For every great success story seen in the Indianapolis 500 over the years, there are multiple examples of drivers, teams and crew chiefs who found themselves on the verge of glory on Memorial Day weekend only to have it snatched away from them at the last minute. But whilst some Indycar fans will look at the misfortunes of JR Hildebrand and Paul Tracy as high-profile examples of robbed 500 wins the most heartbreaking of them all may have come from 1912, when an heroic drive from a 500 trailblazer would end in both despair and Brickyard infamy.

After it’s inaugural running in 1911 proved to be an unprecedented success, expectations for the 1912 Indianapolis 500 was high from both local fans as well as the burgeoning motoring community, and speedway officials including owner Carl Fisher attempt to capitalise on the hype in a bid to turn the burgeoning race into a national institution. Despite the success of the previous year, speedway officials made the decision to implement new regulation changes prior to that year’s event. Whilst the minimum qualifying speed of 75 miles per hour was retained, drivers would no be forced to hold on to that speed for a full lap of the circuit, in the process helping to eliminate some of the more casual entries from the field and increase the competitive level of the remainder of the field. The other major rue change saw riding mechanics become mandatory for the race, in the process outlawing any driver from repeating the solo heroics of Ray Harroun and his Marmon Wasp from the previous season. With Harroun standing by his decision to retire from the sport following his victory in the inaugural running of the race, 16 veterans from the 1911 running of the 500 returned to the Brickyard the following season, with last season’s runner up Ralph Mulford and fastest qualifier David Bruce Brown amongst the early favourites for the event.

Another driver who entered the race with high expectations however was 30 year old Ralph DePalma. Born in Biccari, Apulia, Italy, DePalma’s family emigrated to the United States in 1893, and after finding work delivering vegetables and working as a hairdresser as a youn man soon began to develop a passion for bicycle racing, competing in regional events in his native California with mixed success. At the age of twenty-two he began racing motorcycles before switching to the automobile dirt track racing circuit in 1908, where he would quickly make a name for himself by winning three successive AAA championships between 1908 and 1910. In 1911, DePalma was one of 40 drivers who competed in the inaugural running of the Indy 500, finishing on the lead lap in sixth place having led four laps, but having made a high profile switch to drive for the Mercedes car company, DePalma was upbeat about his chances of claiming victory in the 500 come Memorial Day weekend.

Starting the race in the fourth starting spot due to the grid being lined up in order of entry into the race, DePalma moved up to second at the start behind the #3 machine of Teddy Tetzlaff, before surpassing the FIAT driver entering the third lap and building a imposing over the rest of the field unlike any seen at the speedway before or since. DePalma’s domination of the event is total, building up a five-and-a-half lap lead over the field with an advantage of over eleven minutes of second placed Joe Dawson. The two laps led by Tetzlaff at the start of the race had been the only time DePalma had not been in front throughout the race, and such was the level of dominance that many spectators in attendance had began to leave the speedway believing that a DePalma win was a formality.

With three laps to go before the end of the race however, DePalma’s Mercedes began misfiring and slowing on the main-stretch at the conclusion of the lap. Nursed on the 198th lap by DePalma at reduced speed, the car finally loses all power at the end of the backstretch on lap 199, as a broken connecting rod rips a hole in the crankcase. The car’s momentum allows it to carry on through the fourth turn, before coasting to a halt just at the start of the front straightaway with the finishing line within sight. Believing that he is on the final lap of the race, and with over ten minutes in hand over his fellow drivers, DePalma and riding mechanic Rupert Jeffkins then enter themselves into motor racing lore, climbing from the vehicle and begin pushing it down the five-eighths of a mile main-stretch toward the start-finish line, sparking cheers and appreciation from the near 80,000 people in attendance for the race.

As the Mercedes duo push their 1.3 tonne car slowly towards the line, Joe Dawson in the Blue and White National machine has began to eat into DePalma’s lead, finally passeing the Italain midway down the main stretch to assume the lead for the concluding two laps, with Teddy Teztlaff claiming second and Hughie Hughes coming home third. DePalma meanwhile would face double heartache as he finally made it to the finish line; despite the efforts of him and his riding mechanic, speedway rules required drivers to complete all laps of the race under their own power, rendering DePalma’s lap void and still leaving the Italian one lap short of the race distance.

With 196 laps led throughout the entire race, DePalma still to this day holds the record for the driver to have led the most laps in a 500 without going on to win the race, whilst Dawson two laps in the lead would the least for any 500 winner until Dan Wheldon surpassed that record in dramatic fashion with his last lap pass on JR Hildebrand in the 2011 500. Although DePalma would continue to remain a superstar of motor racing into the early 1920s, including claiming victory in the 1915 running of the 500, his failure to win the race in 1912 remains the moment that defined his racing career. One that best comes to demonstrate the desire, determination and resilience that go into every 500 effort up and down the field.