"Indianapolis, Aug. 20—With three lives sacrificed in the speed carnival which began here yesterday morning, the first day of the automobile races at the new Indianapolis motor speedway closed with two time-annihilating records smashed."
-Elkhart Daily Truth, August 20, 1909
August 19, 1909 ushered in the first auto races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They might have been the last. Even before the races started, it was clear that the track had problems. Drivers and riding mechanics had to deal with dust, oil, tar, and gravel from the track’s surface. Ruts and chuckholes developed during the practice runs. But Carl Fisher, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation, had construction crews making repairs when the drivers weren’t practicing. And there had been a fatality before the races, when Clifford Litterall, a mechanic, jumped from his car on his way to the races the day before, and was hit by a car behind him.
It was to be a grand event, with special trains running to and from Indianapolis Union Station on the Big Four line, as well as electric traction service on the Ben Hur line operating throughout the day.
Autos were grouped by the cubic inch piston displacement (CID) of the engine. The first race was for stock chassis with engines of 161- 230 CID. Louis Schwitzer, driving a Stoddard-Dayton, took that five-mile race.
The next was a ten-mile race open to stock chassis with engines of 231-300 CID. It was a 1-2-3 finish for the Buick team with Louis Chevrolet a mile ahead of teammates Lewis Strang and Bob Burman. He made the ten miles in 8 minutes, 56.4 seconds, breaking Barney Oldfield’s record of 9 minutes, 12 seconds.
The five-mile race for stock chassis with engines of 301-450 CID was a close race between Wilfred Bourque’s Knox and "Wild Bob" Burman in his Buick. The two ran almost side by side during most of the first lap. Burman edged out a brief lead, but Bourque came back in the second for to edge out Wild Bob. The contest for third place was almost as intense, with Louis Chevrolet’s Buick beating out the Stoddard-Dayton of Bert Miller.
A ten-mile handicap race came next, with the less powerful cars getting a head start. Roy Harroun of Indianapolis, took advantage of the head start to bring his Marmon in first. Another local, Charlie Merz, brought his National in for a third-place finish, behind Leigh Lynch’s Jackson, but ahead of Chevrolet’s Buick.
The next event was an exhibition to try to break the record for the mile. Barney Oldfield, one of the superstars of racing, drove his Blitzen Benz a mile in 43.10 seconds, breaking the previous record of 48.20 seconds.
The contest for the Prest-O-Lite trophy, a 250-mile race for stock chassis with engines of 301-450 CID, was to be the great endurance test of the day. At first, it looked as if the Buick team would make another 1-2-3 finish. Louis Chevrolet and teammate Bob Burman were fighting for the lead, with Lewis Strang bringing up a close third. Strang’s Buick, with flames shooting from the back of his car, had to make a pit stop, where the fire was extinguished. Because his team had outside help to put out the fire, officials declared him out of the race. By the time they relented and allowed him to resume the race, Strang was already several laps behind.
Louis Chevrolet, who had led the race for most of the first half, stopped his Buick after 58 laps. A stone had hit and broken his goggles. His riding mechanic led him to the track hospital, where doctors removed glass, dirt, and tar from his eyes. He was out of the running for this series of races, but he would race again. And, of course, his name would become a household word with the introduction of the Chevrolet brand.
Almost immediately after Chevrolet’s injury, Wilfred Bourque’s big Knox was in trouble. The Elkhart Truth account, from August 20, 1909, gives a concise account of what happened:
"The crash… occurred just as [Bourque and riding mechanic Harry Holcombe] had forged into fourth place of the race in which the greatest speed pilots and most powerful machines in America were represented. Bourque was hurling his car through space at a rate of seventy-five miles an hour when the machine skidded and catapulted across the course like a flash of lightning. A front wheel gave away and spun up the track a distance of 200 feet while the smashed axle was buried in the ground fifty yards away.
"Holcombe was hurled through the air and fell on his head in the field, breaking his neck, dying instantly. Bourque, who was pinioned under the wreckage, was breathing faintly when the doctors arrived.
"He was carried from the course through a struggling mass of thousands who had swarmed onto the field, while the band played a lively air in an effort to avert a panic. He died a few moments later at the emergency hospital without regaining consciousness.
"Bourque, who was from Springfield, Mass., finished second to Chevrolet in the Cobe races at Crown Point last month. He was 26 years old. Neither was married."
In spite of the fatal accident, the race continued, with Bob Burman taking the checkered flag, followed by Jap Clemens in a Stoddard-Dayton. Charlie Merz, in his National, finished third. Only those three drivers completed all 100 laps of the race.
When the raced concluded at about 7:00 p.m., the track was in rough shape. It seems likely that the condition of the track contributed to the fatal accident. Officials from the American Automobile Association considered canceling the remaining races, but Carl
Fisher promised to have a repair crew working all night to put the track into shape. The races would go on.
For further information: An excellent and readable book is Indy:Racing Before the 500 by D. Bruce Scott (Redington Shores, FL: PPC Books, 2005.
Newspaper coverage of the events can be found here.
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