The first race was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, now the home of
the world’s most famous motor racing competition, the Indianapolis 500.

Built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana,
the speedway was started by local businessmen as a testing facility for
Indiana’s growing automobile industry. The idea was that occasional races
at the track would pit cars from different manufacturers against each other
and after seeing what these cars could do, spectators would presumably
head down to the showroom of their choice to get a closer look.

The rectangular two-and-a-half-mile track linked four turns, each exactly 440
yards from start to finish, by two long and two short straight sections. In that
first five-mile race on August 19, 1909, 12,000 spectators watched Austrian
engineer Louis Schwitzer win with an average speed of 57.4 miles per hour.

 
Louis Schwitzer (1880 – 1967) winner of the inaugural
race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.        

Nils Ivar Bohlin (July 17, 1920 – September 21, 2002)

Nils Bohlin, the Swedish engineer and inventor responsible
for the three-point lap and shoulder seatbelt–considered
one of the most important innovations in automobile safety,
was born in Härnösand, Sweden.

Before 1959, only the two-point lap belts were available in
automobiles; for the most part, the only people who regularly
buckled up were race car drivers.

 
   
Racing legend Richard Petty made the 1,000th start of his National Association for Stock Car Racing (NASCAR)
career, in the Miller American 400 in Brooklyn, Michigan.

He became the first driver in NASCAR history to log 1,000
career starts.

Richard Lee Petty (The King) will turn 82 July 2nd.

JOHN BELMONT

Ralph Dale Earnhardt Sr. (April 29, 1951 – February 18, 2001)

NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Sr., was killed in a crash during the final lap
of the Daytona 500 race on this day in 2001. Earnhardt was inducted into
numerous halls of fame, including the NASCAR Hall of Fame inaugural
class in 2010.

John Joseph Travolta is 65 years old today.

Actor John Travolta starred in the 1970s hit films Saturday Night Fever 
and Grease. He went on to play Vincent Vega in the critically acclaimed
1994 film Pulp Fiction. Travolta  also starred in the action thriller Face/Off
(1997) with Nicolas Cage.  

1998

 
1996

Glen Wood (July 18, 1925 – January 18, 2019)

(Fox News) – Glen Wood died on Friday, leaving behind one
of the most glorious legacies in the sport’s history.

Glen and his brother Leonard founded their namesake Wood
Brothers Racing team in 1950 and entered the NASCAR Cup
series in 1953. Glen would go on to win four races over an
11-year driving career, then help shepherd a long list of racers
that would include 19 named to NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers
list alongside him. Stars like Buddy Baker, Cale Yarborough,
Junior Johnson and Bill Elliott were among the top drivers
that spent time in a Wood Brothers car.

The Wood brothers from left: Glen and Leonard.