When Indy
Came To Oklahoma City
by Galen
KurthToday, we are pleased to publish an article by noted Oklahoma racing historian Galen Kurth about early Indianapolis-car races held in the Linwood neighborhood of Oklahoma City.
In 1915, the Indianapolis 500 mile race was
four years old and already gathering international attention. Concrete and board speedways were cropping up
around the United States and road races were growing in popularity. Oklahoma City auto dealer C.R. “Dick” Carhart
thought the city could profit from the new craze and set to work staging an
Indianapolis car race.
Exhibitions and races had drawn large crowds
to the Colcord race course at Reno and Exchange as early as 1905, and a series
of speed trials at the new Fairgrounds half mile track had been very successful
in 1913 and 1914. Carhart's original
plan called for an 8.4 mile course around the city, ending each lap with the
cars re-entering the fairgrounds track through tunnels under the
grandstand. Crowd control and the
problem of collecting admissions on such a large course did away with that
idea.
The Linwood
Place addition had been platted by developer C.E. Bennett in 1909, but very
little growth had happened. The Linwood
School was built in 1911 and a few houses dotted what was the western edge of
the city, but some publicity was sorely needed.
How Bennett and Carhart came together isn't known, but on March 14,
1915, the course for what Carhart titled the Southwest Sweepstakes was
announced.
The cars
would run west on 16th Street to Linwood Boulevard, which is now
Drexel, south on Linwood to 13th Street, east on 13th to
Youngs Boulevard, then north to 16th on a specially built fifty foot
wide dirt track. City Engineer Guy V.
McClure was in charge of constructing the 2.409 mile track, including repaving
Linwood, and having it ready by race day, April 20th
The plan for
the race meet called for two separate events.
A ninety-nine mile Oklahoma Auto Road Race for state-owned cars and
drivers and a 150 mile motorcycle race would run April 20th. The track would be repaired as necessary
during an off day on the 21st, while exhibitions of cars and airplanes took
place at the Fairgrounds. The Indianapolis cars would then race in the 200 mile
Sweepstakes on April 22nd, celebrating the twenty sixth anniversary of the Land
Run.
Bob Burman left and Louis Disbrow, right
photo furnish by Galen Kurth
Carhart's Southwest Auto Racing Association, formed to promote the race, was successful in attracting many of biggest stars of the time. Louis Disbrow, a starter in every “500,” had set several world speed records at the Fairgrounds. “Wild Bob” Burman was also an established Indianapolis star, having won the first 250 mile races held at the big speedway in August of 1909, before the “500” was conceived. In 1912, he entered forty-three races and won thirty-three, with eight second place finishes. Earl Cooper was the defending National Champion.
The biggest
draw of all was landed when Barney Oldfield signed to appear for the Maxwell
team. Oldfield and Burman were natural
rivals, since Oldfield had been suspended by the American Automobile
Association in 1911 and Burman had taken over his car to set a new world's
record for one mile of 141.73 miles per hour. Oldfield thought that record
should be his. Eddie Rickenbacker was
supposed to compete, but a series of mechanical failures had left him so
disgusted with his Peugeot that he had sold it to Burman and was “between
rides.”
The
French-built Peugeot was the fastest speedway car of the time, but the engine
was fragile. Burman took the former
Rickenbacker car to Los Angeles machinist Harry Miller and together they
redesigned and rebuilt the engine, increasing the power and strengthening the
weak points. The resulting Burman-Miller
four cylinder would develop into the legendary Offenhauser that dominated
American racing for forty years, but even the first version that Burman brought
to Oklahoma City in 1915 was ahead of what anyone else had. Rickenbacker was later quoted as saying his
sale of the car was “the worst mistake of my racing life.”
Practice runs
for the Southwest Sweepstakes went well on April 17th. Drivers
praised the track, which allowed speeds nearing 120 miles per hour on
the long paved stretches. The dirt turns
at either end were a bit soft and tended to rut quickly, but McClure was
certain they'd be firmed up by race time.
Burman was established as the favorite when he set the fastest times,
turning twelve laps at an average of seventy four miles per hour. Actual race speeds were predicted at around
seventy for the 200 miles.
Final
preparations for the races included putting up a canvas fence around the
outside of the entire 2.4 mile course and parking railroad flatcars on the
Linwood street car tracks to serve as box seats across from the start-finish
line. The main seating area and pits
were inside the track on 13th Street near where Miller now
crosses. Several companies of state
militia were brought in at the promoter's expense to police the track.
The first day
of racing went well. A large crowd
turned out for the Oklahoma Auto Road Race and the motorcycle event. Claude Foster of Tuttle won the auto race in
his Overland, beating a field of ten other entrants. A number of minor accidents slowed the race,
but no one was injured. The motorcycle
race saw the factory Harley-Davidson team finish first, second, and fourth,
with winner Red Parkhurst averaging 68.5 mph.
One minor injury was reported when “Spec” Warner, on an Indian
motorcycle, fell and was cut by a glass bottle of oil he had in his pocket.
As final
preparations were underway for the 200 mile race, it began to rain-- torrential,
unending rains. A slow-moving storm
threatened railroad bridges and flooded parts of the city. The South Canadian river moved its course two
miles. Trains could not enter or leave Oklahoma City, and roads were
impassable. A scheduled exhibition “race” between Oldfield and an airplane at
the Fairgrounds was cancelled when the plane couldn't make any headway against the
winds.
The thousands of people who had come into Oklahoma City for the race were stuck as the event was postponed until Friday, and then postponed again until Sunday. Theatres, pool halls, restaurants, and hotels did record amounts of business. From race headquarters at the Lee-Huckins Hotel, Carhart claimed “it is the largest crowd in the history of the city---the largest ever gathered in any one part of the state. It shows how people will subscribe to a really big league attraction.”
On Sunday, 2.62
inches of rain fell, forcing yet another postponement. Many of the race teams
were getting ready to leave, anxious to get to Indianapolis. Carhart claimed the delays were costing the
promotion $1000 a day. Finally, on
Thursday, April 29th, the track was dry enough to race. Mayor Overholser declared a half-holiday and
closed City Hall at noon so employees could attend. Downtown stores also closed
early.
The 200 miler
started badly when Commerce, Oklahoma's A.F. Scott, in a Tulsa automobile, blew
a tire and crashed into a tree. He and
his mechanic were not injured, but the rumor quickly spread that someone had
been killed. John Raimey, in a Case, led
the first four laps, and then was passed by William Carlson in one of the
Maxwells. Carlson in turn was overtaken by his teammate Barney Oldfield, but
the crowd favorite soon had motor trouble and dropped back.
A real battle
then began among Carlson, Earl Cooper, and Dave Lewis. Carlson held the lead, but Cooper was all
over him as they came up to Sixteenth Street for the 28th lap.
Carlson broke an oil line and spun, leaving Cooper nowhere to go. He chose to turn left and crashed into the
dirt bank on the inside of the track. He
and Carlson were both done for the day, leaving the Stutz of Dave Lewis in the
lead.
Lewis held
that lead until lap seventy-one. “Wild”
Bob Burman, meanwhile, had been anything but wild. After a thirty-five second pit stop to
replace a tire on lap nine, he carefully paced himself and his Peugeot. He later claimed “I didn't take after Lewis
until the sixty-first lap. I wanted to
see just what they had before extending myself.
That Stutz had more speed than I thought, and I gave my car everything I
could from then on.” Burman thrilled the
crowd again and again with his charges through the rutted dirt turns, then used
the power of his re-designed engine to pass Lewis with a charge up Sixteenth
Street.
Burman ran
out the remaining fourteen laps unchallenged, finishing nearly a minute and a
half in front of the Stutz driver at an average speed of slightly over
sixty-eight miles per hour. It looked
easy to the crowd until Burman called for medical attention at the finish
line. He had driven since lap seven with
a splinter of glass in his right eye, caused when a rock thrown up by Eddie
Hearn's Case shattered his goggles.
Behind Burman
and Lewis, the finishing order was John Raimey, Eddie Hearn in the last paying
position, Louis Disbrow, Albert Striegel, Barney Oldfield, George Clark,
William Carlson, Earl Cooper, and A.F. Scott.
The winner's share of the purse came to $2500. Attendance was estimated at around 14,000,
far less than the 50,000 or more originally hoped for, but promoter Carhart was
pleased. “In view of the fact the race
was postponed three times, it was wonderful,” he stated. “Never in the history of racing has a road
race been postponed three times, and then turned out anything like a success
until this one.”
Success or
not, it would never be repeated. Most of
the racing cars depended on parts from Europe and the First World War had
totally engulfed that continent by 1916.
Even the Indianapolis “500” would only draw 23 entries that year. Perhaps as telling on the future of the race
was what happened to the Oklahoma City winner, Bob Burman.
Burman had a successful
campaign for the rest of 1915. He was
sixth at Indianapolis and won a race at Burlington, Iowa, finishing eighth in
the national standings. Then, on April 8th
of 1916, he was running second on a city street and road course in Corona,
California when a wheel failed. His
Peugeot hit a telephone pole, and then flew into the crowd of spectators. Burman, his mechanic Erick Shrader, and a
track policeman were killed. Fifteen spectators were injured. Road races like the Oklahoma City event were
suddenly very unpopular. When the United
States entered the World War, all racing was suspended, so any future plans
would have been thrown out, anyway.
The Oklahoma
City race was the final appearance for several drivers. In July, 1915, Disbrow, Raimey, Hearne and
George Clark were suspended by the AAA for racing in unsanctioned exhibitions
and they were done in the “big time.”
A.F. Scott and the Tulsa car ran twice more, and then vanished from the
sport. Perhaps the strangest entrant was
identified simply as “F. Crum.” He
entered a Buick, but it was rejected during pre-race inspections and he
disappeared, never to be heard of again.
William
Carlson died in a race at Tacoma, Washington on July 4th of 1915 and
manager Ray Harroun dissolved the entire Maxwell team. Oldfield came back after the war to race in
1918, and then retired. Of all the
drivers from that April, 1915 event, Earl Cooper would have the greatest
career. Luckless in Oklahoma City, he
went on to win the 1915 National Championship and a third title before retiring
in 1927. He died in 1965 at the age of
79.
For a great
many reasons, no attempt was made to stage another Southwest Sweepstakes in
Oklahoma City. Dick Carhart moved to an
Overland dealership in Los Angeles during the 1920's, then eventually to
Philadelphia. He never promoted another
race.
16th Street today- photo by Galen Kurth
Thanks for sharing your article, Galen!
