Professional Documents
Culture Documents
pz,"$p
~
"
"%*.@"
~.- :.:""-y*=
,
~*
, ~ p . Y + ~ F . ~ < - ~ v
\-
t .
i_\
-2
2-
s:,
"
4-
Indiana Idyl
BY JOE COLLIER
HEN the boys go whirling around the Indianapolis motor speedway every Decoration
Day, they do it, most of them, for coffee and
f;;:
cakes.Most of themknowthey can't win. They know,
becausethey are shrewd judges of mechanical performq ~ :ance, that the cars theyhave managed to draw haven't,a
chance.
'
No matter howshinythose
cars look,most of them
are old. Kelly Petillo won the racein 1935 with a car
that was budt mostly of parts salvaged from other racers,
: ' with an occasional airplane part thrown in. He said after' ward that for the last fifty miles of the race he wasnot
certain whether the car would hold together. He won,
g . took the prize money, and bought a newcar. But the old
3s car was not retired. It was given a new coatof paint,
renamed, and passed on to a driver who was later killed
- " ia a dirt-track accident.
The reason for the presence on the track of far more
old cars than newones is that a racingcarisspecially
: built and when new cats approximately $11,000.In each
5 ' year's racecars are entered that havebeen driven into
the wall by drivers who were killed in the accident. One
old-time driver this year was telling a reporter that he had
5: drivenmore death cars than anyoneelsein the history
of the race. As he was about to name them, an official of
the American Automobile Association slipped up and
spoke to the old-timer. The story was never finished.
-~The track management says no
one
ever died on
5.%. Speedway Corporation property. They all died in the
2. ambulance on the wayto the City Hospital. The best
"4-
S .
'
2 .
*F-z,-2
h
-~
,< e
.. - :.-.
. .&
*z -
...yei-5
-.
~ . ~ ~ ~ .
~ ~ -~ . ~ . ~ . . ~ ~ ~ ~ * ~
I
675
I1