indianapolis500

"Gil Anderson in Stutz Wins At World's Record Speed" "Indianapolis Product Places First and Second at Gotham Speedway--American Cars Finish in Five Top Positions." "Today, Anderson in his Stutz won the opening 350-mile race on the new 2-mile board speedway, averaging 102.6 miles per hour for the distance and beating records made on all other tracks..." Motor Age28(16)(14 October 1915): pp. 5-6. books.google.com/books?id=Mk4fAQAAMAAJ&lpg=RA15-PA5&a...

Here's his wikipedia entry (apparently his name was Andersen, born in Norway; but it was often spelled Anderson in American publicity and press): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Andersen

The Motor Age article describes the October 9, 1915 running of the first Astor Cup race at Sheepshead Bay Speedway, which fits the Bain order for this picture, though the Wikipedia caption for this picture says it is from the Indianapolis 500, which was on May 31, but gives no attribution. Date on negative is 10/9/15, suggesting it is from the October 9th race in Brooklyn. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_Indianapolis_500 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Cup_(auto_race) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheepshead_Bay_Race_Track

A report about the race is in The sun, October 10, 1915, Second Section Sporting and Automobiles, Page 15. Gil Andersen/Anderson obviously used a 1915 Stutz White Squadron racer, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stutz_Motor_Company.

Thank you all for the great research. The link to the Motor Age magazine was especially fascinating, pennylrichardsca, full of a variety of images having to do with the race and the track. We'll add the correction to the spelling of the name to this record the next time we update.

Depalma & his mechanic led the 1912 Indy 500 for 196 of it's 200 laps. Their Mercedes cracked a piston on the fourth turn of the final lap. They jumped out of the car & pushed it across the finish line. However, they lost the race to Joe Dawson. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_Indianapolis_500 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_DePalma

Thanks for this information. We'll add a note to the source catalog.

Other Bain/LOC photos of Ralph de Palma:

Wikipedia's caption on the photo says this:

This is a photo of driver Mel Marquette's wrecked McFarlan racing car at the 1912 Indianapolis 500. Marquette finished 19th in the race, two places ahead of Eddie Rickenbacker, who was put out of the race with a broken intake valve.

Reference: Wikipedia: McFarlan Automobile