Filling in - Race three

Ballston Spa, New York is the site of Ivan's next race, in which it appears he was not actually scheduled to race.  Ballston Spa today appears to be a very small village, situated twenty miles east and a little north of where Ivan grew up in Amsterdam, New York.  I found the following information interesting:

The community was named in honor of one of its earliest settlers, Reverend Eliphalet Ball. Ballston Spa was officially incorporated as a village in 1807. This area was once famous for its mineral water spring, which was believed to have healing powers. Ballston Spa was also known as the site of the Souci Hotel, which was one of the largest hotels in the world in the 1800s. This village was also the birthplace of the supposed creator of baseball, Abner Doubleday.

I've only included the text that pertains to Ivan's event from the newspaper clipping, this time.  The papers seemed mostly interested in the motorcycle races at Ballston Spa, and gave it a good three quarters of the article.  It seems that Ivan wasn't driving his Chalmers at this race in October of 1914, and we'll understand why, soon.  Ivan did not participate in the ten mile race, so I also passed over that event.

This photo is the best of the bunch for the racing at Ballston Spa, but it's difficult to tell which race this is.  Race one lists seven starters, and I count eight cars here.  Race two lists ten starters, but it's possible that some cars didn't race.  Like the last post, who knows, and who cares?  It's just fun that there are photos of the event at all.  It doesn't appear that the race was very well attended, though.  I see a lot of empty seats in the grandstands.

So, Ivan is racing a "Stearns car owned in Saratoga" according to the article, and he finishes a familiar third out of perhaps ten starters.  I'm making the assumption that this is his third race, since he was pretty avid about posting these clips and photos of his racing.  It is possible that he has raced more, and we just don't have record of it.  He's not doing badly if this is the extent of his experience, since there are considerably more cars which are starting these races.  Seems like Jones and Stewart have local racing pretty securely tied up with their Fords.

This handbill from the race is tucked in between the pages of the scrapbook with the press clippings.  This provides the answer to why Ivan wasn't racing his Chalmers; he wasn't even there to race!  He came to serve as "Assistant Starter".

And the back of the handbill shows that Ivan raced in the place of a Mr. Hamm, for reasons that are not known.  Did Ivan charm his way into a driving spot at the last moment?  Maybe this was a customer of Wheaton Automobile Company, or perhaps a family friend.

I'll finish up this post with a photo of one of the motorcycle racers, just since it's such a fun photograph.  Next up will be another race at Fonda.

-kpw
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Wheaton Wins!

So, we're back with race number two, and the results of the race are very interesting.  Ivan wins his second race, but as the headline of September 14, 1914 reads, "Three cars mixed up on race track".  Mixed up indeed!

This second race of Ivan's career takes place at Fonda Fairgrounds again.  An interesting description of the race indicates that the track is located on the river, which supports a view from a previous post that the Fonda speedway of today may well have been the same location as in Ivan's day.  This race also attracted another large crowd, by one account it was double (3000 people!) the size of the first race!

The twenty mile race is the focus of the headline, and the mix up occurs at lap 17.  According to the first article, it was obvious to the writer that there was an attempt to keep Ivan from passing during some portion of the race.  Seems to me like Ivan was getting a little testy about this and decided to make a bold move on the back straight.  Somehow while he was passing Stewart, he caught the guy's rear wheel, taking him out of the race.  The other Ford apparently had some engine trouble, and Ivan won the race.  Ivan placed third in the 10 mile race.  (this clipping is readable at full size, but Lightbox sometimes doesn't let you view it full size. Try right-clicking this if you can't see it full size and either "view image" or "open in new window)

This next set of newspaper articles is taken directly from the scrapbook.  They're all interesting reads, but especially the last clipping, which is a direct response to the article above.  Stewart answers the writer's accusation that he and Jones were attempting to keep Ivan from passing them.  I'm reminded of the quote from the Marx Brothers movie, Duck Soup.

Mrs. Teasdale: But I saw you with my own eyes!

Chicolini: Well, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?

Stewart accuses Ivan of passing on a "dangerous curve", and states that he should have been disqualified.  He finishes up the post with some classic 1914 trash talking.  The first article answers a question that I've had while viewing these old photos... who is the other guy?  Charles Vollmer.

Here's a photo from Fonda, probably Stewart.  Notice the amount of spectators lining the infield rail this time.  You can also see a number of shadows from spectators to the left of the photographer.

Another vantage point from the race at Fonda.  Very difficult to tell much through the dust, but just having a photograph of this event nearly 100 years ago is, to me, really amazing.

More 1914 racing coming up.  Next we'll be racing at Ballson Spa, and unfortunately, I don't see much in the way of Ivan taking up Mr. Steward on the rematch.  We have some really, really excellent photos of this event as well.

-kpw

Indy 500 1915 Final Post!

This post will wrap up the Indy 500 sections of the scrapbooks, and we'll pick up Ivan's racing career.  In the end, I'm astonished at how many photos from 1915 I finally used - 42 is what I count in the 1915 folder!  Some of these next ones are also quite good, in my opinion.  And even though it really doesn't accomplish much, now that I've been through all of them, I'm changing my mind again.  I think they (Van and Ivan) did pass the camera back and forth.  Toward the end of the photos, I began to notice issues with focus and exposure.  I used to think that these photos were just faded due to age, but now that I've examined them one by one, I can see that's not the case.


Not feeling all that well, today, so I'll be a bit less verbose... maybe.


First off, we have a photo of Jean Porporato of Italy in what I think is a very elegant looking Sunbeam.  Jean did not finish.  In fact, none of the drivers in this post were in the top ten.

George Hill dropped out of the race after 20 laps.

Harry Grant, who was in all three of the races covered in the photos, finished in the money in 1914, but dropped out very close to the end of this race.  The official race results cite "Oil Pan" as the cause of his loss.  As I've mentioned in the past, the star over Harry's photo indicates he died, and it was only later this very year that Harry died qualifying at Astor.  This article gives a good account of the accident, but fails to mention that he died ten days later from his burns.  This may have contributed to Van's decision to keep Ivan out of racing.

This is a fitting time to reiterate some family lore.  The story goes that Ivan was bugging his father, Van Benschotten Wheaton, to let him have a go at Indianapolis.  Van wouldn't consent, citing the danger, and since he held the the bankroll, how could Ivan argue?  A counter-offer was made; if Ivan would give up racing altogether, Van B. would pay for flying lessons instead. Wait until you see the amount of stars over the heads of the pilots in the aviation photographs.

Back to the racing... I mentioned in a previous blog that the Mr. Chevrolet would appear, and here we have his car, a Cornelean.

And this is Mr. Chevrolet, himself!  The GM Heritage Center, has an excellent history of the Chevrolet brand.  Sorry, I promised non-verbose, and the article is very well researched and written.

On these last few photos, I have very little information.  The next one is an interesting departure from the style of the photos, I thought.  It's a bit on the daring side compared to most of the other photos in the collection, walking right up into the cockpit and snapping away.  I've seen this type of boldness in a few other photos that can only be attributed to Ivan.  Some people look downright angry at the presence of a camera.  An interesting point in this photo.  The subject has a nice white collared shirt and tie on, under his racing suit!

Next up, we have Art Klein.  Mr. Klein raced five times at Indy but never made it to the top 10.  In fact, he never finished a race at Indianapolis.

Finally, we have a racer who did not qualify, and I'm going to go out on limb here, and speculate that this is Jack LeCain.  He was disqualified, according to this site, because there were too many Peugeots!  I'm guessing on this, because no car number is given for Mr. LeCain, but it does seem to fit.  Some more research might prove interesting, since I note that his was not the slowest qualifying time for Peugeots.  

I love the composition of this photo, as well.  The subject seems to float in the foreground and the people in the  grandstands seem to melt away behind. The action enters from the right, and the angle of the track and the motion of the men walking alongside suggest that the car is rolling down downhill, and the gentleman behind has his hand on the wheel, which adds interest.  The prominent bricks of the racetrack are well-displayed in this photo, as well, but you can tell they're not perfectly laid.  That lends a bit of tension, which gives your eye something to meander over, (why aren't they perfect?) which keeps some interest in the photograph. Finally, they're both intently looking at something outside of the frame to the left which also adds interest by connecting us with the men, emotionally.  What are they expecting over there?  (I guess I somehow switched out of non-verbose mode)

I'd like to use this previous photo as an opportunity to give a shout out to my excellent photography professor, Dr. Olga Workman.  It wasn't until I took her class at Walden University that I was able to appreciate the interesting compositional elements of some of these photographs.  A big part of this blog is recognizing which photos have merit, and why to include them.  (of course some of them need to be included regardless of their composition)  If I could have justified it, I would have changed majors to photography. Some of my photos for her photography course are here. Thanks, Dr. Workman!

Now, at the end off all the Indy 500 photos is a post card with an airship.  I have seen an airship in the background on photos of this race, and perhaps this is the ship! Stanley was also an Early Bird, and Ivan may have known him at the Curtiss factory, which we'll see before too long.

That's a wrap on the Indy 500 photos, folks!  I'm going to be delayed a bit on the next post a bit while I start researching a bit of Ivan's racing background.  I didn't put in the research effort on the Indy 500 photos since it wasn't directly related to Ivan's life.  However, they are great photos and the blog is, after all, about the collection. 

-kpw

Indy 500 1915 post 2

Just going to jump right back in here with a photo of Ralph DePalma pulling out of the garage.  I recently found another photo reproduction of this event just a few seconds later, as they pull past the garages.  It's fun to know that my grandfather was right there watching it unfold, nearly 100 years ago.

Maybe this frustration in wanting to place the photos in a chronological sequence is becoming more clear, now.  Anyway, this next photo is a shot of DePalma in the pits, changing a tire.  Did these guys change their own tires?  I don't see him standing around having a little refreshment.  Also, notice where the photographer is standing.  We're standing on the track to take this photo!?

Here's another shot from the pits showing the jack being removed, and I'm still astonished at the guys casually walking up and down.  I was thinking that it might be qualifying, but who changes tires in qualifying?  Are they race officials?  This jack is much better than the one than we saw in 1913.

A weary-looking Dario Resta, who took second place this year.  I'd probably look this tired after six-plus hours of racing, too.  He'll cheer up when they write him a check for $10,900.  The star indicates that he died, as I've mentioned earlier.  Resta died racing in England in 1924.  Interestingly, his death indirectly lead the racing world to abandon using riding mechanics.

Some close racing.  Most of the photos of the actual racing are of tiny cars way down the track, so I'm trying to pull out the ones that are closer action. Dario Resta (#3) looks to me to be passing Willie Haupt (#28).  The tires on Resta's car appear to be leaning farther forward to me, and they seem like a narrower oval.  I'm sure you could calculate the car's speed if you knew the camera's shutter speed.  Speaking of speed, can you imagine winning this race in a 1962 VW bug? Heck, you might have been competitive in a VW bus!

This next photo is of Gil Anderson and his riding mechanic, who placed third.  Gil's teeth look like they have filled in between with dirt and oil from the race. You have my word that I did no photo-editing on this closeup. I read somewhere that these cars burned a huge amount of oil, and you can see the smoke in the first few pictures of the start of the race.  It looks to me like he wiped his teeth with a rag and the excess stayed in between. Many of the racer's faces are white where their goggles were, when removed for a photo.

Directly following this photo in the scrapbook is the following photo of Anderson on the track.

I'm not sure of the identity of this next driver, since there are quite a few Stutz cars in this race.  However, I particularly love expressions of the two boys to the right in the photo.

Howdy Wilcox, who finished seventh is pictured after a five or six photos of the race which are unremarkable.  I thought this next photo was a good candid capture, though.  You just don't see many unposed photos of the racers like this. Howard Samuel Wilcox died in an accident at Altoona in 1923.

Immediately following the photo above is this photo of Wilcox and his riding mechanic probably just following the race.  Goggles up and greasy, they're either just pulling off the track, or perhaps in for a pit stop.

I'll end here for this post.  There are many more photos to come, including Eddie Rickenbacker, Eddie O'Donnell, Bob Burman, Billy Carlson, Louis Chevrolet, and more.  It's beginning to look like two more posts on this race!

-kpw

1914 Indy 500 Continued...

It has been a very busy week with school, but I'm winding down this afternoon and plowing into the scrapbooks.  I don't handle these very much, since they are so delicate, and they are just shy of 100 years old.  It's apparent that my grandfather enjoyed them, and must have gone through them with friends many times over the years.  When I do get to slow down and pay attention to each photo, do some internet searching and cross-referencing of other photos in the scrapbook, it's an adventure.  It really is like discovering an old abandoned house, or warehouse full of related items that tell a story once you look at them in context.


This weekend I'm finishing up the Indianapolis 500 from 1914.  There are so many photos that are exceptional that I'm hard pressed to choose, and I have a fair collection to show you today, so I'll get  started!


I'll begin with a great photo of René Thomas in his car.  I'm pretty sure this is following the race, but it's arranged very near the beginning of the sequence of photos in the book.

This next photo, is actually a scan of 2/3 of a page of the scrapbook.  I just couldn't decide which of them I would eliminate, and I thought it would give a good feel for what a page looks like.  It was nothing fancy, just some glue and the page in the scrapbook.  The photos aren't  carefully cut, and you may be able to see that they were not particularly carefully developed, either.  One interesting aspect that I've been meaning to mention can be seen in the photo in the lower left.  You see this in many racing photos in the early years of racing.  It's caused by the way the shutter worked in old cameras, and began allowing light to strike the emulsion at the bottom, working its way up.  Here's a fantastic explanation, with an animation to drive home the point.  The same photo gives a good view of the famous bricks of the speedway.

This is probably one of the most interesting photos of the bunch, to me.  I love the feeling of speed and the closeness of the action. It is uncharacteristic of many of his photos, more daring, and creative.  Maybe he was just too lazy to stand up and take the photo?  Part of the fun of exploring photos is that they connect you to the photographer, as well as the event.  

I love the idea by the great photographer, Gary Winogrand, where he said that "...putting four edges around a collection of information or facts transforms it".  This was just a racecar going past my grandfather as he sat in the grass, and he put his four edges around this in a really well composed photo, probably spontaneously.  Look at how the scene opens up from the left.  The road divides the frame vertically, organizing the image. The lines of the road opening up as it leads to the right dragging your eye along with the action.  The blurry foreground pushes your eye up into the action as it comes into focus, and the grandstands in the back contains people looking for the next car to come by as this one roars out of the photo.  This car is driven by Georges Boillot.

Next is a photo of René Thomas (center), the race winner, and Barney Oldfield on the left.  I'm not sure who the other person is, but I think it's his mechanic.  The other Stutz drivers were Gil Anderson and Earl Cooper, neither of whom finished the race, and this guy's face is still pretty dirty.  I absolutely love the body language and the eye lines here.  The guy on the right, leaning in toward the race winner, and Oldfield with his stogie, giving him a look.

I wanted to include this photo of the pits area since it provided some information you don't usually see in photos of the race.  Again, it connects me to what my grandfather found interesting.  My eye was drawn to the keg of gasoline, and the various tools, buckets, and gestures by the gents in the pits.  I also like the depth of field, and how it excludes some of the people who are part of the conversation.

Here's a shot of Barney Oldfield cruising by, a quick glance for the photograph.  Awesome.  I love his stogie, hard to believe he raced with this (at least with one that was lit), and he's pulling off the track, so very obviously post race.

Another really well-composed photo, I thought.  Gil Anderson in car 24 goes screaming past at 90+ miles per hour.  Probably more, but I'm no race historian.  I figure if these guys qualified at 90 mph, they must have hit 100 at times.  I appreciate the lines here, again.  The perspective gives a sense of grandeur - the amount of folks watching the race, and the distance of that section of the course.  He opens up the depth of field going really deep, so that nearly the whole scene is in focus.  To me, this is a defining photo in some ways.  It tells me that it wasn't a great camera, and the photo wasn't given a whole lot of care in processing.  Van's photos are crystal clear and are taken on good equipment.  I don't know what the camera was, but all of these photos are 3x5 format.

I alluded to a wreck in the last post, and here it is.  I out of time to research this, but if someone has some information, please post!  I'm posting this for the same reason as the tires/pits photo; you just very rarely see this aspect of the early races.  Here's the car driven by Joe Dawson.  The wikipedia entry cites "Crash BS".  I'm sure Joe agreed.

Just a couple more photos to wrap up this section of the scrapbook.  First is a great photo of Spencer Wishart, although probably not a great action photo of him racing.  I'm like a broken record here, but again I get a glimpse of what was important to Ivan.  He's clearly into racing by this age, and he knows first hand what racing is about.  It's not always winning the race, and this photo and the ones preceding it show that he was connected to the drama of the whole race, not just the big win.

Jules Goux congratulates Barney Oldfield after the race.

Finally, I believe this is the number 16 car of René Thomas winning the 1914 Indianapolis 500.  The car is the right shape, and the number appears to be 16 on the car (with a magnifying glass).  The sign to the flagger's right reads "16".  I wonder why he didn't make his way further down there to capture this, but I can imagine it was a zoo around the finish line.  The camera was by no means a new invention at the time, and there were plenty of photographers at the race. 

Next photos will be of the Indy 500 in 1915, with a couple of very good photos of Eddie Rickenbacker.  The first photo captures his high hopes at the beginning of the race. Rickenbacker threw a rod at just over half way through the race, and the second photo shows the disappointment as he exits his car to take it all in.

-kpw