The 1916 Indianapolis 500: the outlier that was no 500 yet is treated as a 500.

   The popularity of the annual race at Indianapolis caused a phenomenon that was to become familiar. Hotels raised their prizes dramatically for the race day weekend! Something that upset track owner  Fisher so much that he had considered to move `his` big event to the board track of Cincinatti! As if he had not enough matters to deal with that year.
   How many drivers who were leading at Indianapolis after 300 miles yet not won the race must have felt jealous on Dario Resta! For he was the man who led the annual event at IMS after 300 miles and was hailed the winner because the race distance had been reduced to that number!
   Contrary to the general belief, this shortening of the race was not related with the fact that a War was going on within Europe. The truth is that Speedway Director Carl Fisher had begun to believe that 500 miles was perhaps too long for his audience and thus a shorter distance was chosen.
   Though there were definitely War related matters that warranted the shorter race. No new suitable cars built in Europe came to the USA anymore, neither did replacement parts. Though 30 cars were entered, only 21 of them did finish qualifying attempts. Seven of those cars were there thanks to efforts of the Speedway management to boost the field. One of the things they did was having built carbon copies of the Peugeots, now named Premier that supported the genuine Peugeots the management also entered.
   There could have been a 31rd car and driver entered. But defending winner Ralph DePalma wanted a substantial amount of appearance money (reputedly more than the eventual 3rd placed winner should receive) Carl Fished called DePalma’s bluff and when the entry was closed and DePalma tried to enter nevertheless without being paid in advance he was turned down. The waiver that had to be signed unanimously by all other entrants was not. Probably much to (and perhaps because of?) the enjoyment of his archrival Barney Oldfield. He had entered for his second ever “Indy” but with DePalma on the sidelines the public was once again denied a duel between those two rivals. (Since 1916 turned out to be Oldfield’s last ever “Indy” these two legendary drivers never took on another at the bricks).
   None of the 7 cars entered by the Speedway Management classified within the Top 5, making the entire effort likely an even more costly affair than whatever prize money was won by the cars. Eventually 11 of the 21 starters completed the distance of 120 laps. Dario Resta, in a Peugeot, lead 103 of the race laps, including that all important 120th.
   Barney Oldfield brought his Delage home in 5th place, but a few days before he had created headlines with another achievement. He had driven the first ever over 100 mph laps at the Speedway with his monstrous 20-liter V4 engined Christie Front Drive. A sign of things to come?
   The purposely organized shortest ever Memorial Day race also had the smallest field of any race ever held at IMS on Memorial Day. Despite the shorter distance, the race is still included in the sequence of Indy 500’s. But the “Indianapolis 300” turned out to be an `only once` event that was not repeated in the future anymore. But that future did not start one year later already.
   Because of the Great War, hardly any magazine on the continent was able to report from the 1916 season. I merely could find the Austrian „Allgemeine Automobil-Zeitung“ with some minor reporting.