VOLUME 58 ISSUE 34 AUGUST 24, 2021 P117
run. A total of 89 riders started
from Columbus, Ohio, on the final
leg of the run at six in the morn-
ing. 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 assess-
ments to the press, but privately
they were telling the FAM the bad
news: The Speedway's racing
surface was loose, deep and eas-
ily 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 condi-
tion 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 can-
not 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:
Motorcycle Race
