Stories about Ray Harroun and how he won the first Indy 500, mostly tell it wrong—it wasn’t because Harroun opted for a single-seat racer to save weight. And no—it wasn’t because he mounted a rear-view mirror to eliminate the riding mechanic as a spotter.
Nope—it was something completely different. Here’s the story…
The Man
Ray Waid Harroun was born in 1879 in Spartansburg, a small Amish community in northwestern Pennsylvania. His father was a millworker, and his mother raised Ray and his three sisters on their small farm.
Ray Harroun’s image on a 1911 commemorative postcard from the Indy Sweepstakes. Postcard courtesy AACA Library
Ray Harroun’s early life showed a restless spirit that eventually led to automobiling:
1896–Ray apprenticed as a dental assistant to his brother-in-law;
1898–he joined the U.S. Navy at age 19 and served on a coal carrier during the Spanish-American War;
1899–he worked on a square-rigged ship between South America and Europe;
1902–Harroun was hired as a chauffeur even though he hadn’t yet learned to drive. But he had a knack for tinkering on cars…
In 1902 Harroun also built a two-seat speedster known as the Harroun Special. Nothing is known about its fate, and no photos or drawings of it exist, but this was true then for countless auto experiments on American roads. Tinkerers abounded.
In 1903 (and again in 1904) he joined a race team and set a time-distance record of 76 hours between Chicago and New York City in a factory-sponsored Columbia automobile. Endurance runs of this type were big news; reliability was the biggest issue facing automobiles of the period.
Harroun built his own track speedster in 1905 that consisted of two long rails cradling a four-cylinder engine amidships. Resembling a harness racing sulky, the rider hung on at the extreme rear of this open-bodied 1000-pound contraption. It huffed and chuffed its way down the track, so onlookers nicknamed it The Sneezer.
In 1906 Harroun worked for Buick in Lowell, Massachusetts as a test driver. The Buick racing team was managed by William Pickens, who saw potential in Harroun and hired him to be the team mechanician for drivers Louis Strang, Bob Burman, and Louis Chevrolet; all four were destined to build legends for themselves in American track racing.
From this opportunity Harroun would gain the experience and credentials to drive, and throughout 1907 he competed in various races for Buick and Marriott, as well as piloting his lightweight speedster.
Howard Marmon hired Harroun in 1908 as a mechanic for Nordyke & Marmon. Both were engineering types, and Howard Marmon, a proven mechanical genius and auto manufacturer, saw something of himself in Ray Harroun. Harroun’s abilities, experience, and work soon earned him a promotion to company engineer.
Harroun next climbed into an open seat on the Marmon racing team when Martha Foster, one of women’s early shining stars in automobile competition, was forced to quit racing in 1909 due to the AAA Supervisory Board’s ban on female drivers. Or maybe she retired from her position as racing driver to marry her boss, Howard Marmon. Who knows?
Whatever the reason, this opportunity sparked Ray Harroun’s short but stellar two-year career as a Marmon team driver. His successes on the track fueled the rise of the Marmon 32, one of the most famous early generation speedsters to ever cross a finish line or run down a country lane.
The Car
Nordyke & Marmon produced light but well-built luxury cars due to the design vision of Howard Marmon, who believed that quality always trumped quantity. Aluminum was used throughout the drive train and body components, and a pressed-steel riveted and gusseted frame promised a light but strong chassis. The engines were built, run in at speed, then broken down and “blueprinted,” and then re-assembled.
The Marmon 32 Speedster was a classic cutdown that was produced from 1909 through 1914. Howard Marmon strongly believed that his track cars should be identical to the street versions, and in 1910 this was still feasible. The 1912-13 Speedway Style Speedster was thus a sibling to the four cylinder track speedster.
Marmon company brochure courtesy AACA Library.
It rolled on a 120-inch wheelbase and was powered by Marmon’s four cylinder 318 CID engine that produced an SAE-rated 32 horsepower. Realistically–it was more like 60.
Company brochure, AACA Library.
In 1910 Nordyke & Marmon built a Harroun-designed 447 CID six cylinder version of its engine using a Harroun carburetor and tested that in the race at Atlanta that year; the four cylinder 318 would be used in Joe Dawson’s Marmon for the Indianapolis race in 1911, while Harroun would use his six.
Howard Marmon’s racing team for 1910 consisted of Harry Stillman, Foxhall Keene, and senior member Ray Harroun. Joe Dawson was added for 1911 and Cyrus Patschke serving as relief driver.
1911 Marmon Team at Indy. Note Dawson in no. 31, Harroun in background standing next to no. 32. His infamous rear-view mirror can be seen mounted on the cowling.
Howard Marmon understood the importance of competition for promoting his brand, which he touted in ads. In 1910, the Marmon team would enter 93 races, winning 25, placing 2nd in 24, and also gaining 13 3rd place finishes. Harroun himself would later be crowned the 1910 AAA National Champion for his role in that. All accomplished on a $100,000 race budget!
Late 1910 Marmon competition results posted in this mag ad. At this point, Marmon was riding the crest of its racing accomplishments. This would end after the 1911 Indy Sweepstakes race. ad image HCFI library
The Track
Carl Fisher and his partners–Arthur Newby, James Allison, and Frank Wheeler–had announced the building of the Indianapolis Motor Parkway (later renamed “Speedway”) in the winter of 1908. Initially conceived as a rectangular track with rounded corners, it was 2.5 miles around and 60 feet wide.
1909 Indy Speedway Proposal. Image courtesy Indianapolis Speedway Museum
The interior road race track pictured in the flyer (see below) was designed but not built then. Today, however, the Indy oval does include a road race course!
1909 Indy ad. magazine. image courtesy Horseless Carriage Foundation Library
For the 1909 season, the track was covered in a tar-coated gravel called taroid, which turned out to be a disaster for tires and racers alike; the tires blew up and the racers got clobbered from the flying rock debris. Billy Bourque wrecked his Knox by driving into a huge pothole that had suddenly developed, which upended his car, killing both Bourque and his mechanician. In a later race that weekend, a National race car went airborne over a bump, flew for 80 feet, plowed through two spectators, and crushed its mechanician as it “turned turtle.” More people died.
A change in racing surface was sorely needed, and so for the 1910 season, the track was repaved with 3.2 million bricks, each weighing 10 pounds, thus earning its name, The Brickyard. Bricks would remain the race surface until being paved over in 1976, retaining a narrow strip of brick (for nostalgia) at the start-finish line.
The Race
In late 1910 Fisher had figured out that one big race would be far better than 20 smaller events as he had been doing, and so he scheduled a 500-mile marathon for May 30th, 1911, a holiday set aside to honor the Civil War dead from 1865. The race was organized to have 40 starters, arranged in 8 rows of five cars apiece, in a rolling start.
1911 Indy 500 poster. Note that by this time the track had been renamed “Speedway.”
Two hundred timing judges were hired to record the cars and corroborate each other’s scoring by using a device called a Warner Horograph, with four Burroughs adding machines, two Columbia dictaphones, an army of telephones, numbered marbles tumbling in chutes, a teleautograph, and timing wires to assist in the scoring. Incidentally, this system had not yet been tested in real world conditions!
The marathon race began at 10:00 am and would end at 5:37 pm–a long, long day for racers and spectators alike.
The race itself was a combination of mayhem and chaos, and so reporters concentrated on reporting the small stories that emerged. Here’s one example of a story that transpired:
The #44 Amplex (American Simplex) had wrecked in practice, thus making it a cursed or “hoo-doo” car in the eyes of the superstitious race drivers.
Walter Jones had been the designated driver of the car, but his mother had him kidnapped before the race to prevent him from driving it—because of the hoo-doo on the car!
The now-repaired (but still hoo-doo) #44 Amplex was therefore raced by a substitute driver, who crashed into the infield on Lap 13, a lap also popularly known as the hoo-doo lap on account of its numeral being Unlucky 13.
However, the driver of #44 miraculously escaped injury after he jumped from the car as it landed on its radiator and perched on its nose.
But—the mechanician of #44 had told a fellow racer before the event that he had a weird premonition of injury that morning. Trapped in the suspended car, which soon toppled over, the mechanician was instantly pancaked.
Hoo-doo, alright!
The Decision
The 1911 Indianapolis 500 Sweepstakes ended as it had begun, in relative chaos, with more than one individual asserting that he had finished first. The timing system had proved to be problematic, and many assumed inaccurate. Drivers were aggrieved and approached the judges for answers; there was prize money involved–lots of it!
Chief event judge A.A. Pardington then decided to lock himself and his fellow judges into a hotel room to scrutinize the race data and reach certainty. To make permanent the results, Carl Fisher ordered that all records would be destroyed before the results were announced.
After 36 hours of scrutinizing and debate, the judges emerged with a decision: Ray Harroun had won!
Harroun racing the Marmon 32 Wasp. AACA Library
How Did Harroun Clinch the Win?
Races are often won in the planning stages rather than in the actual race. Check out contemporary F1 and Indycar and their obsession with tire change strategy!
Indianapolis was Harroun’s favorite track; Harroun would win six races at Indy, many of them in a Marmon, and always from Harroun pre-planning his race. He knew Indy and he respected the limits of his equipment; Harroun sussed out that the tires were his weakest link.
Harroun had consulted with Firestone Tire about maximum speed, and they had recommended that he keep it below 80 mph on the bricks unless he wanted to be endlessly changing his tires.
Clincher tire units took between 2 minutes to 15 minutes to change, depending on the wheel and the number of clincher lugs, making pit stops very time-consuming. For example, Harroun had seven pairs of lugs around his wheel circumferences.
Example of how to properly change a clincher tire, as demonstrated by Joan Cuneo on her 1908 Knox Giant. Note the lugs around the rim of the wheel. Image courtesy Jack Deo, Superior View Photos
Each lap took about two minutes to complete at 75 mph. And so, to keep his pit stops to a minimum, Harroun babied his tires by maintaining an average speed of 74.6 mph.
The result? Harroun changed his right rear tire four times, but the three other tires remained on the car for the entire 500 miles.
Competitors were continually passing Harroun and speeding ahead, then blowing tires and straggling back to the pits for tire changes. The speed demons who didn’t crash out (eight crashed, poor sods) averaged 11 pit stops, wasting precious time for each tire change.
Harroun, the declared winner, had been the first race driver on record to figure out tire strategy. The lesson? Manage your tires, driver!
1911 Indy 500 commemorative postcard with Ray Harroun, winner. AACA library
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Charles Leerhsen wrote an excellent account of the first Indy 500 using a variety of original news media, visits to museums and archives for source material, and personal interviews. Check out Leerhsen’s book, Blood and Smoke–it’s well worth the reading. Recommended!
More about Ray Harroun can be found in my bio piece on him that appears in my book chapter on Marmon. Harroun was a remarkable but under-celebrated individual–he deserves more notice than has been given him.
Book News
We are about finished with final editing of the book text for Classic Speedsters. Next step will be to finish the covers and start on interior arrangement. So far it looks to be about 300 color and B&W images, 250 pages give or take.
I’m hoping to have it printed and ready for sale by the holiday season for this year, but the pandemic seems to have affected publishing house print schedules as well. So, release dates are a bit up in the air at this point. But we do have a final decision on the cover! See below.
Here’s our cover for the book. It took loads of work to get to this point, and I solicited opinions from some of you readers when it came down to a final decision. I appreciated that input very much.
Please leave a comment if you’d like to do so—let me know what you think.
Keep up to date on my book news at this website, ClassicSpeedsters.com, and many thanks for your interest and support!