Colonel Harlan Sanders, Grand Marshal of the 1972 Indianapolis 500

https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/726a4n/colonel_harlan_sanders_grand_marshal_of_the_1972

One day in 1951, A.J. Watson put down his tools at the Lockheed aircraft assembly line in Glendale, California. He walked past his coworkers, past the time clock, he didn't punch out. He just left, and he never came back.

After seeing his first race at Bonelli Stadium in Saugus in 1947, he built a track roadster and arrived at Indianapolis in 1948 as a mechanic. By 1950, at 26 years old, he'd built his own car for the Indy 500 — but the cost of running it for driver Dick Rathmann drove him back to Lockheed. Back to the assembly line. Back to the steady paycheck.

For one year. Then the 1951 race approached. And Watson walked away from Lockheed. Without a word. Without punching out. Because Indianapolis was calling, and a time clock was not going to answer.

What followed was the most dominant chassis-building career in the history of the Indy 500.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122179423010890603&set=a.122095424960890603

https://www.motorsportshalloffame.com/inductees/aj-watson/

Within a year, he was asked to join an Indy crew.

After a succession of drivers and owners, Watson built a car for Bob Sweikert in 1955 that claimed his first Indy 500 win. 

The next year, with the track repaved, Watson knew the speeds would go up causing more tire wear. He built a much lighter, slimmer car for Pat Flaherty, who won the race. 

In 1959 Watson teamed with Rodger Ward and team owner Bob Wilkie to form the potent Triple W team. Ward and Jim Rathmann finished 1-2 in Watson’s cars, then swapped positions in 1960 to give Watson his second consecutive 1-2 finish. 

Ward won again in 1962, leading a parade of six Watsons in the top eight. 

In all, Watson built some 23 roadsters, including the last Indy 500 victory for a front engine in 1964, driven by A.J. Foyt.

https://www.motorsportshalloffame.com/inductees/aj-watson/

I know a guy who builds race cars this well... Jason. His idea of wiggle room is about 0.001" 

I built machinery with him at Production Assembly Systems in Poway, that place made some big complex machinery, and had half a warehouse just for the fully equipped machine shop, they made everything in house that didn't need to be welded

Mickey Thompson 3 valve from the 1967 Indy 500

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1656629308926094&set=gm.26940248125612956&idorvanity=159439620787170

finishing touch on the bricks of the track at Indy was to chip the rough edges off the bricks with steel rails

 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1269951955271891&set=a.421434040123691

1953 Indianapolis 500

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=26677243198528732&set=oa.1933720567242807&idorvanity=1083885655764610

1941 Indy 500 in color

Smokey and the Reverse Torque Special

I just came across this 2023 dollar coin in the new American Innovation Dollar series. They don't even put the year on dollar coins anymore

 

the Michigan one is also car related, and continues the myth that Ford invented the assembly line, when it was actually Oldmobile, with the Curved Dash Olds

MT .... Not many people are instantly recognizable from just their initials

I wonder if this is Von Dutch pinstriping

The Wynn's Spit Fire was front wheel drive, 4 wheel steer, 305 with 4 valves per cylinder, with Hurst/Airheart brakes

Sept 1923, Tommy Milton heading for the Beverly Hills board track to race, in the HCS Special, a 1923 Miller 122, the first Miller (chassis and engine) to win the Indy 500 (thank you Dave!)

Like most of the great drivers from that era, Milton was a top-flight mechanic and self-taught engineer. Milton started his career as a driver with J. Alex Sloan's state fair automobile barnstorming act before making the move into AAA racing in 1916. 

Blind in one eye from birth, Milton drove for Fred and Augie Duesenberg's team and scored his first win in 1917 on the concrete oval at Providence, Rhode Island.

Milton was at Daytona Beach in 1920 to run a 'Beach car', a twin-engined Duesenberg designed specifically by Milton to break the land speed record, which it did, 5 mph over de Palma's record

Milton raced at some demonstration runs Havana with other early racing superstars Barney Oldfield and Ralph de Palma in 1920 as well

Milton won the AAA board track title in 1920 and '21 and during the height of the board track era between 1917-'25 Milton won twenty-three AAA championship races, including the 1921 and '23 Indy 500s.

The above Miller has a logo on the cowl above the word special, and on the grill, it's actually the logo of  Harry Stutz

Tommy Milton was the inspiration  in 1926 of  Finn Frolich's scupture placed in front of Richfield gas stations  https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/08/finn-frolich-architect-and-scuptor-of.html

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=9135969956504814&set=gm.1420979279079904&idorvanity=319578812553295

the 1909 Presto-Lite trophy for the winner at the Indy 500, Bob Burnham won, 7 minutes ahead of the 2nd place racer

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/therichardlife/5440078172/in/photostream/
https://www.ripleyauctions.com/auction-lot/the-prest-o-lite-trophy-first-presented-at-the-1_8B74A77ADF

a tribute to the Parnelli Jones 1963 Indianapolis 500-winning Watson Offenhauser Ol' Calhoun is coming to auction

 https://www.mecum.com/lots/1151448/1963-watson-offenhauser-ol-calhoun-replica-indycar/?aa_id=704133-0

2 decades of Indy winners

 

https://www.facebook.com/HarryMillerClub

From 1962-82 small Wheel Horse tractors were used to push or tow race cars to and from the racetrack at the Indianapolis 500. Wheel Horse tractors, ( primarily sold at dealerships in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio) The Official Work Horse of the “500.”

Beginning in 1961, Wheel Horse loaned approximately 40 new tractors to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for use by race teams to tow their cars around the pits for the testing and racing activities during the month of May. A promotion dubbed the Indy 2 ½ was even created as the kickoff event, where the tractors were paraded from flagship distributor Radio Equipment Co. in Indianapolis to the speedway and then raced one lap around the famed 2.5 mile Brickyard piloted by dealers and other local media personalities. The publicity stunt was a huge success for Wheel Horse, and later advertising would tout Wheel Horse tractors as The Official Work Horse of the “500.”

https://www.indycar.com/photos/gallery?g=1542

https://www.wheelhorseforum.com/topic/60865-wiki500-special/#google_vignette

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/cars-sale/tractor-for-sale-1973-wheel-horse/177258/page1/

https://www.dailyamerican.com/story/news/local/2018/06/02/forry-restores-wheel-horse-to-former-glory/116137124/

https://imsmuseum.org/fame_inductee/bobby-unser/

Thanks to Dubldrt340!

a limited-edition Craftsman sold to the public to commemorate the Indianapolis 500.... first I've heard of garden tractors or lawn mowers used in Indy 500 marketing!

 

https://bids.aumannauctions.com/auctions/42987/lot/6669300-1991-indy-500-limited-edition-craftsman-gt6000-lawn-tractor

The first-ever Wienie 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway just went down (the race doesn't start in the video until 15:45 mark)

at 21:30, one of the racers blows a headgasket. That race doesn't end until 24:12. Yeah, 9 minute race

Six Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles—each themed after a regional hot dog—lined up for glory: Chi Dog (Midwest), New York Dog (East), Slaw Dog (Southeast), Chili Dog (South), Seattle Dog (Northwest), and Sonoran Dog (Southwest). 

And in the most American spectacle of the year, they actually raced

The winner? Slaw Dog, edging out Chi Dog in a photo finish

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1078374174325317&set=a.619135803582492

the 1932 Murphy Bodied Lincoln Roadster that was the Indianapolis 500 pace car with Eddie Rickenbacker, Henry Ford, Edsel Ford, Harvey Firestone Jr., Henry Ford Il seated high, Benson Ford, and Harvey Firestone.

 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=970583371727825&set=a.432410272211807

You might have heard of the Challenger Pace Car catastrophe... but did you notice in the article about that crash, that John Glenn was in the car? I didn't, and I posted the dang article in 2017!

That year’s race didn’t have a factory-special pace car but a 71 Dodge Challenger that a local dealer provided.

Sitting next to Palmer was IMS owner Tony Hulman Jr. In the back seat were astronaut John Glenn, the future U.S. senator from Ohio, and ABC sportscaster Chris Schenkel. They plowed into the camera stand at an estimated 60 mph.

 After the opening lap, the car pulled into the pits, missed the braking point marker, failed to stop correctly, and took down a photographer’s stand, injuring 29 people. 

John Glenn, national hero 

 Prior to this spectacular crash, he had cheated death several times before, while making history. 

He was a test pilot for the Marine Corps, made the last air kills of the Korean War in July 1953, and crossed America from coast to coast in 1957 in a supersonic flight, and orbited the Earth three times in 1962.

https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-challenger-pace-car-at-indy-that.html

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/astronaut-crashed-at-indy-500-so-a-man-got-a-1972-hurst-olds-drove-65k-miles-since-1981-247095.html

the Stutz Car Museum, a new museum that opened in downtown Indianapolis last year, in the very building where the cars were built. It is free and open to the public

The Stutz Motor Car Co. was liquidated in 1939. The sprawling Stutz campus was used simultaneously by two different companies until 1959 when the Paper Package division of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly acquired the buildings it did not yet own. It kept the factory in use until 1982.

For the next decade, the plant was severely under-utilized and slipped into a state of disrepair. For a few months, former Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum Curator Jack L. Martin planned to create a “world-class museum of automotive history” at the plant, but those plans ceased in 1988 due to a lack of funding.

In 1992, the factory was only partially occupied when local businessman and car guy Turner Woodward acquired the facility. His team embarked on a multi-year restoration project that converted the plant into a business center and a haven for dozens of artists. In 2021, Woodward sold a majority ownership in the plant to New York City-based SomeraRoad, Inc.

Fortunately for automobile enthusiasts, as well as the city of Indianapolis, the new owners also believed in the “adaptive reuse” concept of revitalizing existing historic structures. While Woodward gets the credit for saving the factory, the new owners continued that work, creating what it has called a “multidimensional live-work-play atmosphere” by reportedly investing $100 million in the complex. Today, it’s home to offices, restaurants, retail shops, fitness centers and events.

The 10,000-sq.-ft. car museum that opened early last year is in a single-story building that was once a machine shop for Stutz. The cars on display are owned by Woodward, and while most of the vehicles on display are Stutz, there are other cars on display, as well.

https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/resources/a-look-inside-the-new-stutz-museum

https://www.thestutz.com/

on October 29, 1953 Chrysler changed the way to jack race cars, AND made pit stops faster.... with a warehouse pallet jack!

used a method of hoisting the car for tire changes even faster than the “rocker jacks” used at the Indianapolis 500. 

This was a hydraulic lifter of the type used to move freight in warehouses.

https://moparconnectionmagazine.com/when-chrysler-claimed-the-stevens-trophy-at-the-brickyard/