The diesel’s debut at the Brickyard in ‘31: Dave Evans at the wheel, with riding mechanic Thane Houser and engine company founder Clessie Cummins. ARTEMIS IMAGES

ARTEMIS IMAGES

Run a motor race over a span of 92 years, and you are bound to attract some nutball machinery created by mildly demented but extravagantly innovative mechanical geniuses. Practically every possible iteration of the internal-combustion engine has appeared at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's 87 annual 500-milers at one time or another, as well as the odd turbine and enough double-overhead-camshaft powerplants to make aluminum lawn furniture for the entire population of Bangladesh.

Most have run on gasoline and methanol-alcohol blends with occasional doses of nitro. But there have been a few—five to be exact—propelled by the same murky gunk favored by long-haul truckers, bulldozer operators, and heating contractors.

We speak of that smoky, noisy, rattly road-crushing torque monster called the diesel. By all logical calculations, such an engine makes about as much sense in a racing car as Kathy Bates in a bikini. Diesels are low-revving stump pullers favored for heavy-lifting industrial applications. Owing to their size, bulk, and modest horsepower outputs when compared with conventional internal-combustion engines, few dreamed of employing a diesel at Indy until young Clessie Lyle Cummins arrived on the scene. A classic American backyard genius from Honey Creek, Indiana, with nothing more than an eighth-grade education, he had built his own automobile—engine and all—by the age of 15. As a fresh-faced kid of 22, he had served on Ray Harroun's 1911 Indy-winning Marmon Wasp pit crew.

By 1930, Cummins was operating his fledging diesel-engine manufacturing firm in Columbus, Indiana, producing neat and compact four-stroke four-bangers primarily for marine use. But the boat business was reeling under the Great Depression, and Cummins decided to take a crack at the Indianapolis 500 with one of his modified diesels, thinking it might generate the publicity boost his firm needed. Speedway owner and AAA Contest Board boss Eddie Rickenbacker, America's greatest ace in World War I, offered Cummins a spot on the 1931 grid with this proviso: The car had to average at least 70 mph (lap speeds for the all-winning Millers and Duesenbergs of the day were in the 110-to-115-mph range). It could then run as a "special engineering" entry but would be ineligible for prize money.

Rickenbacker was looking for entries of any form in the ravaged economy and was more than happy to welcome a Cummins diesel or practically any other race car that appeared at the speedway's gate. The year before he had introduced the so-called junk formula that opened the Indy 500 to stock-block engines up to 366 cubic inches (6.0 liters) after it was judged that the ultra-exotic 91.5-cubic-inch (1.5 liter) supercharged, high-revving straight-eights developed in the Roaring '20s were too expensive for current economic conditions.

Clessie Cummins commissioned August Duesenberg of the famed racing brotherhood to modify a Model A Duesy passenger-car chassis to accommodate a 361-cubic-inch four-cylinder, three-valve Model U marine diesel making 85 horsepower.

The new formula required a riding mechanic, an insane addition that produced terrible carnage until single-seaters were again mandated in 1938. The new Cummins arrived at the speedway weighing a hefty 3389 pounds, the second heaviest car in the field.

The driver would be Dave Evans, a veteran of three 500-milers, with expert wrench Thane Houser in the second seat. Evans easily broke through Rickenbacker's 70-mph barrier and qualified at 96.871 mph, although that was slowest in the field and 19 mph less than defending champion Billy Arnold's quick time of 116.080 mph.

The car had already run just north of 100 mph during a trial at Daytona Beach earlier in the year, and Cummins was optimistic that a pace in the mid-80s, without pit stops, could achieve a high finish. No one had ever attempted to run the 500 miles nonstop. Evans and Houser were fitted with extra padding in the car's cockpit to help them tolerate the pounding on the speedway's lumpy brick surface.

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