Indy 1949
 

My Dad was a big photographer (his Dad made movies in the 40s and 50s). He was at Purdue in 1949 getting his Masters in Mechanical Engineering -after WWII delayed his Texas A&M Bachelor in ME. He always talked about going to Indy while there so I think these must be from them.

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A few more -check out the scaffolds one even in a truck bed!

This looks like an adjacent dirt track for midgets. One looks like the lights are on some maybe an evening/night race, or maybe a different exposure on one they are not as visible.
35 mm I think his Argus camera.

Awesome pics! thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing...great pics!

Wow.

Talk about historical racing photos !

Very skillful photographer capturing those Indy cars at speed. I love the wire wheels leaning against the pit wall and the Radio Flyer wagon carrying what looks to be batteries. :)

Incredible, these shots should be published somewhere other than just on a Pontiac internet forum.

Yep. The pits on the front straightaway when the old grandstands were still at IMS.

That is what became Indianapolis Raceway Park in Avon, IN. It was a dirt track decades before it was paved.

Thanks for those great pics. I just love the Indy 500. The history, the size, the pageantry, the memorial remembrances for our military,the entire month of May. I have been to over 20 races and they all have highlights, even this year. A few tidbits about the 1949 race. Race won by Bill Holland, car #7, starting from the inside of row 2. Blue Crown Spark Plug special. Offenhauser engine. qualifying speed 128.67 mph. Race speed ave: 121.327 mph. Laps led: 146, (200) Margin of victory 3m 11 sec. Winning driver Holland had finished each of the two previous years in second to Mauri Rose. Offy roadsters dominated Indy in this period for 15+ years. Finally, in 1965, Jim Clark broke the incredible streak with a rear engine car and as they say, the rest is history. Thanks again for the first hand pictures.

My dad being an engineer and a math guy got into SCCA Rally with a friend that had an Alfa. Since in Rally you can not be too early or late to check points you had to do math to tell how much and how long to speed up or slow down. back then it was all slide rule calculations! They did pretty good in the Dallas SCCA. He took me to soem road races and drag races at Green Valley and came and watched my impala at the drags in '72 and came out to the drag strip when i was up in Dallas for the Pontiac Southern Nationals.
His WWII delay was being at Oegon State for some Special Detail training then at Los Alamos in the Special Engineering Detail-main job hauling high explosives for the detonators.

Raceway Park (now Lucas) is in the town of Brownsburg. Where is Avon?

Avon is just west of Indianapolis. Just head west on Rockville Rd (SR 36). It's just inside of Hendricks County, just outside of Marion Co (Indianapolis).

Wasn't Indy (dragstrip) considered in Avon, until the Pro's came to Brownsburg? (and they change address?)

I remember always going by Bob Glidden's place when we went to the dragstrip. (and some others, can't remember names)

:)

Great stuff ! !


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Ok - "Donald Davidson"...

;)

K

I am a little embarrassed to say I had to look up Donald Davidson in the IMS musuem page!. I do have a couple coffee table books about the Indy 500. The book I got that info from has about 3 pages of highlights from every Indy 500 run to the time the book was published which was 2016 I think. When those 33 cars come down the front stretch for the green flag to start the race, it's the most exciting 2 minutes in motorsports IMO. The only other thing that comes close for me is night qualifying for the US Nationals in the fuel classes in front of a packed house. Thanks to Arnie Beswick, we were able to run in front of that same crowd a couple times in our Pontiac powered race cars. A gift I can never repay.

That's what I thought I was seeing. When men were men.
Curious about the refrigerators spaced along the wall down the front stretch. I wonder if they where for cold drinking water for the drivers, or something else. Refrigeration was still pretty new in the late forties, I'm thinking.

He was a savant when it came to Indy history. He would do the color commentary with all those type of arcane factoids and details, just off the cuff and completely from memory. Simply amazing.

Now - we have Google. :rolleyes:

K

I really like the way the early cars look.

Not really, Jack. Avon is closer than Brownsburg.

Yep. When I lived in Indy (‘91-‘94) IRP had an Avon address. This was before all the Top Fuel and Funny Car teams sat up shops in Brownsburg.

One of the really cool things about the pageantry of race day is the laps they take with old cars from the IMS Museum. Most of the cars are kept in running condition and each year a dozen or so make a lap. This year one was super early pre 1920. Several from each decade moving up from there. It's great to see and hear these cars running again. And they don't creep around the track. Some will accelerate through the gears a little and may reach 80-100 for a short period.

In reality, IRP is in Clermont, IN.

All I know is that Raceway Park was in Brownsburg in '61, '62. & '63 when I attended those fuel-ban Nationals.

Could be Jack.

I think it was mainly all unincorporated area and it was just which town got the population?

As Hurry said, it is Clermont.

They were all mostly unpopulated, farm country etc. with a dragstrip in the middle of it.

Also seems when they put the fuel thingy by it, that started more businesses
around it? (which seemed to be in Clermont?)

BTW, Jack do you have the Dragsters from then?
They may have the address/town in it?
I threw about all mine away last time I moved.


:(

Jack, could be. What I do know is IRP is in Clermont today and was in Clermont when I lived there thirty years ago. Avon is closer to IRP than Brownsburg is.

No, John, I don't. Wasn't it still Drag Link (or some such name) back then?
Until recently I had a ticket stub from '62 Nationals, but can't find it now.

Related, this is a good series if interested.....


Auto racing's most electrifying personalities experience triumphs and tribulations on their high-octane journeys to the Indianapolis 500.

100 Days to Indy

https://www.netflix.com/title/81756281



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