Prologue: My phone rang in early May of 1999, and my friend Steven Cole Smith was on the line. Steven was an editor at Car & Driver magazine and his call would lead to a most splendid adventure. “We’ve got an idea for a story,” Steven began. “We want to document a vintage two-man Indy car taking a trip from Texas to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where you’ll take a ceremonial parade lap on opening day for the Indy 500. We need somebody to sit in the riding mechanic’s seat and write the story. Would you be interested?”
A couple of days later I was in Granbury, Texas wearing a leather helmet and goggles and climbing aboard the Shafer 8. An epic, memorable trip was about to begin. Oh, did I mention that these cars killed a bunch of guys at Indy in the 1930s? We survived the adventure with nothing more than a sunburn and rattled eardrums.
Here is the story as it appeared in the Sept. 1999 issue of Car & Driver. Let’s go!
THE SHAFER 8 TO INDY
By Dave Argabright
“If you like noise, power, and torque, you’ll like this car,” said Tom McRae in a Texas accent so thick you could cut it with a steak knife. “Come on down and ride this thing to Indy with me.”
It’s 1,300 miles from Granbury, Texas, to Indianapolis, and I tried to imagine what it would be like to do it in four days, riding in the “mechanic’s seat” of a vintage 1930’s two-man Indy car. The right-side seat more resembles a modified barrel, flat on the bottom and round at the back, with just enough room for a middle-aged butt to slide into place. Sitting almost straight upright in the car, the rider’s head and shoulders are open to the wind, which can whip by at an impressive velocity. There are no seat belts, no padded dash, and no airbags. The riding mechanic could hope for only good driving, and good luck. And in our case, good weather.
Day 1
McRae dabbles with old cars in the way a priest dabbles with religion. Since 1983 he has organized and promoted “The Great Race,” a coast-to-coast timed race of cars, trucks, and motorcycles built before World War II. The event has paid out more than $5 million in purse money to date. The 1999 race ran in June over a back-road course from Marietta, Georgia to Anaheim, California, and attracted nearly 90 entries. To promote the event McRae rolls out the Shafer 8, a car he simply refers to as “the Special.” Built two years ago after six years of meticulous research, it is nearly identical to a line of mid-1930s cars that raced at Indianapolis. Those cars were built by Herman Rigling and Cotton Henning at their Indianapolis shop, using Buick straight-8 engines on a steel rail frame. Des Moines, Iowa Pontiac dealer Phil “Red” Shafer purchased one of the Rigling cars in 1931 and christened it the “Shafer 8”, driving it to a 12th-place finish at Indianapolis. The car’s best finish at Indianapolis came in 1933, when H.A. “Stubby” Stubblefield finished fifth with J.C. Brooks riding alongside.
Dave Argabright and Tom McRae in Granbury, Texas, on May 12, 1999.
McRae cringes when he is asked if the car is an accurate replica of the original Shafer 8.
“I hate the word ‘replica’,” he says through a snow-white beard, “because most people think ‘replica’ means a fiberglass something on a Volkswagen chassis, and that’s not what this car is.”
Stock-block race cars such as the Shafer 8 are a direct result of the Great Depression. Deeply concerned with the effects of the economic collapse of late 1929, Indianapolis introduced new rules in 1930 to encourage the development of less-expensive stock block cars to compete with the sophisticated and dominant Miller and Duesenberg engines. Shafer eagerly jumped on the opportunity, running Buick-powered cars at Indy from 1931 until 1936, when he moved to the fast-rising Offenhauser engine. Why the speedway required a riding mechanic during this period is not really known. What is known, however, is that from 1930 to 1940 22 men perished at Indy, fully one-third of the total of 66 fatalities from 1909 to date. Two-man cars clearly doubled the danger with every crash at Indianapolis.
McRae’s machine is powered by a 200-hp, 344-inch Buick straight-8, with a Buick three-speed transmission. The engine configuration of the original cars varied slightly from year to year, and McRae’s powerplant uses the same components as those found during the Shafer era.
The wheelbase is 112 inches, with 20-inch wheels and six-inch tires that look like bicycle tires compared with today’s wide rubber. Although all the Shafer cars carried mechanical brakes, McRae elected to fudge a bit when he installed hydraulic brakes on his car.
“There was no way I was going to put mechanical brakes on a car that will do over a hundred miles an hour,” says McRae, “because I might want to run a hundred miles an hour.”
A crowd gathers to send us on our way in front of the Granbury museum.
We rolled the car out early on a Wednesday morning in front of McRae’s Granbury museum. A century ago, McRae would have been the guy who brought the circus to town; he is a born promoter with a keen ability to attract a crowd, and then play to it. With a noisy sendoff by a dozen or so locals, he spun the rear tires of the Special and we were on our way.
Indy, here we come! 1,320 miles to go.
Within minutes two things were obvious: one, the next few days were going to be loud and windy, and two, everybody on the road notices and reacts to this car. As we rolled through the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex people honked and waved, stared and pointed.
Near Grand Prairie, Texas, two girls in an S-10 pickup pulled alongside at a traffic light. Laughing and waving, they looked over and blew us a kiss. There is nothing routine about this car.
The Great Race is not for crazies. The big purse money does not go to the fastest car, but the most precise. Penalty points are even assessed to drivers that are cited for speeding during the event.
While McRae is careful to protect the image of the Great Race, there is no denying that the Shafer 8 was built in the image of a genuine racing machine. The 8 has a mean, low rumble at 3200 rpm, singing to your left ear at 75 mph.
After a brief stop at a Harley shop in Paris, Texas to buy gloves and a set of tinted goggles, I slid behind the large steering wheel for the first time and pressed the ignition button. The torque of the old Buick is significant, and the car seemed to jump as I slowly eased out on the clutch. The growl of the engine rose once, twice, then settled in at about 70 mph, loafing along with the traffic on U.S. 271. There is a lot of oversteer in the car, and you find yourself wandering between the highway lines.
“It’s best to not drive the car. Just point it,” shouted McRae in my right ear. “Just herd it down the road. Most people have a hard time getting used to that. They want to overdrive it.”
Even with the tendency to wander, feeling the car in my hands was a rush. I thought of drivers like Shafer and Stubblefield, and riders such as Earle Frost and J.C. Brooks. Cars of this vintage were ruthless killers on the bricks at Indianapolis during the 1930’s, and I wondered if part of the problem was that the car felt so strong, so good that drivers overestimated themselves. Plenty of power, skinny tires, and lousy brakes were not a good combination on the bricks at Indianapolis.
Near DeQueen, Arkansas, we turned north on U.S. 71, and McRae took the wheel. He had scheduled a media gathering late that afternoon at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and if we were going to have any hope of making it he would have to lean on the Shafer just a bit.
We encountered a lot of traffic on 71, and we were soon aggressively using the few passing zones. Just north of Mena, Arkansas the Shafer briefly touched 90 mph, turning 4000 rpm and offering a deep, throaty roar that we could hear over the rushing wind.
Later, at a fuel stop, McRae’s support truck pulled in behind us. James “You-Can-Call-Me-Rusty” Miner could only shake his head and describe the joy of trying to follow a bug like the Shafer through tight traffic on a winding, two-lane highway.
We made the media interview at Fort Smith and then took the car to the nearby ranch of Dave Reeder, a past Great Race winner who displayed a dazzling collection of vintage iron, including some impressive Stutz and Mercer machines. Late that night, in Reeder’s shop, we fashioned a small windbreak and replaced the foot rest on the rider’s side. Who says you can’t have both performance and comfort?
Day 2
When McRae planned our route, someone should have reminded him that the Shafer never raced on a road course. As we left Fort Smith with the sparkling dew still covering the lawns, we picked up eight hours of wicked and winding roads that carried us through some impressive Ozark scenery.
Arkansas Route 23, known locally as “the Pig Trail,” wound its way north with the Shafer hanging on for dear life around countless blind curves. Despite the spindly tires and the tall center of gravity, the car did reasonably well under pressure.
On one blind double-switchback that was posted at 10 mph, McRae eased through first gear, then throttled the Buick entering second, allowing the torque to force the car through the turn. All four tires complained loudly, but the car seemed to squat and go. The fact that it went in the direction that McRae had it pointed is probably a coincidence; the long, tall machine simply was not built for such tight corners. McRae leaned over the big wheel, forcing the car to follow his lead, sometimes with some resistance.
As we squealed through the curves, I could almost reach out and touch the big trees that rushed past, and sometimes felt a pang of fear in my stomach, fear that comes with being a passenger with no control, but with as much at stake as the driver.
The Pig Trail offered startling scenery as it wound through dark and deep forests filled with 10- and 15-mph curves with major elevation changes. One moment we were utterly enveloped by thick foliage, and a moment later we’d burst from the woods to be treated to spectacular vistas and fields filled with wildflowers or fresh-cut hay. We passed only an occasional rusty pickup truck and countless Armadillo roadkill. Everyone should spend such a Thursday morning at least once in their life.
Rolling across Texas in the Shaffer 8.
At Huntsville, Arkansas, we picked up U.S. Route. 412, which was far less winding but much busier. We rolled into Mountain Home trailing a long line of slow-moving traffic, and the Shafer had reached just over 200 degrees.
“Yeah, I see it,” said McRae as I pointed at the temperature gauge. “We got to get out of this traffic. The car likes to move.” We picked up Arkansas Route 201 north, which was empty of traffic, and the needle quickly returned to the 180-degree range.
The antique shops of Arkansas disappeared, and we were soon on Missouri 160 headed east, hustling to make a promotional appointment McRae had arranged at Poplar Bluff, 100 miles away. But 160 was almost as tough as the Pig Trail, and McRae was soon hustling the car through 30 mph curves, occasionally drifting the car through under power.
A two-man car on a road course presents some physical challenges. As the driver works and saws at the huge wheel, leaning his body for leverage, his right elbow is square into the mechanic’s chest. The natural instinct is to lean to the right and give him room, but if you lean even slightly out of the cockpit the tall right rear wheel is ominously just inches away.
With the speedometer sometimes touching 90 mph, the scenery flashed past.
After a quick stop to meet the Chamber of Commerce in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, we headed east on U.S. 60, with the sun running away over the western horizon. About to run out of daylight, we cheated and jumped on I-55 and rolled into Cape Girardeau.
Day 3
Rolling across the Mississippi River on the old iron bridge carrying Illinois Route 146, we shivered in the early morning dampness. It was dark and gloomy, with the remnants of rain showers still shining on the streets. As we turned on Route 149 into Murphysboro, Illinois, our goggles were dotted with moisture, so we stopped in a grocery lot to wait out the light rain.
Eastbound across the Mississippi River on Illinois Hwy. 146.
At every stop, onlookers turned up to ogle and ask questions. People grinned and asked the same first question: “What is it?” McRae easily bantered with them all, explaining that we were headed for Indy to take a lap around the historic oval. People would nod wistfully, and McRae would tease, “Well, take off those damned fenders and come with us!”
After an hour or so the rain had stopped, and we rolled north on U.S. 51, the old highway that once carried Chicago bootleggers to the Cajun queens of New Orleans. The suspension on the Shafer was surprisingly smooth, taut enough to hold tight to the road with only a few instances of bottoming out. When we hit a railroad grade in the town of Tamaroa at about 35 mph, however, we were nearly thrown from the car.
Pausing for a brief visit at Dale's Harley-Davidson in Mount Vernon, Illinois.
At Mount Vernon, Illinois, we toured an impressive display of antique bikes behind Dale Walksler’s Harley store, surely the foremost antique collection in the world. We then headed for Paris, Illinois, where the car was built two years ago by Charlie and Warren Glick of Heartland Restoration.
We were just a dozen miles from the Indiana state line. I climbed back behind the wheel for the home-stretch run, pausing for a reverent moment at the defunct Jungle Park Speedway near Marshall, Indiana. Heading due east on Route 236, the small towns passed by like fenceposts: Marshall, Guion, Milligan, Roachdale, Barnard, North Salem, Jamestown, Lizton, Pittsboro, and Brownsburg. With the sun at our back, Indianapolis was waiting.
The legendary Jungle Park Speedway near Rockville, Indiana.
Day 4
Granbury was 1,320 miles ago. As Miner helped unload the Shafer in a staging area between turns one and two at the massive, sprawling Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he mentioned that he had once been a stock car racer at a local track in Texas many years ago. “Anybody who’s ever gone round-and-round more than twice has dreamed of coming here,” he said quietly, his eyes and face saying as much as his words.
McRae and I climbed into the car, sat down, and donned our leather helmets without speaking. After three days of navigation while seated side by side, we had developed a language without words; we could direct, inform, and entertain with hand motions, made necessary by the deep engine noise and the whipping, whistling wind. Now, the trip was nearly over, and neither of us wanted it to end.
What a feeling: a lap around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the Shafer 8.
A member of the safety crew leaned in and tapped McRae on the shoulder, and motioned toward the smooth, black racing surface just yards away. The ignition switch seemed as loud as a cannon, and Tom pressed the starter button, filling the moment with the familiar throaty sounds of the Buick 8, ready for the final 2.5 miles.
We looked at each other, smiled, and in a moment we were under way. At just 60 mph, the track seems so immense that you’ll never get around it, but in only a few heartbeats we were waving to the spectators on the main straightaway who had gathered for the Saturday morning ceremony that would officially open the track for practice. McRae’s left foot reached forward, and as we coasted he allowed the Buick to sing to those people, loud and carefree, once, twice, and then again. It was a nice song.
Epilogue: Tom McRae was one of the most dynamic people I’ve ever known, a born showman with an insatiable desire for the limelight. Although our time together was brief, we forged a fast friendship and stayed in touch in the years following our trip. Unfortunately Tom lost his life in a motorcycle accident in 2005. Tom made a lasting impression, because I still think of him sometimes when I’m on the open highway with the scenery whistling by. Car guys are in a great fraternity, and we were brothers in that regard. If you too are into cars, you’ll understand.
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