What the Indianapolis 500 has to do with the Klausen Race
05/19/2011
Almost every child knows three car races in this world, the F1 GP of Monaco, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 500 miles of Indianapolis. All of these racing events date back to the early days of the automobile.
The "Indy 500" will celebrate its centenary in a few weeks' time. Hardly any other car race has such a history, hardly any other race has such a record of accidents and nowhere else have such special racing cars been used. Time and again, Europeans have also tried to make a name for themselves in the USA. Just think of Colin Chapman, who also brought his crazy ideas to the noodle pot. We reported on this in a major article .
Many interesting cars from the 100-year history of this great race are stacked up in the Indianapolis museum. There is also Rudolf Caracciola's collection of trophies. In the middle of it all is the silver plate from the International Klausen Race on August 7, 1926, for the fastest time in the touring car category.
Why all the trophies ended up in the Indy Museum of all places is an interesting question. According to our information, his wife Alice wanted to sell the trophies after Caracciola's death, but apart from the Americans, nobody was interested at the time and they paid very little. What a pity, things would probably be different today. But history also shows how quickly people are forgotten, even if they have had great success.
