At the Brickyard Invitational: History on wheels

The great thing about the SportsCar Vintage Racing Association's Brickyard Invitational at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is that the cars you thought you would only see in museums are out on the track – and going like blazes. We're not just talking 1950s vintage Corvettes. No, we're even talking cars that raced in the first Indianapolis 500 – as in 1911.

Get this – owner/driver Brian Blaine entered his 1910 National "40" in the high-speed oval exhibition races and he was on the track today getting after it. They called it "scorching" back in those days.

"National built this car to be run hard and that's what I do," reports Blaine.

Blaine's National has the look of a car that is seriously driven. It is obviously well-kept but hardly elegant in appearance. There are imperfections in the paint, the numbers are clearly the product of a handheld brush and there are the cracks and chips born of particles blasting the body at speed. Indeed, it probably looks more like it did when driver Charlie Merz climbed into it on the morning of the first Indianapolis 500 than it would if it had been reduced to a display artifact in a staid museum.

Constructed by the long defunct Indianapolis-based National Motor Vehicle Company, Blaine's racer showcases technology retired decades ago. It's 460 cubic inch engine was mostly stock, but bored out for a little more capacity. It is a four-cylinder powerplant but has eight spark plugs. That's because it used a "dual spark" Bosch magneto due to a unique valve configuration. It does not have an engine block in the conventional sense and in fact the engine is split into two distinct cylinder casings. The chassis was stock, but shortened by 10 inches under the theory it would handle better.

Merz enjoyed success in the first "500," with a seventh-place finish in a grueling endurance test that required nearly seven hours to complete. The talented driver had set a world closed-course 24-hour speed record at just age 17 in 1905 and then survived a deadly accident that claimed the lives of three people including his riding mechanic in the Speedway's very first auto race meet in 1909. He went on to race in three more Indianapolis 500s and later served as the event's chief steward from 1935 through 1939. He also founded Merz Engineering in 1927 and led that successful company until retiring in 1946.

Click on the thumbnails below for larger images

{igallery id=2725|cid=340|pid=5|type=category|children=0|addlinks=0|tags=|limit=0}

Here's a quick look at the Brickyard Invitational schedule, especially what is on tap for tomorrow:

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the SVRA are producing what is already one of American vintage racing's premier events. Friday, June 12, all of the SVRA's 11 groups of racecars spanning over 100 years of vintage machines will step it up a notch with road course qualifying sessions running from 8 am to 12:40 pm. The exciting array of entries include exquisite examples of select pre-war machines, classic sports cars, Formula 1 and Le Mans prototypes as current as 2009.

The much-anticipated first on-track appearance of all 33 Indianapolis 500 veterans will take place at 12:40 p.m. They will run for 30 minutes. The Indy Legends spent a good portion of today getting fitted for their cars and becoming acquainted with their owners and co-drivers.

Also, tomorrow will mark the first high-speed oval exhibition runs. Those sessions start with oval-only cars like Blaine's National "40" and a host of other Indianapolis and pre-war racers. Those will take place from 2:15 to 3:05 pm. Most of the other SVRA groups will run between 3:40 and 6 pm.

While the SVRA cars hit amazing speeds and demonstrate exciting displays of car control as they break traction in corners, the real treat for car buffs is the chance to roam the paddock capturing pictures. The drivers and owners continue to impress with approachability and knowledge. It is Instagram heaven. Race fans can enjoy every minute of the action by taking advantage of overnight camping inside the Speedway.

Another new feature of the weekend, the Motostalgia high-end collector car auction will take place in the Pagoda Plaza between 3 and 9 pm. One hundred select cars will cross the block, including the Lotus 56 turbine racer two-time Formula 1 Champion Graham Hill drove in the 1968 Indianapolis 500.