Mystery Friday Foto #11 Solved: Pete De Paolo’s 1925 Indy Team
Did you identify Pete De Paolo's 1925 Indy Team?
Identify;
- The car
#12 Duesenberg
- The driver and relationship to any other prominent race car drivers
Peter De Paolo-nephew of racing great and Vanderbilt Cup Racer, Ralph DePalma.
- The race date
The 1925 Indy 500 on May 30, 1925.
- Outcome for the car and driver
De Paolo won the Indy 500 that year with an average speed of 127.33 mph.
Congrats to Steve Lucas, Steve Tremulis, and Kenneth Parrotte for solving this weekend's challenging photo. Kudos to Steve Tremulis and Kenneth Parrotte for their wonderful photos and Thank You Steve for the incredible family related history!
Greg O.
Comments
That’s Pete DePaolo in the #12 Duesenberg, winner of the 1925 Indy 500 on May 30, 1925. DePaolo was the nephew of racing great Ralph DePalma and was the mechanician in the #4 Packard that DePalma drove to a 6th. place finish in the 1919 Indy 500. When DePaolo won the 1925 Indy 500, he was a member of the 4-car Duesenberg team that included drivers Norman Batten, Phil Shafer, Pete Kreis, Wade Morton, and Jimmy Gleason. Not sure, but DePaolo may also have been his uncle’s mechanician in the 1920 and 1921 Indy 500 races.
DePaolo-Tremulis Connections: That’s 1925 Indy 500 winner, Pete DePaolo, in a Duesenberg.
In the 1920 Indy 500 race, DePaolo was the riding mechanic for his uncle, driver Ralph DePalma.
Ralph DePalma had won the 1915 race, making up for a spectacular loss in the 1912 race where he and his riding mechanic, Rupert Jeffkins, had to push their broken down car across the finish line (bottom right photo). That photo of DePalma and Jeffkins pushing their car hung in my Grandfather’s office in Chicago where his son, the future Duesenberg and Tucker car designer Alex Tremulis, would often visit. Tremulis was awestruck by DePalma’s tenacity and that photo, etched in Tremulis’ mind, would greatly influence the future designer.
Tremulis would later befriend DePaolo and honored both him and his uncle with the naming of two of Ford’s mid-1950s concept cars, the Buzz Grissinger-designed “DePaolo” (top photo) and Tremulis’ “DePalma” (middle pic). The DePaolo’s headrests were cannibalized from one of Tremulis’ earlier concepts. In 1957, the DePalma was renamed the “Oklahoman” to honor that state’s 50th anniversary.
DePaolo’s experimental racers, the 1957 Ford Thunderbird “Battlebirds”, incorporated Tremulis’ aerodynamic bullet-shaped headlight covers that Tremulis had wind-tunnel tested in 1956.
The bottom left photo is Pete DePaolo (left) and Alex Tremulis in the pits for the running of the 1961 Indianapolis 500.
It’s a small world!
Duesenberg. Saturday May 30, 1925 Indianapolis 500 winner Peter DePaolo. Peter’s uncle was the 1915 Indianapolis 500 winner Ralph DePalma who finished 7th in the 1925 Indianapolis 500. Attached is a photo of the 1925 L. Strauss & Co. Indianapolis 500 trophy. DePaolo’s pits were managed by Fred and August Duesenberg, W. Austin Denehie, Col. Arthur Herrington, H.C. Henning, Roy Stougaard and Carl Smith. It was the second year in a row that Duesenberg won the 500. Norman Batten relieved DePaolo from lap 106-127.