To get into the cockpit, you stand on a rear spring, then thread your legs straight down, through a maze of castings. The radiator grille is narrow as a skateboard. The engine is a jeweler's model of what you expect. The 90.2-cubic-inch (1.5-liter), 150-hp straight-eight uses a centrifugal supercharger around a foot in diameter it pokes through the firewall ahead of your knees, shaped like a giant snail shell. The museum's 91 is an early Miller, and thus simple, even for the marque. If it were painted polka-dot and riding on four cheese wheels, I would still cross oceans to drive it. The Speedway's car currently sports a post-World War II restoration with an excess of gloss-Miller the man preferred flat finishes and understatement-and the front axle from a Miller 122.īut it is still a Miller. The 1926 Miller 91 that the Speedway lent us for this story wears the livery of Louis Meyer's 1928 500 winner, but it is not that car. As with many ancient race cars, their histories have been muddied by time and entropy. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway museum has six Millers. (One of those is now in the Smithsonian, a place not in the business of collecting cars, which should tell you something.) In 1929, a curious Ettore Bugatti bought two Millers in Europe and had them dismantled, so his men could learn something. By 1927, a Miller sat in 24 of the 33 slots on the 500's grid. But Millers took the race from production-based horsearound to a thoroughbred war zone. In its early days, the Indy 500 was open to road cars. (An Offy is basically a Miller eight seen in a fun-house mirror.) Also the bones of the engine-the Offenhauser four-that ruled Indy from the 1950s to the 1970s. Miller and his chief designer, Leo Goossen, gave us one of the first successful front-drive race cars, one of the first successful four-wheel-drive race cars, and 12 wins in the 500 between 19. Because he was part artisan and had a fetish for detail, his machines were gorgeous and powerful when most race cars were weak and ugly or strong and uglier. Miller designed and produced twin-cam, unit-construction (block and head in one casting), supercharged engines when much of America thought a 100-mph airplane was fast. It would be difficult to exaggerate the genius. In the process, we got an unprecedented look at the soul of America's fastest tradition. On a deserted track, I met each machine at respectful speed. Their differences represent the arc of the race and the automobile, but also a good chunk of what has always made Indy appealing. With the help of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway museum and a few friends, we gathered five Indy 500 cars from various eras. On a sunny fall day in 2015, we took a photographer and a small crew to Indy. And where, if we don't screw things up, it will live on. And if you head to Indianapolis, you can stand on the earth where that race began. This year marks the hundredth running of the 500, a rare and hallowed pastime in a relatively young country. The Speedway is a font of bravery and pomp, an irreplaceable piece of our culture. Why do we keep going back? Tradition is part of it, but not all. And as late as 2015, drivers were still crashing, still getting hurt. Speeds climbed, from just above 70 mph in 1911 to over 230 in the mid-Nineties. The bricks were eventually replaced by pavement. In 1911, the track hosted the first Indianapolis 500, a 200-lap event dreamed up as a gimmick to draw crowds. The tar surface was almost immediately replaced by 3.2 million bricks, thought to be safer. I watched Carl's face grow whiter."Įyebrows were raised. Cars skidded off the buckling macadam and burst into flame. "Every minute," she would later write, "held dramas of tragedy, mutilation, and death. He and his wife, Jane, were at the track that weekend. The Speedway is generally seen as the creation of an Indianapolis businessman named Carl Fisher. Shortly after, a Marmon hit a pedestrian bridge on the track's north end. He crashed his National through trackside fencing, killing his mechanic and two spectators. Two days after that, during a 300-mile race, Charlie Merz blew a tire. Bourque's car hit a ditch in the infield and rolled, killing both him and his riding mechanic. On the 19th, a man named Wilfred "Billy" Bourque was driving in a 250-mile race when he spun in Turn 4. Now neuter the walls, nix the catch fence, and replace the asphalt with crushed rock and tar. Picture the Speedway as it is now: 2.5 miles, four corners banked at just over nine degrees, concrete walls, and catch fencing. Seventy-five days later, on August 19, the place hosted its first car race. THE INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY opened to the public on June 5, 1909. (From the May 2016 Issue of Road & Track )
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |