Moross on Wright Bros, 1910 Air Show

The article in this attachment originally appeared in the May 8, 1910 Indianapolis Star.
 
The article in the attachment below was written by Indianapolis Motor Speedway Contest Director Ernie Moross and discusses preparations for the upcoming June 1910 aviation show at the Brickyard. This work was concurrent with his mad scramble to ready things for the track's national circuit races opening around the Memorial Day holiday.
 
This article is primarily about how Moross was working with the Wright Brothers to deliver an aviation spectacular. The reporting touches on how Moross and the Wrights reached an agreement - as a small component of their contract - to showcase one of their planes as an ancillary attraction at the Speedway's May 1910 national championship races. I have seen photographic evidence that this display actually took place.
 
The aviation show was a marvel of negotiation between Moross and Speedway Founder and President Carl Fisher with Orville and Wilbur Wright because the event was tangled up on the periphery of ongoing patent disputes concerning the invention of the airplane. This was one of the great legal imbroglios of the age as lawyers and engineers alike tried to sort out issues surrounding the nascent and previously unfathomable technology of heavier-than-air craft. Somehow, someway Moross and Fisher convinced the aviation pioneers to waive their licensing requirements they had successfully if temporarily imposed on all other airplane manufacturers as a special exception to stage the Speedway's show. This was a prime example of IMS management's original vision of the venue as a multi-purpose facility.
 
As an aside I have to wonder if the protracted patent rights dispute in this case was not a contributing factor to the result that the Speedway never pursued another aviation show. I am sure there were other logistics issues with crowd management as it was certainly possible to see the planes above the track from outside the facility with no ticket purchase but I have never seen an exhaustive assessment as to why management abandoned the idea of the track as an airfield. It was used by the U.S. military for pilot training during World War I.
 
The happy news is that the successful agreement provided for a variety of entrants that must have been extremely interesting to enthusiasts. Those mentioned in the article include designs originating from Curtiss, Farman, Bleriot, and Antoinette. The Wrights planned a top-secret test on Speedway grounds at a date that was yet-to-be-determined at the time. The cost (to IMS) of the agreement to stage the event was reported to be $95,000.
 
Moross, through the article, took obvious pleasure in underscoring that the Wright's decision to exclude the IMS show from their court-approved licensing authority meant that the Speedway had a form of exclusivity. If you wanted to witness an American airshow you better come to the Brickyard. He noted the great value to the city of Indianapolis and said, with reference to the track and its home town, "the brilliant spotlight which will be the cynosure of the eyes of the entire world for many days."