The 1952 Indy 500

[Ryan]

Jim Rogacki is an engineer from Buffalo, NY. Like most of his profession, he's more than a bit detail oriented. As such, rather than rewrite his story I thought it would be best just leave it ...

To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.

[Truckedup]

All those cars are just a little different from each other.#26 is sleeker looking to me.

[racerjohnson]

Every car is different. How refreshing. I'm a sucker for the Ferrari.

So is the Cummins Diesel Special diesel powered or just sponsored?
Sure would prove that even diesel race cars have been tried before.

And where are they now?

[Ebbsspeed]

Looking at the race results, only one of the cars was eliminated due to what was called a "spin out". No accidents, must have been quite a bit safer than it appeared. Great pictures, thanks for sharing!

[JeffreyJames]

Yeah, that Cummins really stuck out as well at the Novin Pure Oil and the Ferrari (of course). Those images are beautiful and really can lend a bunch of ideas towards what we are building. There were a few blisters that I would love to incorporate into my coupe as well as the beautiful steering arms. Chalk another one up for Good ol' Buffalo, NY. Thanks Jim and Ryan for sharing.

[dodgedartgt]

The Cummins Diesel Special caught my eye as well, has the most modern, sleek, streamlined look to my eye. I also wonder about the engine and how it performed prior to supercharger failure.
Mike

edit
Just looked at the Race scoring box again...
It lists the car as Kurtis chassis and Cummins engine, cool.

edit #2
In fact, using Wikipedia (this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Agabashian ), it shows Fred as having started on the pole in this race. In fact, 21 of 33 qualifiers that year were Kurtis chassis', that is pretty incredible considering there were still so many independents.

[Richard D]

Originally Posted by dodgedartgt

The Cummins Diesel Special caught my eye as well, has the most modern, sleek, streamlined look to my eye.

I agree; I was suprised when I looked at the larger image and saw "Cummins Diesel".

[5window]

Did you notice the racing surface is still bricks?

[Zumo]

Where these cars fabricated from scratch? Or did they start out from an original car/frame?

[29 sedanman]

Very good post with the track opening this weekend. I just got back from lunch and seen the Penske haulers going down 16th st heading for the track. I love this month since I can sit in my office and listen to them practice all week during may.

It is so different from the pictures from your post but it is still the 500!

[Chaz]

These are the cars that made the Indy 500 what it was! Can you even imagine wrestling one of those steering wheels for four hours?
Then Jim Clark and Bobby Marshman came along..I sure miss those old roadsters. Crap, I'm old!
Great post , Ryan

[Byron Crump]

I dig the roadster years of Indy...and as a goofy OT side note a game for the Nintendo Wii my daughter has is called Indy Car Legends and it feature cars from the end of the roadster period (early 60's) and ends in the early 70's with rear engines. The game has cool cars in it and when you are waiting to play it tells you history on the drivers, the track, and so on. It talked in the game how the original track surface was horrid and then how long it was brick and when it was covered except for the remaing brick. The rest of it is below the surface still. Cool deal if your kid happens to have a Wii you might want to pick it up.

[Scrumpy]

Nice post! Love the wheel chock in pic 5. Some of the driver names. Bettenhouser, Bennie Parsons, ...

[Bort62]

Fantastic!

[Zumo]

Here something cool I found:

"J.C. Agajanian backed many successful racecars and drivers. At age 22, Troy Ruttman piloted this Agajanian Special to victory at the 1952 Indianapolis 500. Although the car caught fire at a routine pit stop, Ruthman restarted and finished first at an average speed of over 128 miles per hour. His closest competitor, Bill Vukovich, was eliminated when he crashed into a wall with only five minutes to go. To improve stopping power, racecars like the Agajanian Special were equipped with disc brakes, which had been used on military aircraft during World War II to enable them to land safely on short runways."

and Current pics:

[Ryan]

Check out Sam Hanks' #18 car... Now that's a race car... Assuming all of that paint is BLACK.

[Oldmanolds]

Hey if your time is pretty flexible come on to Indianapolis on Wed. May 21st for Community Day.Hell for $7.00 you can get into the track,drive around it,see all the old roadsters and even hit the museum all for the same price.And they don't rape you for a good cold beer.

[RichFox]

As a young man I went to Bud Winfield's to get a cam reground for my early Chrysler. Mr. Winfield showed me half of a 255 Offy and told me that Troy Ruttman had blown it in practice at Indy and so they sawed it in hald to get a better look at wall thickness and such. To me it was as though I was present at the second comming. Wish I had spent more time trying to talk to him. Mr. Winfield was very hard of hearing and not easy to converse with.

[Steve Hedke]

Most of the Indy cars of that day were bought in Los Angeles. The chassis were Kurtiss, the engines usually Offy. In order to win, you stuck close to this formula.

Cummins diesel had run a diesel engined car several times over the years. They were fuel efficient but heavy and not too fast. They could finish but never contended for the win. Effective for advertising though.

Many bodies were hand built. Hot rods of the day looked to Indy and Formula cars for inspiration. Lots of hot rodders worked on teams building cars.

[Stevie G]

The Cummins car was kicking major but until...The intake screen (Located beneath the car) became plugged with rubber from the track surface and the car literally choked.
I can't begin to imagine why someone would put the air intake under the car.
The really neat part, the engine was laid on it's side. They reworked the oil sump and pickup to accomodate the change in orientation.
i think this was on a special on discovery or TLC.

Car and Driver article