There has always been a great stature with being the first to achieve a remarkable feat. Edmund Hillary’s name became synonymous with Mount Everest following his conquering of the peak in 1953, while Neil Armstrong earned a life-time of iconography by beating Buzz Aldrin to the front door of Apollo 11 once the ship landed on the moon. This same argument can also be applied to the Indianapolis 500, where victory in the first ever running of the event helped turn Ray Harroun from a local automotive mechanic into a Brickyard idol.

When the Indianapolis 500 was first conceived in 1911, over 46 cars $500 entry fee to participate in the inaugural running of the event, with late withdrawals and failures to meet the required fee soon narrowing the field to 40 by the time Memorial Day weekend finally arrived. Cars and racers from all walks were eligible to participate in the race, including internationally renowned marks such Mercedes and Benz of Germany and Fiat of Italy, as well as the machines of the Pope-Harford team who discovered their racer for the event simply by driving their car cross country from their base in Massachusetts to Indianapolis. In terms of drivers they included Lewis Strang, the first official entrant of the race, as well as future ‘500 winners Joe Dawson and Ralph De Palma. Of all of the entries however there was one man and one machine that garnered the most interest. In the previous year Ray Harroun, an engineer for the Marmon corporation and former participant in the Chicago to New York record breaking run of 1903, had announced his retirement from motor sport following the 1910 AAA racing season, but swayed by the large financial incentive of the 500 mile race decided to come out of retirement to participate in the inaugural event.

Dubbed ‘the little professor’, Harroun played an essential part in designing the car which he would use to tackle the 500 miles, a machine initially based on the Marmon company’s type 32 roadster but soon to garner a life of it’s own with it’s own infamy and technical innovations. The Marmon Wasp as it came to be known was a curious looking beast, powered by a straight six litre engine and crowned by its elongated pointed rear end and bright yellow colour scheme which helped to give the machine its nickname. The most interesting innovation however could be found in the drivers cockpit, whilst other drivers would be joined in the drivers seat by a riding mechanic to help aid their progress through the energy-strapping 500 miles Harroun would tackle the event solo. Although some made the argument that Harroun’s decision to design the Wasp in this way was one down to aerodynamics or to alleviate the increased weight of carrying a passenger with him for the race, according to Harroun’s son the reasoning was more for humanitarian reasons; feeling that because of motor sport’s danger at the time that Harroun didn’t want to have another man risk his life for his pursuit should he be involved in an accident.

Race day finally dawned on the 30th of May, 1911, the culmination of a years worth of preparation and hype from Fisher and his associates to create a racing event worthy of his speedway. A bumper crowd, well above anything that the Speedway had been accustomed to previously came out for the race, justifying almost immediately the decision for the Memorial Day date for the event to take place. Unlike in most European events at the time which relied on a lottery draw Grid position for the race would be decided on the date in which applicants posted their applications for the event, giving pole position for the race to Lewis Strang and leaving Billy Knipper’s Benz to back up the field. The grid was set up in rows of five except for the front row, which consisted of four cars and Carl Fisher’s personal Stoddard Drayton car which he would drive around on the first lap of the race himself with the rest of the field. Debate rages as to the reasons behind Fisher’s decision to do this, some argue that with the scale of the event and the increased level of danger that came with the race that Fisher wanted to perform a sighter lap of the circuit himself before allowing his participants to run at full speed, whilst others argued that a slow lap would allow for spectators to get a good view of the cars in the event before they reached their “blinding,” 90-mph racing speeds. Regardless of his reasoning his decision was said to be the first example of the use of a pace car in motor sport, something which has become instrumental to American motor racing to this day.

At the end of the first lap Fisher pulled from the track and the first Indianapolis 500 had officially begun, with Johnny Aitken, starting from the fourth spot, moving into an early lead from the outside of the front row, soon however he was surpassed first by Spencer Wishart’s Mercedes and then eventually by David L. Bruce-Brown’s Fiat which would go on to dominate the first half of the event. Harroun meanwhile slowly began to work his way through the field from his 32nd starting position, and nearing the half-way point overtook Bruce-Brown to lead the race for the first time in the day, it was there that Harroun then begun an intense duel with the Lozier machine of Ralph Mulford, only coming to a head when Mulford was forced to change his tyres near the 340 mile mark, allowing Harroun to score a margin of one minute and 34 seconds over Mulford and in the process pick up the victory. Harroun’s final statistics for the race came in at six hours and 42 minutes, with 35 laps worth of relief where his seat in the Wasp was driven instead by Cyrus Patschke and an average speed of 74.6mph. In victory lane Harroun held a Mona Lisa smile as the accolades were thrust upon him, but visibly worn out at this feat of endurance he had just conquered. Shortly afterwards Harroun held up the promise he made prior to the 500 and once again re-entered retirement, in the process becoming the only man ever to win the Indianapolis 500 in his only attempt at the race and knowing that his place as a part of Indianapolis’ legacy was secured.

In today’s video we feature Ray Harroun’s 1961 appearance on the game-show “I’ve Got A Secret”, alongside some young kid who had just won the Indianapolis 500 a few weeks previously.