Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 May 1939 — Page 26

MONDAY, MAY 29, 1939

Ea Ft Jf cree! Casafing Alley Leaks 14%

TRY TO IGNORE RACING PERILS

Some Watch at Speedway But Others Prefer To Avoid Track.

Like the dressing room of a big league baseball team or of a college football squad—that’s the pits and | garage sector of the Indianapolis! Motor Speedway. It's a man’s world, and women are unqualifiedly barred. Since the first race in 1911, women, even the drivers’ wives, have been kept out. Daily, there-

fore, even before the race, the wives assemble across from the pits, behind a series of fences to watch their husbands at work. They occasionally catch their husbands’ eye and wave |

1

: hours before the inaugural 500-mile \ |race was run off in 1911, but only a|

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

e INVENTED HERE,

MIRROR 1S NOT USED IN CLASSIC

‘Rear Vision Device Gave! Winner His Chance in

First Race.

The rear-view mirror was invent- | {ed on the Indianapolis track a few |

_ | couple of the Italian-made cars will * carry these gadgets in the speed

{ Here it is, as it looked on Saturday. It was a Concessionaires were putting in their final orders. t busy place. Mechanics and drivers were hard at manage 0 ork putting the finishing touches on their cars.

Tomorrow, too, it will be a private place. It is the one place where the general public is “not invited.”

cheerfully across the track. But the husbands, for the most part, forget! their wives are present and continue with their work. | The women sit quietly, knitting and talking. But when some daredevil of the track comes roaring down the homestretch and whirls into the turn their conversation ceases. Refuse to Admit Fright

They deny that theyre scared— | exactly. Instead it’s just a feeling they can’t express. | Most of them assume the attitude that racing is their husband's profession and no more dangerous than

partial frustration.

Art Sparks Wants a Winner —But Only the Fastest Car

Designer Says He Would Dislike Victory if Result Of Another’s Misfortune.

RT SPARKS, designer of the cars in the Thorne team, has a story book background which to date has contained a broad streak of

For a good many years now, his desire has been to bring the fastest

that of a steel worker. They have ... tne field to the 500-mile race and have that car lead the race

implicit faith in the man’s ability to drive safely in competition. “It’s like any other business,” they |

for the entire distance and win. The machines he has built have

|

say. “We can watch our husbands been speedy enough, but they |

work, but that’s about all. And it| never have held together throughreally isn’t so dangerous.” | out the long grind. But all of them keep the closest!

Born in Los Angeles in 1901, |

watch on the cars which their hus-| Sparks had an early ambition to |

bands drive. They know that on! become a doctor and studied med-

that car may depend their food,| icine for three semesters at the

clothing and expense money for the, University of California. next year. | The sound of hard-pounding enAlthough some of the drivers do not bring their wives to Indianapo- | pusiness.”

lis, those women who are in town pas extreme confidence in his abil- |

meet nearly every day in the line of |;+y ao i seats immediately across from the i a ve Se REED OU, UF Hobe entry from the pits and garages to iit the track. Three widows have married race baie drivers a second time. They are Among Regular Visitors (Mrs. Shorty Cantlon, Mrs. Bob Included in the regular visitors Swanson and Mrs. Billie Winn. are Mrs. Lou Mever, wife of the Mrs. Cantlon was formerly maronly three-time winner of the 500- ried to Bill Spence who was killed at mile race, Mrs. Bob Swanson, and the Indianapolis track in 1928. She Mrs. Kelly Petillo whose husband (later married Cantlon. Mrs. Bob won the race in 1935. [Swanson was prveiously married to Mrs. Meyer at times has driven |Ernie Triplett who was killed in a ter husband's racing car, notably California race in 1934. Her husthis spring when Meyer was testing | band this year has entered a racing the machine for the first time this car powered by a 16-cylinder motor

However, she says she

conducted with A. A. A. officials

over a protested West Coast race. = » ”

HE car was prepared, how-

ever, with Sparks giving his |

instructions from the other side | of the wire fence around the

| Speedway garage section and Rex

Mays won the pole position in it,

| a performance which he repeated

the next year. In both years,

however, mechanical defects

forced Mays out early in the

| running.

Victory continued to elude Sparks the next two years, but he

| did have the satisfaction in 1937 | of seeing Jimmy Snyder, Chicago,

gines had more fascination for |

him than anatomy, however, and

he left the university to become |

a night school teacher in Glen- | | everyone concedes is the fastest

dale, Cal. In 1922 he had become a movie stunt man, and the money he was earning was being

spent in revising a model T Ford |

engine into a racing motor. = = ” OR a while he did some race driving, but a few spins and injuries forced him to give up active competition. Teaming up

with Paul Weirick he bought the | second motor Harry Miller ever |

built. With Stubby Stubblefield, now dead, at the helm this car won 13 West Coast races in a row. Then came the chance for enough money to get to Indianapolis. Shorty Cantlon had gone 144!2 miles an hour in a straightaway run on Muroc Dry Lake in a supercharged car, and Sparks was offered a sizable sum if his car,

year at the Utah salt beds She drove the car at more than 125 miles an hour while the best her husband could obtain was a maximum speed of 168 miles an hour. However, after her dash she became lost, and had to be led back to the base camp by her husband and his helpers in another car. She does all the passenger car

driving for the family, and her hus-|

band, the champion race driver, is 1 passenger

Mrs. Shaw Avoids Track

Different from the average racing wife is Mrs. Wilbur Shaw, wife of the 1937 winner who finished second last year. She rarely goes to the track and says she prefers to keep her “nose out of her husband’s

developed by Frank Lockhart an-| which was not supercharged, could other racing driver, who was Killed| peat that mark. Stubblefield made in a speed test on a Florida beach.| {he try and went 148% miles an Mrs. Winn has been widowed | pour twice hy race deaths. She was first] ywith the money he picked up married to Joe Russo who was killed | gnarks built a catfish-shaped car at Langhorne, Pa. in a dirt track| which was entered in the 1932 meet in 1934. In 1936 she married! race. Stubblefield was running Winn who was killed at Springfield, | sixth in that race when a gas line Ill, last summer. | broke at the 200-mile post. The somber note from the stand- | Sparks was back again in 1934 point of the women appeared on| and this time Al Gordon was (the bulletin board in the garage piloting the car that contained his {section when the first drivers ar-| jatest speed ideas. In trying to rived at the track this year. pass Frank Brisko, who was lead- | Tt was posted by Mrs. Chet Gard-| ing the race at 160 miles, Gordon ner, whose husband was killed in a| hung the car on the wall. race last summer. It read: When the 1935 race prepara“For Sale. Chet Gardner's racing tions were beihg made, Sparks was cars and equipment. Call Mrs. Chet | barred from the garage section Gardner.” because of an argument he had

“The one sure thing in any race!”

Champion Spark

Plugs have proved for 15 consecutive years

that they make every engine a better performing engine,

by an unbroken in the majority o

string of victories at Indianapolis and f all racing events throughout the world.

CHAMPION

SPARK PLUGS

AT'S THRIFTY TO INSTALL NEW SPARK PLUGS—Demand CHAMPIONS

set a one-lap official track record at 130.492 miles an hour, which stood until this year. “It has always been my ambis« tion to win a race with a car that

on the track. I wouldn't care to win with a slower car through someone's else misfortune.” Joe Thorne, a New Rochelle, N. Y. sportsman, is the financial angel for this outfit, and Thorne himself drives one of the two older cars in the four-car team.

| classic this year.

If he hadn't thought of the mirror | idea, Ray Harroun, winner in 1911, never would have been allowed to] start. He entered a mystery car in| the dash and didn’t bring it to the track until a few hours before the race was to begin. When he did show up, other driv-| ers, having a healthy respect for Harroun’s ability, protested the entrance of the Harroun car on the grounds that it wasn’t standard equipment. This little yellow Marmon was only a single seater while everyone else had entered two-passenger| mounts. These drivers said the Harroun car was unsafe since it] didn’t carry a riding mechanic to keep the driver informed of the con- | dition of the traffic. | Just when it looked as though the officials were against him, Harroun tacked a rear- : view mirror on his car, was allowed | losing precious minutes, according

and later the national driving cham-| 1938 race. A photographer caught pionship that year. Flovd : h : With the return in recent years hi yd putting on the feedbag nm of the single seated cars there was| MS 8arage the other day, still hard

tries to carry mirrors. Most of the perfection point.

How Champions Are Made

prepared to uel Prerace time is no time to be

to start and went on to win the race | to Floyd Roberts, winner of the |

some discussion of requiring all en-| at work bringing his motor to the |

drivers agreed that there was no!

need for these gadgets and the proposed ruling never was put into effect. { { It was explained that an accident {would shatter the glass and scatter the bits along the track, increasing the danger other drivers in the race

THE CORAL GRILLE

MASS. AVE. AT PENN. ST, K. OF P. BUILDING Serves You Finer Foods at Popular Prices In Clean, Comfortable Surroundings Complete Lunches and Dinners From 25¢

CORSETS STANDARD IN OLD-TIME RACES

In the old days of racing, drivers | would come down that home stretch |at close to 100 miles an hour, wears ing corsets. ; | They had to, because in those | times the cars rode on high pressure | tires, there were no springs and no shock absorbers. Without corsets [the drivers could not have stood the | 500-mile grind.

PRE-SEASON SERVICE TO

NORTHERN MICHIGAN

Special Friday trains to Harbor Springs, Petoskey; and Mackinaw City: May 26 —June 2, 9, 16. DAILY SERVICE starts June 21 to Traverse City; Petoskey, Bay View, Harbor Springs, Mackinac Island and other famous resorts.

Ask about low round-trip fares (in effect daily) and the cone venience and economy of shipping your car. For reservations, information, etc.; phone or write Homes Bannard, Division Passenger Agent, 211 Guaranty Bldg., Phone Riley 9331. x @

IPENNSYLVANIA

would have from tire punctures. |

RAILROAD

NOW is the time for a

HERE'S LOU MEYER, THE ONLY 3 TIME WINNER of the Indianapolis Classic, putting his car over 500 gruelling miles at breakneck speed. He's raced over 4700 miles

on that speedway. And he’s a 3

time A. A. A. cham-

pion, too. So here’s luck, Lou, to one winner from another; to you from Falstaff, the sparkling beer that’s

always first when it’s time for a y

LOOK AT HIM GO! It’s Russell Snowberger roaring around the track at 120 or better. Russ has been in the money 5 times now. And he’s out to win this year. It’s going to be a great race. Thrilling! Exciting! Yes, as exciting as the DRY, sparkling flavor of a bottle of good, old Falstaff beer.

Good Time.

changes, lightning check-ups by the men behind the scenes often spell victory for the man at the wheel. They have to know their business to perfection. It’s the same with brewing a good beer. Falstaff has been brewed for you by

men who

know, for almost

half a century, That's why it's always just right for a Good Time any

time,

For a GOOD TIME every time, drink FALSTAFF. It's the real, old-time beer with the DRY, exciting flavor.

LOOK FOR

_ THIS SIGN OF A GOOD TIME

Ra EES 6

©1939 THE FALSTAFF BREWING CORPORATION, ST. LOUIS, OMAMNA, NEW ORLEANS

\

HERE WE ARE AT THE

INDIANAPOLIS SPEEDWAY,

WHERE THE SPEED KINGS RIP

UP RECORDS IN THE 500 MILE DECORATION DAY CLASSIC. THRILLS, EXCITEMENT, FOR 100,000 PEOPLE! YES, AND

THRILLS FOR YOU WITH FALSTAFF,

THE REAL, OLD-TIME BEER WITH THE DRY, EXCITING FLAVOR. SO FOR YOUR GOOD TIME _ TOMORROW, REMEMBER

TO hon LSTA FF.

“THE CHOICEST PRODUCT OF THE BREWERS® ART"