Chapter 11

Speed King in Auto Racing

On Memorial Day the following year, young Eddie Rickenbacker went back to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to race again. This time he was going to drive the Red Wing Special himself with a mechanic riding beside him. Each car had to make 200 laps, or trips around the two-and-one-half mile track, to complete the race. Twenty-four cars were racing.

The race was supposed to start at ten o’clock in the morning. Long before daylight, however, crowds of people started to come. They came in automobiles and horse-drawn buggies and wagons. Some rode horseback. Shortly before ten o’clock the band began to play, “Everybody’s Doing it Now,” and the crowd started to clap and cheer. The drivers and mechanics pushed their cars out to their starting positions on the track. Soon all the cars took off for a slow drive of one lap around the track. Then officials dropped a flag to signal that the race was on. (Image 11.1)

Image 11.1: Long before daylight, however, crowds of people started to come. They came in automobiles and horse-drawn buggies and wagons. Some rode horseback.

Eddie pushed his foot hard against the accelerator, making his car surge forward. He rode through a cloud of smoke as cars passed one another, trying to get better positions in the race. He caught the odor of burning rubber as the tires screeched at high speed along the track.

At the end of fifty-five laps, when he was in fourth place, his engine broke down and he had to quit the race. “This isn’t my lucky day,” he said, wiping the dust from his face, “but I’ll win next year.”

By now Eddie was so interested in auto racing that he decided to give up his job demonstrating and selling automobiles to race full time. He went to Des Moines, Iowa, to see Fred Duesenberg, a noted car designer. When he arrived, he found Duesenberg working on three cars to enter the May 1913 race at Indianapolis. “I’d like a job driving cars,” he explained.

“I need mechanics, not drivers,” replied Duesenberg. “I’ll pay you three dollars a day to work for us as a mechanic.”

Eddie swallowed hard. This was only about half as much as he had earned as an automobile demonstrator and salesman. “I’ll do it,” he said, ready to take a chance.

For many long months he and other mechanics worked on the three racecars, called Masons. In the race at Indianapolis, Duesenberg failed to win. Later Eddie drove in several smaller races, some of which he won.

The next big race in which Duesenberg entered his racecars was a 300-mile race at Sioux City, Iowa, in July 1913. He asked Eddie to drive one of the cars and put him in charge of the Duesenberg racing team. Before the race Eddie and the others had a total of seven dollars in their pockets. They knew they had to do well, or quit. The racetrack was a two-mile oval made of a mixture of hard soil and rocks, called gumbo. Often during races, chunks of the gumbo broke loose and drivers constantly had to watch out for them.

The race began at noon. One by one different cars dropped out with engine trouble. One driver and his mechanic were killed in a thundering crash. Gumbo from the track flew up and struck Eddie in the face, but he kept going. His Mason and a popular new car called the Mercer took turns in the lead and sometimes ran wheel to wheel.

Suddenly Eddie noticed that his oil gauge was extremely low. He nudged his mechanic to start pumping oil by hand but nothing happened. The mechanic was slumped in his seat with a red lump on his forehead. He had been knocked out by a chunk of the flying gumbo.

By now they had only four more laps to go. The engine was beginning to smoke from lack of oil, but Eddie knew that he must keep going. “I just have to win,” he thought, “even if the engine burns up.”

At the beginning of the final lap, his engine was red-hot and pounding loudly. The Mercer was right behind him, ready to take the lead. Fortunately, the engine kept going and Eddie won the race.

After he crossed the finish line, one of his tires exploded, but now he didn’t care. He turned and saw one of his teammates, who was driving another Mason, come in third. He jumped out happily and ran over to congratulate him. At the same time, his mechanic came to and joined the celebration.

Eddie collected over $10,000 for winning the race, and his teammate collected $2,500 for coming in third. For several minutes they stood patting one another joyfully. “Now we’re rich,” they cried.

Late that day Eddie sent a telegram to his mother in Columbus, Ohio. His telegram read, “You can believe what you read in the newspapers about me.”

Winning this race made him a national racing hero. He now wanted to drive and learn about other racing cars. He joined a team driving Maxwell cars and won races from coast to coast. He constantly experimented with new parts for his cars. In Rhode Island, for instance, he won a race for $10,000 by using extra-heavy tires that wouldn’t blow out.

Eddie knew that auto racing required both strength and skill. He watched his diet carefully and obtained plenty of rest. He wrote a book of instructions to help his mechanics achieve greater skill. They improved until they could replace wheels or make other similar repairs in only a few seconds. Sometimes the seconds they saved made the difference between winning and losing a race. (Image 11.2)

Image 11.2: He saw an airplane parked in a grassy field and decided to stop and look at it.

In 1915 Eddie organized his own racing team. By the end of 1916 he ranked third among racers in the country, after winning $60,000 in prize money during the year.

One day in November when he was in California for a race, he took a short drive into the country. He saw an airplane parked in a grassy field and decided to stop and look at it.

He drove into the field and pulled up at a small airplane hangar. A young man came out and shook his hand. “Hi, Eddie Rickenbacker,” he said. “I’m Glenn Martin. I recognized you from your picture in newspapers. What brings you here?”

“If I could, I’d like to look over your airplane,” Eddie replied.

Martin explained that he had been flying airplanes for a number of years. Now he owned a small company nearby and was building small “bombers” for the United States Navy. Each bomber had a front seat for the pilot and another directly behind it for the gunner.

Eddie looked over the bomber with great interest. “Would you like to take a ride?” asked Martin.

“Sure,” replied Eddie, excited because this would be his first airplane ride. He climbed happily into the gunner’s seat behind Martin. The airplane took off; he leaned back in his seat, and felt that flying was wonderful.

All his life he had been dizzy when he looked down from high buildings, but he wasn’t dizzy at all. Afterwards he asked Martin, “Why wasn’t I dizzy up in the air?”

“Because you had no edge to look over,” replied Martin. “You had no way of judging how far you were from the ground.”

Eddie was now one of the most popular and widely known auto racers in America. People admired him both for making important improvements in his cars and for his careful driving. He had never had a serious accident in all his racing.

At this time World War I was in progress in Europe, with Germany waging war against a group of countries, including England and France, called the Allies. Because of this war, auto racing in Europe had stopped. The Sunbeam Motor Company of England invited Eddie to come to England in 1916 to design a new car to enter in races for them in the United States.

In December he took off by ship for England, and arrived safely despite the danger of German submarines to ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean. At once he began designing a new racing car that would do 125 miles an hour. For a time, because of his German name, some English officials suspected him of being a spy. The suspicion amused and angered him. At the Sunbeam plant he met English pilots who were flying airplanes over the war front in France. “We need better airplanes,” they said. “We’re fighting the war with our backs against the wall.”

Eddie felt sorry for them. “Maybe I can learn to fly and help them,” he thought.

In February 1917, he received a telephone call from a friend urging him to come home.

“The United States is breaking off relations with Germany,” explained his friend. “Start home at once, because Germany has announced that within five days her submarines will begin to attack American ships.”

Eddie left England immediately. On the way home he thought about the problem the United States would have trying to build up an air force. He decided to offer to organize a squadron made up of his auto racing friends.

When he presented his idea to the Army Signal Corps, the general and his staff turned him down. They looked at him and said, “None of you have a college education. Besides, most of you are too old to fly.”

In April the United States entered the war. Eddie now returned to auto racing. He hoped to enter the next race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but this race was called off because of the war. Then suddenly he received a long distance telephone call that led to great changes in his life.