill Vukovich wasn't affected.He completely routed the competition...leading an astounding 195 of 200 laps and scorning a relief driver the entire way.The Borg Warner Corporation continued to fly in Hollywood starlets for Victory Lane and 1953 featured the most adorable they ever had in Jane Greer (in my opinion). She can clearly be seen at the 24:30 mark to Vuky's right.What a doll.
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Will Pitts
Jeez, these guys expected every crash to be fatal back then, huh?

senor honda

1971 Indy 500 Turbochargers......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdnrbRe26U8

T25S40
That pit wall design was so dangerous, especially that abrupt point it comes to at the pit entrance. That out of control car at 40:30 just missed it. Later they moved the infield walls back and changed the pit separator wall with an attenuator at the end of it, and still it's been hit during the race at least once with pieces bouncing into the pits. It was also very risky in those pre in-car radio days to have those guys standing out there along the wall with chalk boards to signal the drivers. I remember those guys having to duck behind the wall to avoid tumbling debris on occasion over the years.


alain belanger
Mclaren was already way ahead of everybody I was there when Johnny Rutherford from 27TH POSITION STARTED position Win the race That was my 1ST big event autoracing,We had breakfast beside Mario at the Pilgrim Inn,The night before the race late hours we were looking something to eat and the manager give me the keys to the kitchen to cook something That was cool The name of the manager was Roger Ward

senor honda

By doctorindy
Live and Drive the Indy 500 Jim Nabors....Gomer Pyle sings the National Anthem....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_SUIMyHx84

museum, trivia.....etc....AJ Foyt wins........for the 4TH TIME .....great background story including his dad.....Al Unser....Mario Andretti............pit stop analysis....

senor honda

Some things related to tires....We see in the videos where they constantly talk about
tires.......because some films were so expensive to make, that only a large company
could afford to make them. I suspect at one point, since Firestone is the only company mentioned, maybe they had the exclusive rights to sell Indy tires.....or maybe were the only one who had done the
research and development.

By Bob Marlow
Two events in the month of December converged to have a lasting effect on the history of the automobile.
It began 215 years ago, on December 29, 1800, in New Haven, Connecticut, when Charles Goodyear was born. Goodyear did not start the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company – that did not occur until decades after his death – but his persistent work at developing rubber as a commercial product launched the industry that led to the modern automobile tire.
Generally speaking, Goodyear failed at business and his family often had to live off the kindness of others, but he never let go of his desire to develop commercially-viable rubber products. His eureka moment came in 1839, and in 1844 he was granted a patent for the process he called vulcanization. Vulcanization, in the simplest explanation, cures a rubber mixture with heat, allowing it to remain flexible throughout a wide range of temperatures.

Goodyear died in 1860, but on December 20, 1868, Harvey S. Firestone was born in Ohio. Unlike Goodyear, Firestone is directly connected to the company bearing his name, as he was the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. The company, a household name to this day as is Goodyear Tires and Rubber Company, grew to become one of the first global makers of automobile tires.
In addition to being inextricably connected to automobile tires, Firestone is also conjoined to the Ford family. Firestone was a close friend of Henry Ford, as well as Thomas Edison, and today, Firestone’s great grandson is William Clay Ford, the son of Henry Ford’s grandson and Harvey Firestone’s granddaughter.
By coincidence, the two best-known names in tire industry were each born in December.

Image (Charles Goodyear) top right selected from Wikipedia Commons.
Image (Firestone) bottom left selected from Wikipedia Commons.

senor honda

Indy Diaries: Clark Gable introduces Mario to the Speedway

Tuesday, 10 May 2016


Marshall Pruett
Over 99 runnings, the Indianapolis 500 has become the most famous event in motorsport. That iconic status is built on a bedrock of hundreds of small stories, and to celebrate the centennial race, RACER.com has asked some of the people who are part of Indy's fabric to share a few of those stories with us. Check back with Tampa Racing every day between now and race day for a new 'Indy Diary' entry.
Every race driver can remember the moment they discovered the Indianapolis 500. For most, that first exposure came through radio and TV broadcasts, or sitting in the stands at Turn 4. But for Mario Andretti, the introduction was made via the silver screen at a cinema in Italy ...
"Just last week I was in Lucca in Italy, where I spent eight years of my life in a refugee camp before I came over [to the US]. They did a short film, chronologically, about my life, from there right up to today. There's a movie house inside the town that's still there, still operating. And that's where I got my first glimpse of motor racing in America. They were playing the movie 'To Please a Lady' with Clark [Gable] and [Barbara] Stanwyck, above, and the title in Italy was 'Indianapolis'.
"You know how they have the posters outside the movie? What really drew my attention was 'Indianapolis', because I had never heard that name – I thought it was, like, Indians, and Napoli ... Then I get closer and I see race cars – I see Clark Gable in the midget, and I think, 'Oh, race cars'. So I obviously went to the movie, and that was the first exposure that I got.
"I had no idea about oval racing, dirt track racing and all that. At that time, in 1951, there was no inkling at all about coming to America. That was not part of the thought process; not even from my parents' side. But I thought, 'oh my gosh'. It's interesting. And that's it. And once I came over [to the U.S.] I thought, 'oh, they have dirt tracks'. And three days after I arrived ... I arrived on a Thursday, and I found out that on the Sunday, at Nazareth, at night ... lights, big roar, and Aldo and I just looked at each other, and followed the noise, and that's when we got our first glimpse of Brute modified stock cars. Big wide tires at that time. And we thought, 'oh man, this is America'. That looked do-able.
"Two years later we started building a car. A '48 Hudson. And that's when we started. I started racing in 1959, at age 19, which was illegal at the time. You had to be 21. And I never looked back."

senor honda

To Please a Lady...original movie trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrVF_zwzA10

senor honda

The Big Wheel full movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_OFRxh5D2Q

Determined race car driver tries to follow in Father's footsteps despite dad getting killed on the track..