Atlanta Strived to Learn from Brickyard

The article in attachment was published in the May 10, 1910 Indianapolis Sun and reports that an official from rival Atlanta Speedway planned to meet with Indianapolis Motor Speedway Director of Contests Ernie Moross during the Brickyard's May 1910 race meet. The article indicates that the Atlanta management team was looking for best practices in the wake of extremely disappointing spectator attendance at their three-day race meet the previous month. The article reports that no more than 6,000 people attended the Atlanta meet. This was called a "frost" in the parlance of the day.
 
Indianapolis-built cars dominated the Atlanta contests although it appears the competition was limited in terms of entries. Most of the races had short fields of a half dozen or less. There were two 200-mile races during the meet, one won by Tom Kincaid in a National Motor Vehicle Racer and the other by Ray Harroun in a Marmon stock "32." 
 
In commenting on the performance of Indianapolis-based teams, Moross heaped praise on drivers Ray Harroun, Johnny Aitken, Bill Endicott and Tom Kincaid. In particular he called out the work of Herb Lytle in the American entry. Moross also indicated that the Speedway was doing all it could to attract foreign entries to increase the appeal of competition.
 
While the referenced official in the article is not revealed, a person identified as J.H. Nye, general manager of the Atlanta track, is noted in the article (Indianapolis Sun, May 28, 1910) you will find in attachment AtlantaSun052810 (Atlanta Speedway President was Coca-Cola executive Asa Candler). The big news is that Nye was in New York meeting with Frederick "F.E." Moskovics, who had been recognized for his role in helping to create board tracks such as Playa Del Rey.
 
The big claim to fame for speedways at the time came from the speed racers could acheive at their venues. Atlanta had previously gone so far as to accuse the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with cheating. Bragging rights came from posting speed records. Playa Del Rey had created a buzz and the article points to a 36-second mile by Barney Oldfield; Ralph DePalma covering five miles in 3 minutes, 15 seconds and George Robertson ran 10 miles in just over six minutes. The article offers the exciting and clean match race between Caleb Bragg and Oldfield as evidence of how safe such a facility was. 
 
More evidence of safety is underscored by the statement that 800 miles of stock car racing took place running at 75 MPH averages with no serious incident. Further, the article shares that there were 95 miles of record trials in excess of 91 MPH. The Atlanta track is also praised for its foundation design as being "safely banked."