The American Automobile Association, Part II

With the death of Samuel D. Butler, the position of Chairman of the Contest Board (which sanctioned and regulated American racing) passed to William Schimpf, a New Yorker with far more knowledge of the financial markets than motor contests. Whereas Butler had been a forceful, dynamic leader in the realm of motor sports, Schimpf was anything but that. One problem - real or perceived - by those inside the sport was that Schimpf was a "nice gentleman, wealthy, but an amateur," at a point where racing was becoming more oriented towards professionalism.

One problem that the Contest Board had to deal with in 1912, was a problem that was to be an ongoing one: money. The 1911 season's sanctioning fees brought the Contest Board approximately $20,000; however, the Board's expenses exceeded $22,000. Schimpf refused to accept his salary of $5,500 for the 1912 season in an effort to balance the books. This was the first of many, many years that the Contest Board would be in similar trouble with the AAA leadership over its tendency towards deficit spending.

In spite of a rough start, Schimpf managed to carve out his role as the Chairman of the Contest Board. It was soon noted that although a gentleman, Schimpf was not a man to be toyed with; the financial markets of that era required a certain killer instinct and the new chairman seemed to have it, and then some. At the end of the 1912 season, the deficit of the previous season was turned into a surplus of about $5,000.

However, 1912 was not without its rough sailing for the Contest Board. The roughest was the running of the Vanderbilt Cup and the Grand Prize events at Milwaukee in late September and early October. Schimpf and the Contest Board awarded the sanction for the Vanderbilt Cup to Milwaukee - since there were not any other bids submitted for the event. The ACA followed the lead of the Contest Board and also held its Grand Prize race at Milwaukee.

The promoters of the events, the Milwaukee Automobile Dealers Association, were enthusiastic, but very inexperienced in the running of races on such a scale of importance. The original circuit selected for the races, at Greenfield, had to be abandoned when "speculators" literally bought up not only all the sites available for grandstands, but rights of way as well. As a result, the site for the events was hurriedly switched to Wawautosa Township, and the promoters had to scramble to prepare the circuit with literally just days remaining before the races were scheduled to start.

The AAA official assigned to the event, New Yorker A. R. Pardington, was an experienced race observer and was appalled by what he found when he arrived. The circuit laid out for the event was in very, very poor shape. Although the promoters were said to have spent something in the neighborhood of $22,000 for work on the roads over which the race was to be run, whatever little good that it had done was literally washed away when heavy rain lashed the track just days prior to the first event, the Vanderbilt Cup. The damage was so severe that the promoters had to postpone the races a week.

During practice for the Vanderbilt Cup, David Bruce-Brown was among the fastest on the course in his Fiat. Just prior to the circuit being reopened to traffic, Bruce-Brown asked for a few more laps on the course to finish tuning his car for the race. The necessary permission was granted and Bruce-Brown and his riding mechanic Tony Scudelari prepared to set off for several more laps. Fred Wagner, one of the officials for the event - having gained fame for his services as the starter for most of the important races of the day, noticed that the breaker strip was showing on one of the Fiat's tires.

Before Wagner could stop Bruce-Brown, the Fiat accelerated out of the pits and onto the course. As the pair sped down the track, a tire exploded, the Fiat lunged out of control and into a ditch, flipping its occupants onto the side of the track. Bruce-Brown died within minutes of the crash as a result of his injuries. Scudelari lingered for a week before dying.

The Vanderbilt Cup race saw only eight cars start the event. The fatal accident of Bruce-Brown had reduced the true contenders to the aptly named "Terrible Teddy" Tetzlaff in a Fiat and Ralph de Palma in his Mercedes. Despite this, an estimated 60,000 spectators turned out for the Vanderbilt Cup race. The terrible condition of the course played havoc with the tires, and although both Tetzlaff and de Palma went at it from the start, Tetzlaff soon drew away from de Palma and enjoyed a substantial lead when the Mercedes threw a connecting rod with only a dozen laps left in the race.

This left de Palma to struggle with both the problem of his heavy Mercedes almost literally eating tires at a rate, and having to visit the pits regularly that could allow the lighter Mercer of Hughie Hughes to overtake him. De Palma had the good fortune to finish the last lap ahead of the Mercer despite his tires having begun to literally shred on the last few miles before the finish.

Two days after the Vanderbilt Cup race, the ACA Grand Prize race was run over the same course. Several of the drivers who had set out the Vanderbilt Cup entered the Grand Prize race, which did not count as an event on the National Championship Trail. The 12 starters included a trio of Fiats, one of which was driven by Barney Oldfield.

As in the Vanderbilt Cup race, it was Tetzlaff setting the pace, holding a 12 minute lead at the midpoint of the 52-lap race. Only five laps later, the Fiat had its rear axle torn out due to the pounding that it was taking from the rough course and the furious driving of Tetzlaff. This left the Fiat of Caleb Bragg in the lead with a five minute advantage over Ralph de Palma whose Mercedes had been delayed by ignition earlier in the race, but was now in proper order. The gray Mercedes was gaining on the Fiat, reeling it in lap after lap.

As the race entered its final laps, it appeared that de Palma was going to sweep the two races: the Mercedes caught the Fiat with two laps to go. On the final lap, de Palma made a move to pass Bragg for the lead. Unfortunately, de Palma lost control and in a near duplicate of the crash that killed Bruce-Brown, slammed into a ditch at high speed. The car bounced, somersaulted and smashed into the ground. De Palma and riding mechanic Tom Alley were tossed into air, de Palma landing in a cornfield. The cornstalks were like stakes, de Palma being impaled on several as he landed. Suffering a broken leg, severe abdominal injuries as a result of the cornstalks literally ripping him open, it was feared that his injuries were mortal.

Bragg took the flag at the finish line at a greatly reduced speed and immediately returned to the scene of the crash to assist those attending to the injured driver. Alley somehow managed to escape with only a broken collarbone. Although not expected to survive, de Palma not only did so but returned to racing. The death of one of the leading racing drivers of the day and the near-fatal injuries of another coupled with the death of the riding mechanic Scudelari, cast a pall over the entire event and racing in general.

To add insult to injury, despite the large crowds - about 60,000 for each race, the Milwaukee promoters lost money and had problems paying de Palma his prize money for winning the Vanderbilt Cup. Although they eventually did so, it was after several months and some difficulties on the part of those in Milwaukee. When the Motor Cups Holding Company and the Contest Board offered a three year contract for the Vanderbilt Cup and the Grand Prize races, Milwaukee declined. A return to Long Island was out of the question and Savannah also, politely of course, declined to host the races. So although 1912 was successful in many ways, the Milwaukee event left a cloud over racing in America.

The dawn of the 1913 season saw the Contest Board solvent, but with yet another problem that would prove long-lived - the West Coast. The Contest Board had paid scant attention to the West Coast and few events on the National Championship Trail had been held there. The 1913 season would see a dramatic change in that situation. In a nutshell, the problem arose several years before, while Butler was still the Chairman of the Contest Board. Then it was the issue of the West Coast receiving only a small portion of the events sanctioned by the AAA, and - as mentioned - only a very few being designated National Championship events. In 1912, Schimpf waded into this already volatile situation with a heavy hand.

The events surrounding the 1912 Santa Monica races were the catalyst for this crisis. The AAA Zone Supervisor for the area encompassing Southern California was Edward G. Kuster. There were some questions concerning several of the entries. The questions stemmed from the technical specifications of the cars and their placement into their correct classes for the races. The entries for the following were at issue: Regal, Warren-Detroit, Studebaker, and "Flanders." The first three were black sheep to the Contest Board since it was suspected that they participated in non-AAA sanctioned events - "outlaw" races. In the eyes of the Contest Board, this was a sin of great magnitude.

Kuster admitted the Regal and Warren-Detroit entries since their "physical description and motor numbers bear no resemblance" to those which the Contest Board had suspended. The Studebaker entry was a late entry according to the Contest Board and therefore should not be accepted; also, it appeared that the cars were entered for the wrong class since their engines were too large for the class listed on the paperwork. The cars were admitted because the factory representative stated that the cars were "entered for experimental reasons."

Kuster allowed the cars to be entered in their event - the Light Car Class, stock chassis with engines between 161 and 230 cubic inches. However, the engines in the cars had to be replaced since those in the cars were too large for the Light Car class for which they were entered. In addition, the Studebaker name could not be used and any result could not be advertised. Studebaker accepted this and you will find that the "Flanders" driven by Robert Evans and Jack Tower into second and third were entered by the Studebaker Corporation. All this was brokered by the starter of the event, Fred Wagner.

On top of this, driver Bert Dingley was suspended "until said Dingley had filed a report of a benefit race he had promoted for the injured driver Harris Hanshue." Kuster allowed Dingley to participate since he could find nothing in the Contest Board rules which required a promoter to file a report with the Board.

Kuster relayed all this to Schimpf in New York. The chairman promptly banned Kuster and AAA Referee Roy Hillman. Schimpf blasted them for "disregard of orders and reacting to the influence of one Fred Wagner, a starter with no Contest Board official capacity." And for good measure, A. M. Young, the promoter and general manager of the Santa Monica races, was also suspended.

Young was suspended for "failing to provide a suitable race course and competent scorers for the event." Wagner was suspended as well, although why is an open question, since despite his many faults (he was arrogant, cantankerous, and "single-minded") he was also very competent at his duties.

The Contest Board demanded that the timing tapes for the race be delivered to New York where they would be reviewed. When the tapes did not arrive as demanded, the Santa Monica races were declared "null and void." However, one reason that the tapes weren't sent was that there had never been anything in the rules requiring them to be sent to New York.

Kuster and Hillman resigned as AAA officials. They also started a battle with the Contest Board which lasted the remainder of the year. The pair sent a telegram to the Contest Board in which they responded to the points raised by Schimpf one by one. The battle simmered for months.

Near the end of the year, the ante was raised significantly when Kuster, Hillman, and Young all signaled to New York that the West Coast had little need for the AAA and its Contest Board. The Automobile Club of Southern California was in the process of joining the AAA. After the brouhaha over the Santa Monica races, there was strong support for a West Coast organization to sanction races in that part of the country. Any need to have an organization in New York telling those in California how to run their affairs was deemed unnecessary. The Western Automobile Association (WAA) was formed. To the dismay of the Contest Board, the WAA proved very popular and many promoters, entrants, and drivers flocked to the new organization.

The WAA quickly started to plan a racing calendar. The obvious place to start was with the board track at Playa del Rey, the Los Angeles Motordrome. Plans were made to sanction events there as well as the dirt track at Ascot. The idea of adding events at San Bernadino, other California tracks, as well as those in Oregon, Washington, and other Western States caught the imagination of many. Great things were imagined.

Among those joining the WAA was the perpetual thorn-in-the-side of the AAA and the Contest Board, Bill Pickens. Pickens was the manager of Barney Oldfield and was serving a suspension imposed by the Contest Board for brokering the unsanctioned match race between boxing World Champion Jack Johnson and Oldfield - as well as generally being a pest as far as the Contest Board was concerned.

Pickens and Oldfield had revolutionized racing in the first decade of the century by the sheer audacity of their promotion of the product - Oldfield. They made up the rules as they went along and made money for many folks, while also bringing many into contact with the sport for the first time. Naturally, this brought them into conflict with the AAA, with Pickens in particular being the target of its wrath. However, whatever else Oldfield may have been, he was a genuine racing talent.

With Pickens in the picture, things became even more complicated for the 1913 season. Pickens perversely used the WAA as the sanctioning body for a race in the very backyard of the AAA Contest Board - Brighton Beach! The headliner for the Brighton Beach event was to be "Terrible Teddy" Tetzlaff. Schimpf responded by immediately suspending Tetzlaff, his entrant - millionaire E. E. Hewlett (who was also the backer of the Fiat team in America), and the Brighton Beach track. However, it was becoming apparent that the AAA was in serious trouble and facing a revolt of proportions which were greater and more threatening than imagined.

At this point, the AAA Board of Directors waded into the fray. The Board of Directors ordered Schimpf to go West and to quell the revolt - or else. Schimpf rode westward on his mission of peace. Part of the problem was that a simple or minor misunderstanding or misinterpretation could escalate to that of a major problem due to the nature of the communications of the day. Although the telegraph had revolutionized communications in the 19th Century and the telephone was now becoming commonplace, distance was still a factor.

There is not a record of what transpired during this journey other than that of the report that Schimpf filed with the Board of Directors which is more of an executive summary than a detailed record of the discussions and negotiations. What is striking is that the revolt fizzled out almost as quickly as it began. When the calendar for the 1913 National Championship Trail was finally sorted out, there were more events West of the Mississippi than East of the Mississippi!

On January 1st 1913, the displacement limit for cars competing in Class E - now being the class in which more and more of the Championship Trail events were being held - was reduced from 600 cubic inches to 450 cubic inches. On that same New Year's Day, there was a point-to-point race in San Diego, followed by another race in San Diego in March, this time a road race.

After the International Sweepstakes on Decoration Day, there was an Independence Day race in Columbus, Ohio, on a one-mile dirt track. However, on the 5th and 7th of July, two events were held on the road course in Tacoma, Washington. The end of July saw beach races in Galveston, Texas. The second weekend in August saw Santa Monica as a full-fledged National Championship event. At the end of August, the Chicago Auto Club ran its races at Elgin once again. The final site on the Championship Trail was Corona during the second weekend in September.

All this was a dramatic reversal of where the Championship Trail had been contested in previous seasons. Fortunately for Schimpf and the Contest Board, the season ended up being very successful. However, although they had dodged the big bullet and there had been a brokered peace accord with the West Coast, there were to be lingering effects from this confrontation for years afterward in American racing.

One immediate result of the problems of the 1913 season was the resignation of Schimpf as the Chairman of the Contest Board. As the Contest Board entered the 1914 season, it did so under the guidance of a new Chairman. The new Chairman was a former mechanic and motorcycle rider from Franklin, Pennsylvania: Richard Kennerdell.

One problem Kennerdell faced when he took over the reins in late 1913, was that the Vanderbilt Cup and the Grand Prize races had laid dormant for a season. Savannah declined to bid for the races in 1913, as did Milwaukee. Kennerdell wasted no time and gave the 1914 Vanderbilt Cup to Santa Monica. The ACA, in line with the agreement worked out earlier, also chose Santa Monica to host the Grand Prize.

Although it had begun to be first felt during the 1913 season, there was a subtle change in the nature of the Championship Trail events. The victory by Jules Goux in a Peugeot L76 in the International Sweepstakes introduced a machine onto the American scene which would create a legacy that would last for decades upon decades.

Although foreign cars were a part of the American scene - the Mercedes and Fiat battles were almost as intense in America as in Europe - the Peugeot was something just a bit different. It set the mark for the trend towards pure racing machines in National Championship events even though it would take a while for the transition to be completed. Plus, the technical genius of the Peugeot engine served as the template for racing and other high performance engines for the rest of the century.

After the problems of 1913, the 1914 season was relatively calm. But the role of the International Sweepstakes was soon becoming such that it was easily the equal of the Vanderbilt Cup and the Grand Prize races. The second consecutive victory by the French in the International Sweepstakes also raised the profile of the event in Europe.

The first American entry home was the Stutz of Barney Oldfield. The Championship Trail consisted of 11 events with the West Coast-centric schedule of 1913 giving way to a more "national" set of racing venues: the Vanderbilt Cup and Grand Prize races in Santa Monica; the International Sweepstakes; Tacoma, Washington and Sioux City, Iowa - both on Independence Day - Tacoma running a road race and Sioux City using a newly constructed two-mile dirt track; the beach race at Galveston; the Elgin road races; one-mile dirt tracks at Kalamazoo (Michigan), Galesburg (Illinois), and Minneapolis; and the Corona road race.

The "sensation of the 1914 season" was Duesenberg driver Eddie Rickenbacher. His first Championship Trail victory was on the two-mile dirt track at Sioux City, Iowa. The track was superbly prepared and ready the day the racers arrived to begin practice for the Independence Day event. The event was for a distance of 300 miles and paid a purse of $25,000 - of which 40% went to the winner of the event.

The event had been very well publicized and attracted a large number of spectators from Chicago. A number of these spectators were very interested in the race for reasons other than love of motor racing: the appearance of odds on the front page of the local paper signaled the arrival of many Chicago gamblers in Sioux City, along with their bookies.

As was the norm of most major events during this period, Fred Wagner was the starter of the event. Wagner set a minimum starting speed of 70 mph to qualify for the race. Spencer Wishart in a Mercer set the track record of 1:26.80, with Barney Oldfield in a Stutz, Howard Wilcox in the Gray Fox Special, Bob Burman in a Peugeot, and Gil Anderson in another Stutz also breaking the 1min 30sec mark. This made Wishart the favorite for the race, a fact reflected by the post qualifying betting patterns.

Prior to the race, rumors abounded concerning the presence of the gamblers and the possible outcome of the race. The Contest Board representatives and the Sioux City Automobile Club officials were not happy with even the remote possibility of gambling and racing being mixed together.

At the start, Burman took the lead until passed by Wishart. The story is that at about the half way point, the scoreboards indicated Wishart was not only in the lead, but leading by four laps. In truth, the leader at that point was Willie Knipper in a Delage, who had taken the lead over from Wishart after he had passed Tom Alley's Duesenberg to regain the lead. Knipper was passed for the lead, but not by Wishart. Rickenbacher had driven a steady race and took the lead with just over 60 laps to go and won by about 50 seconds over Wishart.

While the diligence of the Contest Board, the local auto club, and law enforcement officials prevented any "fixing" of the race by the Chicago gamblers, this did not prevent a problem with the scoring. The finishing order of the third through fifth placed cars as reported at the finish was not what many others had on their scoring sheets. Wagner and the other race officials pored over the timing charts and set the order for third through fifth as Cyrus Patschke in a Marmon, followed by Anderson and Alley.

These three drivers pooled the prize money for these positions and split it equally among themselves. Although legend has it that Rickenbacher made a dramatic speech at the victory banquet accusing the gamblers of trying to fix the result of the race so that Wishart - who Rickenbacher stated had nothing to do with the scheme - would win by bribing the scores, the reality seems to be that the scorers were basically just incompetent.

The 1914 season was a successful return to the circuits for both Ralph de Palma and Barney Oldfield; the former after his devastating injuries and the latter for clearly demonstrating that he was a truly a talented driver, his fifth place at Indianapolis against the French onslaught being a tremendous effort.

References

• Allan Brown, History of America's Speedways Past & Present, Comstock, Michigan: Brown, 1994.
• Russ Catlin, "The History of AAA National Championship Racing, Chapter 4: 1912, De Palma vs. Tetzlaff," Speed Age, March 1955.
• Russ Catlin, "The History of AAA National Championship Racing, Chapter 5: 1913, The Earl of Cooper Arrives," Speed Age, April 1955.
• Russ Catlin, "The History of AAA National Championship Racing, Chapter 6: 1914, De Palma Wins Again," Speed Age, May 1955.
• Russ Catlin, "The History of AAA National Championship Racing, Chapter 7: 1915, Cooper Takes His Second Crown," Speed Age, June 1955.
• Russ Catlin, "The History of AAA National Championship Racing, Chapter 8: 1916, Dario Resta, the Conquering Invader," Speed Age, July 1955.
• Russ Catlin, "The History of AAA National Championship Racing, Chapter 9: The Coming of the War," Speed Age, August 1955
• Russ Catlin, "How to Save Racing in America," Speed Age, November 1955.
• Tim Considine, American Grand Prix Racing - A Century of Drivers & Cars, Osceola, Wisconsin: Motorbooks International Publishers, 1997.
• G. N. Georgano, Editor, The Encyclopedia of Motor Sport, New York: Viking Press, 1971.
• Leo Levine, Ford: The Dust and the Glory - A Racing History, Toronto: Macmillan, 1968.
• Doug Nye, The United States Grand Prix and Grand Prize Races 1908 - 1977, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1978.
• Harold Osmer and Phil Harms, Real Road Racing: The Santa Monica Road Races, Chatsworth, California: Harold L. Osmer Publishing, 1999.
• Julian K. Quattlebaum, The Great Savannah Races, Athens, Georgia: Brown Thrasher Books - University of Georgia Press, 1983.