Talk:Ray Harroun

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Scoring error @1911 500 gave the win to Harroun; who was supposedly cheated out of a win? I was so sure it was Tommy Milton, but his page sez N... Trekphiler 16:31, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The other driver was Ralph Mulford, who filed a protest. What happened was that Harroun had a tire failure that forced him to pit at about the 340 mile mark. According to Mulford, he passed Harroun while the latter limped to the pits and then again while in the pits, thereby lapping him. The official scoring only records him passing for position. Mulford was then also forced to make a pit stop for a tire, and his crew reportedly struggled to remove the wheel from the car. When the dust settled, Harroun was scored with a 1:48 lead. The problem is that the "official" timing and scoring at that point of the race is unclear, as the timing stand was disrupted by an accident.

However, it was pointed out by officials in response to the protest that when Harroun was forced to pit, the cars were on the same lap and running close together. Harroun's pit stop was problem-free and he returned to the track with minimal delay. Mulford, who was in the lead at this point, was then forced to pit for the same reason (damaged tire). Because one of his wheels was stuck to the hub, his pit stop was much longer. All else being equal, Mulford would have returned to the track further behind Harroun than before all of this occurred. The evidence, on the whole, seems to favor Harroun as the legitimate winner. While I don't doubt that Mulford believed himself to be in the lead, that doesn't mean much, as drivers don't have the "big picture" and are very dependent on their crew to monitor and advise them of their track position. Joel Blanchette 14:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

On the subject of Milton, 1911 would be too early for him, as he wouldn't be involved with major races until after the First World War; Milton would win in 1921 and 1923 as a young man, as well. As it stands, we'll never know whether it was Harroun or Mulford (I agree, it was likely Harroun, given the evidence), because the AAA destroyed all records of the first race. A little bit of conspiracy theory can be a healthy thing for interest in history's quirks, I suppose. --Chr.K. 07:44, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

At least one article I have read (perhaps by Ralph Stein, in "The Treasury of the Automobile" published in the early 1960's) reviewed Harroun's race strategy: determine the slowest average speed that will win the race, and then aim to maintain that speed, instead of going as fast as possible, with more frequent stops for tire changes and other possible failures. In an era when tire failure (and the resulting stop) was a significant contributor to overall elapsed time, this was a sensible engineer's approach to endurance racing. That Harroun was placed as far back as 28th (?) and yet ended up being awarded the win, testifies to the value of his thinking. This was a novel approach at the time, and Harroun deserves credit, if indeed the strategy was his idea. JZC (talk) 00:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

"Jagersberger hitting scorer's stand"

Donald Davidson, in his Autocourse Official History of the Indianapolis 500, makes very clear this did not happen. The details of the scoring error can be found therein, and if no one else updates it in awhile, I'll acquire the book and make the adjustments, with citation. ---Chr.K. (talk) 21:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

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