Motorsport: Books - Circuits and Races - Indianapolis 500

Ab and Marvin Jenkins: The Studebaker Connection and the Mormon Meteors

It was Ab Jenkins who popularized the vast Salt Flats as a place to run for speed records. In the words of Captain George E.T. Eyston, ''he is the man who made competition at Bonneville possible.''
Jenkins was the first man to run for accepted records at Bonneville, in 1933, and he succeeded both in attracting the British record-setters to the Salt Flats and, himself, set and broke more American and International speed marks there than any man in history. Many of those records still stand in 2006, half a century after his death.

His son, Marvin, grew up with his father's zest for speed, set an unofficial speed record as a youngster, helped Bud Winfield and Lewis Welch build the fabulous Novi Indianapolis cars, worked on the Novi team at Indianapolis and drove the Novi to class speed records at Bonneville.
This then is the story of two men, father and son, their racing cars, their lives and the salt flats where they ran their most famous trials.

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Indy Cars 1911-1939: Great Racers from the Crucible of Speed

When a group of Indianapolis businessmen built a 2 ½-mile track and decided to stage a 500-mile race in 1911 it was an epic undertaking with a huge purse for the times that drew racers from Europe as well as America.
Delage, Peugeot, Ballot and Mercedes cars came to win dollars and inspire America's racing-car builders, Harry Miller and the Duesenberg brothers. Soon these native talents came to dominate the 500-mile race, introducing supercharging and front-wheel drive with great success in the 1920s and 16-cylinder engines in the 1930s.

This book in the Ludvigsen Library Series covers racers through the 1930s, completing the Series' sweeping panorama of the cars that raced in the ''500'' from 1911 to the end of the 1970s.
Many rare photos from the earliest days of Indy bring the cars, engines, and personalities of these pioneering years to life. The drama of their achievements made the Indianapolis 500 the world's greatest auto race.

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Indy Cars of the 1940s

For the Old World, caught up in the traumas of a bitter conflict, America's Indianapolis 500-mile race was a New World beacon of auto-racing speed and excitement during the 1940s.
While racing stopped in Europe in 1939, the Indy 500 raced on in 1940 and '41, bringing victories in both years for Wilbur Shaw's Maserati. Racing resumed in 1946 with Shaw in charge of the Speedway, now owned by Tony Hulman.

The post-war fields were full of exotic machinery from Fageol's twin-engined four-wheel-drive car and the front-drive Blue Crowns- 1947-48-49 winners- to the rear-engined Tucker Millers and Rounds Rocket plus the imported 1939 Mercedes-Benz of Don Lee and numerous Alfa Romeos and Maseratis.
The first Kurtis racers made their debut, as did the awesome Novi. The six-cylinder Thorne Special won in 1946 and Indy's only six-wheeled car competed as well.
This Ludvigsen Library book brings to dramatic life the spectacle and excitement of the 1940-1949 era at the Speedway.

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Indianapolis Racing Cars of Frank Kurtis 1941-1963 Photo Archive

The definitive book on Kurtis championship cars, showcasing all 111 full-size "champ" cars that Frank Kurtis built between 1941 and 1963. Most of these cars were built specifically to race at Indianapolis. In fact, Kurtis' cars won the Indianapolis 500 five years out of six (1950-1955) and dominated the starting field from 1950 through 1958.

Kurtis pioneered the "roadster" design, in which the engine was offset in the car, allowing the driver to sit much lower, reducing the height of the car and thus wind resistance. Roadsters were the last front-engine cars before the 1965 rear-engine revolution, and they are remembered with much nostalgia.

Also see engineering drawings of the cars as well as dramatic starting field photos and crash photos. An appendix detailing car and engine serial numbers will add to your enjoyment.

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Novi V-8 Indy Cars 1941-1965

Few cars of any kind have exuded the charismatic appeal of the great Novi V-8 racing cars that competed at Indianapolis from 1941 (the engine only) to 1965 - an incredible record of longevity and persistence. With its centrifugal-supercharged four-cam V-8 engine, the Novi was a power prodigy in all its incarnations.
First a front-wheel-drive car, it earned a reputation for wicked handling by killing two of its drivers. But the Novis were so fast - so often - that more racers were always willing to take them on.

Though a Novi never won at Indy, these magnificent cars are fondly remembered by all enthusiasts. From his Ludvigsen Library, Karl Ludvigsen has selected a splendid collection of photographs displaying these grand cars. Andy Granatelli writes a moving introduction about the Novis he rescued from racing's scrap heap.

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Indy Cars of the 1950s

Karl Ludvigsen covered the Indy 500 in 1956 and the Monza 500 in 1958. From his own photos at these events and the other material in his collection, Ludvigsen presents a panorama of the fabulous Indy racing cars of the 1950s.

These were the years of the Kurtis Roadsters, the lay-downs, the first Watsons, the formidable Novis, the V-12 Ferrari, the Bardahl-Ferrari, the Blue Crowns and the invincible Offys. Stunningly sharp photography shows the cars, their engines and their designs in amazing detail. The book takes the reader into Gasoline Alley during one of the most evocative and exciting eras in the history of the great Speedway - before those pesky rear-engined "bugs" took over.

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Indy Cars of the 1960s

One of the most spectacular and controversial decades in the long history of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the 1960s saw the transition from the classic roadster to mid-engine "funny cars."
Though resisted by the Indy diehards, the pace shown by the mid-engine Lotus-Fords starting in 1963 was irresistible. By 1967, the field was completely converted to rear-engine racers.

Reporting and photographing from Indy through most of the decade, Karl Ludvigsen has fantastic photos of the cars: the last gasp of the Novis, the wild racers of Mickey Thompson, Brabhams and the successful Hawk copies, the astonishing STP turbine cars of the 1967 and 1968, Dan Gurney's Eagles from 1966, Lotuses, including the amazing four-wheel-drive cars, the battle between Fords and the turbo-Offys.

These vivid pictures will take the reader inside Gasoline Alley during the tumultuous 1960s.

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Indy Cars of the 1970s

The spirit of innovation was still strong in the 1970s, which Karl Ludvigsen calls "The Last Creative Decade" at the great Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The turbocharged decade witnessed the extinction of the venerable four-banger Offy and the rise of the Cosworth V-8, which took Indy racing into the 1980s.

A tire war and advanced aerodynamics saw speeds rise so sensationally that, as Ludvigsen says in his insightful Introduction, "The 1971 pole-winning speed wouldn't have qualified a driver for the 1972 race!"
Revealing intimate details of the last progressive and experimental decade at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this book is a must for fans of the world's greatest motor race.

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