...a Place To Go Fast

OK. this is the month of May. I was born, raised and live in Indiana so the month of May is the Indy 500. I may like a lot of different styles of racing, preferring a mixture of left and right turns, but the 500 is the 500. This year is the 100th anniversary of the track, 2011 will be the 100th anniversary for the 500. The track was originally built as a test track for all of the cars that were built in Indiana and they were trying to make Indiana the car capitol of the world. Henry Ford built his factory in Detroit and the world changed.This is the 1903 Premier Special built in Indy. It was built for the Vanderbilt Cup Race but was 300 pounds over the weight limit. Race cars then had a max weight limit! The engine is 923 cu in with 100 HP at 1000 RPM. It's best speed was 59.21 MPH
Here is the 1911 Cole 30 built in Indy.

1914 Marmon Roadster Built in Indy.

1903 Premier built in Indy. See the Special in the first picture, win on Sunday sell on Monday.

1908 Richmond Surrey. Built in Richmond Indiana.

1909 Haynes built in Kokomo Indiana.

1914 Stutz built in Indy. Their most famous car being the Bearcat.

I have not include any Auburn's, Cords or Duesenbergs the big three of Indiana.

Sometime in the future I will hit that museum.

And the winning car from the 1911 first 500 the Marmon Wasp (picture by others) built in Indy.

I talked to one of the museum people about the color of the car and he said that it should be more orange but during an early restoration it was changed but it was so long ago that color photo's don't exist.

Motorcycles were also raced at the track. Some of those will be next.

....and Things That Go by Human Power

While taking my wife to a local nature reserve I stumbled upon Civil Engineering students from My Alma Mater practicing with their concrete canoes.

Girls team

U of E. When I went we didn't get to do such fun stuff. They now build Formula SAE cars, Off road car and such.
Boys team. They didn't seem too energetic. The girls were the other direction.

This is Sam. We go to church together. Sam was showing off his new 24 speed trike that he is planning to ride across the US starting in Maine this June. He got the bike last week and put 300 miles on it in 5 days. Sam is quite the character. He had a bad motorcycle wreck when he was 16 and his right arm doesn't work and his right leg barely works.

I think this is his plan to scare off big semi's.