Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1909 — GOT PLENTY OF ACTION FOR THEIR MONEY. [ARTICLE]

GOT PLENTY OF ACTION FOR THEIR MONEY.

Visitors to the Indianapolis auto races last week got some action for their money, that is, those who are attracted to such things by the element of danger connected with them. Two people were killed in Thursday’s races, one mechanican fell from a car Wednesday while going to the track and was killed, and in the 300 mile race Saturday a tire blew out on No. 10, the big National Six, and the machine jumped a small creek, crashed through a wire fence into a crowd of spectators and fell over on its back. Driver Charles Merz was pinioned underneath but escaped practically unhurt. His mechanican, Claude Kellum, however, received injuries from which he died an hour later, and James West, and another spectator, was instantly killed, while several others in the crowd of spectators were more or less hurt.

Another car in the same race collided with a post in an overhead bridge, the mechanican thrown from his seat and badly hurt and the car wrecked. Then the race was stopped, after 235 miles had been spun off. These long races, which rack the nerves of the drivers to the snapping stage from the long hours of steady place at the wheel while going at a mile-a-minute or faster clip, will be cut out in the races of the future, it is said, and 100 miles will be the limit. iThe new Indianapolis speedway has been dedicated in a sea of blood.