Northwest Indiana Owners Car in May Indy 500 Vintage Car Show

Among the twenty vintage open wheel race cars invited to the first ever "Road to Indy" display on the day prior to the Indy 500's 100th anniversary was the 1927 Frontenac Ford of Cas Casmir of Hammond, IN. Mr. Casmir (shown in the upper left corner of this overview photograph taken at IMS on Saturday May 28 by Kim Ramsby...photo provided by show producer Ted Knorr). Casmir purchased this vintage race car that was located in a midwest barn after it's racing career ended over 75 years ago. The car was driven by five time Indy 500 driver Ira Hall on the dusty fairground tracks across the country with much success. Hall ended up getting a ride with the Duesenberg team at Indy in 1928 and a top ten finish (7th) in the 1932 Indy 500. Casmir did a "soft" restoration of the car and pretty much left it as found with it's original paint. The car attracted a lot of attention from the huge crowd that attended this display of cars that were formally driven by Indy 500 drivers "back in the day" on their personal roads to making the Indy 500 starting field.

Also pictured cars are... the Bardahl #1 midget driven by Shorty Templeman (owner Jr. Dreyer) pictured with the famous IMS pagoda in the background. The #29 Kurtis midget roadster driven by Johnny Rutherford, Jim Hurtubise and currently owned by Fred Johns. Below that car is the Mario Andretti 1970 STP dirt champ car owned by Jim York; The 1954 McNamara #73 sprint car driven by Bob Sweikert, A.J. Foyt, Don Branson and owned by Ray Boissonnau. The #51 is the 1961 sprint car driven by Bobby Unser, Foyt, Roger McCluskey, Rutherford and owned by Phil Anderson, and the 1948 movie car from the 1950 Clark Gable film "To Please A Lady" is owned by Tom Malloy of California. All of the Gable cockpit shots and staged events at IMS were filmed using this car. Thirteen other restored vintage cars were in the display.

An Auto Racing Memorabilia Show at IMS on May 28th was also produced by the former Rensselaer (1971-1985) and Boswell (Henry's) speedway promoter Ted Knorr. This first time show featured nearly 100 booths in the nearby Pagoda pavilion with vendors from across the country and as far away as Europe and Australia. The show was packed most of the day with race fans. IMS was very pleased with theprograms and have indicated they want to do it again in 2012.