NoTreadLeft - 15 November 2009 10:32 PM

NoviVespa3 - 14 November 2009 11:04 AM

That is the date that Tony Hulman bought The Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Probably the greatest moment in motorsports history.

http://www.indystar.com/article/99999999/NEWS06/80508058

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Perhaps, but I prefer to think of May 30, 1911, the first Indy 500, as a more important date

But, you would not remember 1911, if the track closed forever in 1945.

And racing would still be going on, if it did. It was certainly a good day in SPEEDWAY history.

PLN_ Fan - 15 November 2009 11:50 PM

And racing would still be going on, if it did. It was certainly a good day in SPEEDWAY history.

No it would not. Back then, all the teams built cars for one race. The Indianapolis 500. They raced the rest of the season, more than likely losing money. But, finishing good in the 500 paid for the rest of the year. Without the 500, many teams would just fold. And, then, the Championship Trail would be a thing of the past. Just about all the sponsors of cars only wanted one thing, to be in the 500. No 500, no sponsors of cars.

NoviVespa3 - 16 November 2009 12:54 AM

No it would not.

Racing would still be alive and well had track closed in 1945. You had Grand Prix racing from 1946-1949 which went on to be F1 in 1950. You had classic races of Le Mans, Targa Florio, Mille Miglia. Which led to World Sportscar Championship in 1953. In the USA, you had the SCAA and US National Races. AOW w/o Indy would have continued on, one way or another.

If the 24 Hrs of Le Mans ceased following WW II it would've had bigger impact on racing and automotive industry than the closure of IMS. The overwhelming majority of the cars that raced at Le Mans until late 60s were production cars.

I was not talking about the demise of auto racing. I was strictly talking about Indy Car racing.

Off topic? Maybe, but as an Indianapolis resident of an area called Broad Ripple I find this an interesting parallel to the story of IMS.

Broad Ripple is a quirky part of town with restaurants, bars, art & fashion shops, etc. I think every city has an area like this. One day we were having lunch here with my sister who lives in a college town in another state who asked if there used to be a college there. It does have that feel, but despite living there for 13 years, I didn't know. After a while this started to bug me so I started googling.

It turns out that without knowing it, I lived a half mile (give or take a hundred years) from this...



Built in 1906 and first burned down in 1908, White City Amusement Park was one of a number of clones of a central feature of the Chicago Exposition of 1893. It continued on for many years in various forms and generally benefited the area which became a the place where Indianapolis residents kept their cottages.

In the '30s the nearby Vogue theater attracted Hollywood openings featuring appearances by Bing Crosby and his ilk. But by the '70s it became a porn theater until it was later rescued to become a music venue. There's a cool story about the bronze star bearing the signatures of Crosby, et. al. having been spirited away during the porn period and restored at a later date (after, in a pun of a popular movie title of the day, they put "Porn Free" on the marquee).

Also in the '30's Johnny Weismuller (of Tarzan fame) qualified for the olympics in a 4 acre cement swimming pool on the same site.

But the amusement park didn't survive WWII. No Tony Hulman for it. It was bought by the government and turned into a typical city park. The only plaque to be found on the site commemorates the Governor's purchase. You have to know to look for the chunks of cement on the woods behind the park, or in the river, or the Vogue's star, or Google to know that something really significant was once there.

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Oh I forgot to mention that a carousel from the park is still functioning in the Indianapolis Children's Museum (but with only one of the original horses). It's a 'national historic site', but not the actual location where it was - which I think is an odd truncated cement pyramid in the park with no indication of what it was.

The idea that American O/W racing would have died without the speedway is not very rational. Racing is something that people do. Whether there is some big speedway in Indiana or not. Open wheel racing happened in many, many places, and people got paid for doing it. The premise that every other race in the country didn't pay enough to make it worth doing sounds VERY much an exaggeration. If that WERE the case, all the guys that didn't make the 33 car field would go under, until there were only 33 cars racing anywhere.

Open wheel cars raced everywere, midgets and sprints. But, Champ Cars only race every other week. Plus, to stay on the trail, you had to have two cars, one for pavement, and the other for dirt tracks. Yes, the men who drove and owned these cars had a desire. But, did the sponsors have that same desire?

Look at the landscape now. Plenty of sponsors for series that do not rely in the Indy 500. I suspect, "back in the days " the same thing happened. What was the point of Bob's Auto Service sponsoring an entry in the 500, when no one would see it, as the race was on radio only ? Local and regional sponsors must have existed, just as they do now.

I think events are created out of demand. Nascar started without a speedway in Daytona, and it was built later. Drag racing started in California, and yet some of the biggest tracks are back east, now.

I would not be surprised, if the speedway was left to fall apart, in 1945, some rich guy would have had the idea to build something, in some other place, to see if he could do it better. You never know. The lose of one track may have inspired the creation of another.

Then again, American O/W may have mirrored European Grand Prix racing and road courses could have sprung up.

No matter the alternate history, American O/W racing would have continued, speedway or not.

Ah, but, would that clone of European racing, be sanctioned by a professional club? Or, would it be an amateur thing like SCCA?