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1949 Five Hundred
Dec. 4th, 2009 09:40 amI recently got a Floyd Clymer 1949 yearbook. For years and years, Clymer put out the annual yearbooks for the Indianapolis Five Hundred. I've seen this all before, of course (when I was little, my local library had a complete set of Clymer books) but there's so much I've forgotten:
Harlan Fengler is seen posing with Ray Harroun, where Fengler's simply noted as an 'old time racer'. There's a picture of an 'Anthony Granatelli' with his car. Alfred Neubauer visited that year, and literally everyone who's at all an A-lister is seen posing with Herr Neubauer, including the editor of the book, Floyd Clymer. Neubauer has this very gracious look in the photos, like he's used to being mobbed. I picture this crowd of racing notables following him around like puppies all day.
Tommy Milton was Chief Steward. Pop Myers ran the office. Wilbur Shaw was President. And *Tom Carnegie* was the track announcer. Even when you know how long Carnegie has been there, it's still something of a shock to see it confirmed, to read about Manny Ayulo's last ditch qualifying effort, and know, beyond any doubt, the timbre and cadence of the delivery as he intoned "One hun-dred twen-ty FIIIIVE..., point seven nine nine miles per hour!" That was twelve years before I was born, yet I know precisely how he sounded saying that, because he always said it the same way.
For Carbeuration Day that year, they had a horse who could drive a car. His trainer rode with him and coached him, but the horse had actual controls that he could operate, and drove his car slowly down the front stretch without crashing or running anyone over. This was the year also that someone entered a 1914 Peugeot (which was apparently quite legal under the rules then) and just had a good time driving it around the track in practice, knowing he had no chance of qualifying. The envy is upon me!
It's interesting too that the last time that Peugeot qualified for the race (1916) it was at 94MPH on the all brick track, being driven flat out by Dario Resta himself. In 1949, with the paved turns, an amateur driver was getting it up to 103mph, and apparently not pushing it that hard.
There are little mysteries too - Joel Thorne apparently had some sort of legal trouble over buying the old Don Lee Mercedes and sticking his own engine in it. There's no further explanation. One of the old grandstands partially collapsed on Pole Day too, which gets only a one sentence mention. I'll prolly end up at the library finding out what happened.
Harlan Fengler is seen posing with Ray Harroun, where Fengler's simply noted as an 'old time racer'. There's a picture of an 'Anthony Granatelli' with his car. Alfred Neubauer visited that year, and literally everyone who's at all an A-lister is seen posing with Herr Neubauer, including the editor of the book, Floyd Clymer. Neubauer has this very gracious look in the photos, like he's used to being mobbed. I picture this crowd of racing notables following him around like puppies all day.
Tommy Milton was Chief Steward. Pop Myers ran the office. Wilbur Shaw was President. And *Tom Carnegie* was the track announcer. Even when you know how long Carnegie has been there, it's still something of a shock to see it confirmed, to read about Manny Ayulo's last ditch qualifying effort, and know, beyond any doubt, the timbre and cadence of the delivery as he intoned "One hun-dred twen-ty FIIIIVE..., point seven nine nine miles per hour!" That was twelve years before I was born, yet I know precisely how he sounded saying that, because he always said it the same way.
For Carbeuration Day that year, they had a horse who could drive a car. His trainer rode with him and coached him, but the horse had actual controls that he could operate, and drove his car slowly down the front stretch without crashing or running anyone over. This was the year also that someone entered a 1914 Peugeot (which was apparently quite legal under the rules then) and just had a good time driving it around the track in practice, knowing he had no chance of qualifying. The envy is upon me!
It's interesting too that the last time that Peugeot qualified for the race (1916) it was at 94MPH on the all brick track, being driven flat out by Dario Resta himself. In 1949, with the paved turns, an amateur driver was getting it up to 103mph, and apparently not pushing it that hard.
There are little mysteries too - Joel Thorne apparently had some sort of legal trouble over buying the old Don Lee Mercedes and sticking his own engine in it. There's no further explanation. One of the old grandstands partially collapsed on Pole Day too, which gets only a one sentence mention. I'll prolly end up at the library finding out what happened.
