Moross Pursues Lowell Trophy - 1910

The attached article was first published in the April 27, 1910 Indianapolis Star. The article discusses the efforts by Indianapolis Motor Speedway Contest Director Ernie Moross' efforts to attract the donors of a $15,000 gold trophy that had been awarded at the Lowell, Massachusetts road races of 1908 and 1909. The Lowell race was a financial failure and died. Apparently the trophy had been sponsored by the Remy Magneto Company and the belief was that the company wanted to continue to provide the award.
 
Understand that at this incredible moment in history Moross was on a roll as he had recently convinced Ira Cobe to bring his Cobe Trophy from Chicago to the Brickyard. He now wanted to pick up the pieces of the recently defunct Lowell Trophy. The gold trophy was a real "get" and even exceeded the $10,000 value of the Tiffany-designed masterpiece, the Wheeler-Schebler Trophy commissioned by Speedway co-founder Frank Wheeler. 
 
The plan was to offer the gold cup at three of the Speedway's American Automobile Association (AAA) national championship race meets for 1910. Interestingly, the Speedway planned to present it as the top prize for a 24 hour race on August 12-13. That race never took place. Moross also wanted to present the award to winners of feature events during the July and September race meets.
 
As for Remy sponsorship, the company planned to couple the trophy with its unique Remy Brassard prize, a silver arm band with a weekly annuity of $75 until the date of the next competition for the award. Remy reportedly announced that they would up the reward to $150 weekly with an additional $50 if the winning car was equipped with a Remy magneto.
 
This article reports that the Wheeler-Schebler Trophy was scheduled to be awarded at races during May and September. The Prest-O-Lite Trophy was also planned for races in May and September while the G&J Trophy was planned for one of the May races.
 
In other developments the article reports that Moross and Speedway Presient and Founder Carl Fisher were headed that morning (the day the article was published) to Dayton, Ohio to confer with the Wright brothers about the upcoming June aviation show. Fisher was encouraging the Wrights to make practice flights in advance of the Memorial Day weekend auto races because it would not be feasible to do so during the auto racing activity.