Harroun Wins First Indy 500: Motorsport Born in 1911

Eighty thousand people came to watch 40 men drive cars around a brick track for six hours, and American motorsport was born. Ray Harroun won the first Indianapolis 500 on May 30, 1911, driving a Marmon Wasp to victory at an average speed of 74.6 miles per hour in a race that lasted 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 8 seconds. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway had opened in 1909 as a testing facility for the growing automobile industry. Its original crushed-rock surface disintegrated during early races, causing fatal accidents, and owner Carl Fisher ordered it repaved with 3.2 million bricks, earning the track its enduring nickname, "The Brickyard." Fisher conceived the 500-mile race as a single, spectacular annual event that would draw national attention. Harroun's Marmon Wasp was unusual. Most race cars of the era carried two people: a driver and a riding mechanic who watched for overtaking cars and monitored the engine. Harroun drove alone, mounting a rear-view mirror on his car, reportedly the first use of one in auto racing. His competitors protested, but officials allowed it. The race drew 40 starters on the first three-row grid. Harroun did not lead for most of the event, running a conservative pace while faster drivers burned out their tires and engines. His strategy worked. He crossed the finish line first and collected the $14,250 winner's purse. One driver, Arthur Greiner, was killed during the race when his car crashed on lap 13, and his riding mechanic Sam Dickson also died. Speed and death were inseparable in early motorsport, and the Indianapolis 500 would see fatalities at the track through much of the twentieth century before modern safety innovations reduced the toll. The race became an American institution, held every Memorial Day weekend except during the two world wars. The Indianapolis 500 remains the largest single-day sporting event in the world by attendance, routinely drawing over 300,000 spectators to watch cars circle the same rectangle of Indiana farmland that Carl Fisher paved with bricks 115 years ago.