Larry Lawrence | August 29, 2021
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
This Cycle News Archives Column is reprinted from the August 22, 2007 issue. CN has hundreds of past Archives columns in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road -Editor.
Indy’s First Motorcycle Race
Tremendous excitement was generated by the announcement of MotoGP coming to the fabled Indianapolis Motor Speedway back in 2008. Seeing the world’s best motorcycle racers speeding around the historic Speedway is a milestone in the history of motorcycle competition and a race that should not be missed.
One could only hope that the MotoGP at Indy would go better than the first motorcycle race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway nearly 100 years ago.
One thing can be said with certainty on that first motorcycle race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1909: It was a failure of epic proportions.
Rains kept the crowds away and made the newly built crushed limestone and tar a goopy mess. The biggest racing star of the day crashed heavily and nearly died, prompting a boycott by most of the factory riders.
It couldn’t have gotten much worse.
The first race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway wasn’t just any race. It was to be the biggest motorcycle racing event of the year—the cornerstone of the eighth annual national convention of the Federation of Motorcyclists (FAM). The motorcycling publications of the era heralded the race well in advance of its August date. It was to feature the best racers of the day, coming from all across the nation to compete for prestigious national championships.
Leading up to the Indy race was an FAM National Endurance Run from Cleveland to Indianapolis. Motorcycle clubs from across the country sent their best riders to contest the endurance run, and it was covered extensively in the motorcycling press, as well as by the newspapers of Indianapolis.
The Indianapolis press welcomed the FAM convention with open arms. Only the Indianapolis News ran a somewhat humorous cartoon on its front page showing a group of smiling riders speeding into town with John Q. Public running for cover, holding his hat, trying to get away from the noisy bikes.
A large crowd gathered at the Denison Hotel in downtown Indianapolis on Wednesday, August 11, for the finish of the endurance run. A total of 89 riders started from Columbus, Ohio, on the final leg of the run at six in the morning. A parade downtown greeted the car carrying FAM officials, which included Oscar Hedstrom, co-founder of Indian Motorcycles. Joseph De Salvo of Chicago and John McCarver of Indianapolis were the first riders to arrive, coming in at 5:24 p.m., nearly 12 hours after they’d left Columbus. That 200-mile trip today on I-70 takes about three hours.
What FAM officials learned upon their arrival in Indianapolis was not good. Several riders had arrived days earlier by train and gone to the track to make test runs. In hopes of still getting a good crowd and possibly by way of pressure from the track officials, the riders issued rosy assessments to the press, but privately they were telling the FAM the bad news: The Speedway’s racing surface was loose, deep and easily rutted. It was so bad that tires were coming off the rims under the pounding of the mile-a-minute speed. Respected riders Stanley Kellogg and Walter Goerke tested at the Speedway and told FAM race chairman Herbert Githens that the track was far from ready to host a race, especially one of National Championship caliber.
Tensions were high. Much was riding on this race. It was the much-anticipated debut of the track, the largest ever built in America. Behind schedule and over budget, the investors in the track, headed by Indianapolis industrialist Carl Fisher (who later developed Miami Beach), were depending on a dazzling opening.
Fisher issued a strangely worded and somewhat arrogant statement to the press after newspapers reported the riders’ apprehension: “The Speedway will positively be in finished condition and ready for record time. The track is better now than the Brooklands ever was. We have double the force of men working day and night, smoothing out the few remaining defects, and there is no reason why records cannot be broken. The races on the track tomorrow will demonstrate the truth of this assertion, as the practices have already done.”
Instead of the hoped-for grand opening, riders were talking strike. Githens told the riders in no uncertain terms that too much was riding on this event and that any rider who did not compete would be suspended from the FAM for 60 days.
Now keep in mind that these were the best riders of the era: Indian’s star Jake DeRosier, the young up-and-comer Charles “Fearless” Balke, Chicago speedster Fred Huyck, Thor’s John Merz, board-track star Ray Seymour, Merkel ace Stanley Kellogg, and veteran A.G. Chapple from New York City. It was the best of the best—riders who had the steely nerve to race on board tracks on racing machines with no clutch, much less brakes. These were the riders who were telling the FAM that Indy was unridable.
Riders tried to compromise by asking the FAM if they could race their smaller machines, thus eliminating the meet’s championship status, but the FAM stood firm. The riders would have to ride their championship bikes or face the consequences. Thursday’s races had been rained out and a mucky track faced the riders the next day—Friday the 13th. Under threat of suspension, riders took to the track. It wasn’t long before things went from bad to worse. Jake DeRosier crashed in the 10-Mile Professional race and hit a fencepost. To give some perspective, DeRosier was the Miguel Duhamel of his day—he was even French Canadian, a veteran and well-liked by fans and fellow riders. The front tire of his factory Indian simply tore off the rim. There was nothing DeRosier could have done.
DeRosier at first thought he was okay. He walked away from the crash, but he soon felt sick. He was found to have internal injuries and was admitted to the hospital in serious condition. Doctors said he would not be able to sit up for six months. The determined DeRosier proved them wrong and quickly recovered. He would reach the pinnacle of his career two years later, when he held every FAM speed record for professional riders at the conclusion of 1911.
After DeRosier’s crash, most of the factories withdrew their entries, saving riders from the threatened FAM suspension. The Thor team was the only one not to withdraw, and it was three Thor riders and a young independent local named E.G. Baker (who went on to become the great “Cannonball” Baker) who lined up for what would be the final race, the 10-mile Amateur Championship. The rest of the riders lined the fence at the starting line and jeered and yelled insults at the four who had decided to race.
J.S. Tormey opened up a huge lead on his factory Thor, but, almost predictably, Tormey’s rear tire was torn from the rim, and he was thrown, unhurt, from the bike. Almost fittingly, the only non-factory rider, Baker, won the race on his privately entered Indian.
After that race, the organizers decided to pull the plug on the event. Races to be held on Saturday were canceled. The FAM walked away with a bruised reputation. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway and local papers largely ignored the controversy after the fact, acting almost as if the event never happened and quickly turning their attention to upcoming auto races.
The 1909 Indy motorcycle race eventually faded from memory and was nearly lost to time, until a century later, rediscovered by history in preparation for the second motorcycle race to be held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. CN