In the May 25, July 1911 issue of Motor Age, just a week before the start of the first ever Indianapolis 500-mile race, a more or less magazine-related view was published, in which several aspects were stipulated.
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Motor Age, Vol. XIX, No. 21, May 25, 1911
MOTOR AGE
The Big 500-Mile Race
Published Weekly by – THE CLASS JOURNAL COMPANY – 91O South Michigan AVENUE CHICAGO
FOR many reasons the 500-mile race which will be run on the Indianapolis motor speedway next Tuesday will be of interest not only to the motoring world but to the general public as well. First of all, it will demonstrate most effectively the gigantic steps the sport has taken in the last few years, an advance which rapidly is shedding from motor car contests that tinge of commercialism which has made sporting editors on daily newspapers look on it as a business proposition rather than as a real sport. The race should do much toward dispelling this illusion in the eyes of the critics and make motoring a standard sport, perhaps not in the same class with baseball so far as popularity is concerned, but certainly on a par with the others that are classed as leaders.
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IT also will give motoring a chance to establish a record for I attendance that will make other sports look to their laurels and demonstrate most effectively that there is plenty of red blood flowing through the veins of motorists. Unless all indications fail, there will be an attendance at Indianapolis running between 75,000 and 100,000, which will be an attendance larger than any that ever paid to see a sporting contest in this country. Even national championship baseball games never have drawn crowds of this size, and the only approach to it perhaps is the annual football game between Yale and Harvard. Of course larger crowds have seen the running of the Vanderbilt, but then the big majority never paid a cent outside of what it cost them to get to the course. If motoring can draw the anticipated crowd, then it is certain that it has come into its own as a standard sport.
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ANOTHER reason that will make the Indianapolis race stand out above its fellows is the system that has prevailed in arranging the details for this great struggle. It is no small task for a city of the size of Indianapolis to care for the flood of visitors which it will have next week, so it is most commendable that its citizens have loyally come to the fore and offered the use of their homes for the accommodation of the strangers. At the track this same careful system again is noted. It is going to be a herculean task first of all to get such an immense field under way and then it is going to require extraordinary efforts to keep track of the progress of each car contesting. But all that seemingly has been arranged for in a businesslike manner, and it is more than likely Indianapolis will set a record in this line which long will be held up as a model of systematic management of a big sporting event.
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IT may be asked by some pessimists what such a race is going to prove. That’s easily answered. As an advertisement for motoring nothing ever attempted before this can touch it. It will infuse human interest into the sport; it will demonstrate the stamina of the motor car; it will, it is hoped, demonstrate that American-made cars can more than hold their own with those of foreign construction, although the European representation is not as large as desired; it will give the American drivers an opportunity to dispel the illusion that the best pilots are to be found on the other side of the Atlantic; and it will give a chance to draw comparisons between foreign and American speedways which may redound to the credit of the latter. As for the manufacturers, they should profit by the race because of the lessons that will be taught. They can ascertain from a study of the results and the report from the pits the weaknesses to which the modern car is heir and in the future can guard against them in turning out future models.
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Good Roads Enthusiasm
OTHER irons than the 500-mile race are in the motor fire, and it is refreshing to turn to the basic need of the sport and industry and realize that this great country of ours is at last alive to the good roads proposition and that not only are motorists working to bring about an improvement of the highways, but that the government is doing all it can in this direction. It is gratifying indeed to read the report of Logan Waller Page, published in the previous issue of Motor Age, which shows that so much enthusiasm has been aroused over roads that from now until the snow of next winter stops the work more than $1,000,000 a day will be spent upon road making and road improvement by the various states in the Union. What the ultimate results will be cannot be forecasted now, but certain it is that such a vast fortune spent solely upon roads ought to bring about a wondrous change in our highways before another year rolls around.
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FROM coast to coast, the wave is sweeping everything before it. Farmers who heretofore have been against good roads because they would be used by motorists have joined the ranks. They are motorists themselves now and besides they have had their eyes opened, as to what good roads really mean to them in getting their product to market. Railroads have joined in the chorus, strange as it may seem, and are advocating improving the highways, realizing that if the farmer has good roads he can reach the railroads easier and ship his grain and wheat. The railroads profit by this by having their traffic uniform throughout the year instead of having a rush at intervals which taxes them to the limit to care for.
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JUST now the demand is for trunk roads across states, and it did not need the bill introduced into congress by Representative Hobson calling for two highways crossing the country to call attention to this. Iowa has been a pioneer in this advocacy of cross-state roads and undoubtedly the example of the Hawkeyes in laying out their famous river-to-river road has been the most valuable educational example that has been offered since motorists took up the subject of roads. Nebraska now has joined in the movement; so has Missouri, Illinois and others, and it will not take long to have the entire country ablaze with enthusiasm.
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ALL this is most commendable from a national viewpoint, but one A of the straws which show the direction of the wind is local interest, and this is no better illustrated than in the case of Chicago, which at last became ashamed of itself and has started housecleaning. While Chicago has a magnificent boulevard system, probably second to none in the world, its exits are notoriously poor and long have been a handicap to motoring. But the powder was set off a month back when the Chicago Motor Club, selfishly interested perhaps because of being the promoter of the national Stock chassis road races, undertook to have the road between Chicago and Elgin oiled this summer. Right on the heels of this the citizens of Joliet undertook to have the read to Chicago repaired so it would be a popular motoring thoroughfare. The wave kept on and next in line is another Chicago suburb, Blue Island, which wants its Chicago road repaired. To top it all off, the north side has aroused to life and wants to fix up Sheridan road, which is in such condition now that motorists go out of their way to avoid it. Of course this applied to only one community, but it simply shows that by keeping everlastingly at it that it will not take long to arouse the entire country to the need of good roads.
