To be an early race car driver was to constantly confront death. To watch your friends die and get right back behind the wheel, following in their tire tracks. Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Sammy Ross raced cars for almost a decade, defying demise. This meant driving distances of between 100 and 500 miles on looped, trenched dirt tracks in cars without standard safety measures. Oil leaks from competitors were common, sending followers flying into a wall or over an embankment. By 1928, Sammy had reached the upper echelon in racing, qualifying to compete in the Indianapolis 500. 

The 1928 Indianapolis 500 Starting Lineup

Before Getting Behind the Wheel

Samuel “Sammy” Ross was born to parents Edith and Benjamin Ross in Ann Arbor on June 6, 1901. The family lived on South State Street before relocating to Wall Street, just north of the Huron River. This move brought young Sammy into contact with a neighbor who was repairing an old Studebaker. Sammy began helping and was soon hooked. His skills were furthered by his work with George V. Richard, a Wall Street neighbor who owned a garage. “I worked for him and learned every nut and bolt of every motor going.” Sammy didn’t complete his formal schooling, but he learned his trade in auto shops. He remembers seeing his first car race in 1922 and by the next year he was racing in them himself. 

Dirt Track Daredevil

Not just anyone could choose to compete in car racing, trials and qualifying were required first. Sammy earned his eligibility in June of 1923 to take part in a 100-mile race at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit. After facing engine troubles that forced him to make two pit stops he ultimately earned a respectable fifth place finish in this first showing. 

Motorsports were still in their infancy and investment had yet to be made in creating infrastructure for competition. Sammy’s first race took place on a dirt track that was initially constructed for horse racing. These earthen tracks easily accumulated ruts and quickly turned to mud with any rain. Without precipitation, their soil surfaces kicked up dust that rendered it difficult for drivers to see where they were going. Sammy would later recount using trees outside of the tracks as markers in order to determine where to turn.   

The Program for the 1923 National Dirt Track Championship in Detroit, including Sammy as an entrant

Just a year into his racing career, Sammy won 17 out of 19 races to earn the 1924 Dirt Track Champion of Michigan title. His triumph was a testament not only to his driving abilities, but his skills as a mechanic in maintaining a reliable car. In one 1924 race only four of the seven contestants completed the 100 miles. Of them, Sammy took the top position. The Ann Arbor News wrote, “Ross’ victory was due principally to the fact that he was the only driver that did not have tire or engine trouble.” The next year the Ann Arbor News further underscored how crucial a dependable car was when Sammy was struggling to defend his title, writing, “Things have not been breaking this year for Sam like they did in 1924. His car on several occasions went wrong.” Sammy fought his way back to regain the state title in 1926 and 1927. 

Of course, Sammy owed his success in no small part to his nerves of steel. During one 75-mile race in 1925, Sammy was a mile ahead when one of his tie rods collapsed, sending his car through a fence and down a 12-foot embankment. His car rolled three times, but he miraculously escaped with just a scratch on one eye. He was back behind the wheel two weeks later.

Other competitors were not so fortunate. In his first month of racing Sammy competed in a field of ten cars in Grand Rapids, four of whom were involved in a pileup that resulted in the death of driver Bug McCale. In 1925, Detroit driver Al Waters was killed in another race Sammy took part in. On lap 146 of 150, Waters crashed into a fence at the Michigan State Fair track, dying instantly, and injuring 20 spectators. The list of casualties could tragically go on.

The Brickyard: 1928 

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home to the Indianapolis 500, was built in 1909 as a 2.5 mile banked, oval track made of crushed stone and tar, rendering it double the size of the typical 1-mile fairground venues and a radically different composition. The gravel quickly proved too dangerous and within its first year the track was resurfaced with brick, bestowing it with the nickname “the Brickyard.” As champion of the dirt tracks, Sammy would have to prove his abilities on a different surface.

In order to earn a spot in the starting lineup at the 16th annual Indianapolis 500, drivers had to reach a minimum speed of 90 mph. Sammy soared past this on his first lap, reaching a high of 108 mph while simultaneously breaking a shock absorber. His next three laps were hindered by this fault, but he still managed to clock in at 107, 105, and 104 mph. He started in 17th position out of the 33 car lineup.  

Footage from the 1928 Indianapolis 500

On Memorial Day 1928 the flag was waved and the racers were off. Sammy stayed out in the race until his 79th lap when he made a pit stop to change the tires and replenish the car’s gas, oil, and water. He stopped again, to replace his right front tire, all the time climbing in the ranks. By lap 131 he had made it to seventh position, only a lap behind Louie Meyer, who would go on to win the race. 

What the spectators didn’t know was that Sammy had repeatedly lost consciousness as he was driving. Later, it was discovered that tubing was jabbing him in the back over every bump, snapping his neck so hard a few times that it knocked him out. “But I just stuck my head out in the air stream and came to right away,” he later recounted.

The pit lane at the 1928 Indianapolis 500

On his third pit stop, 350 miles into the race, it wasn’t just the tires and fluids that were swapped out, but Sammy as well. The plan was to check on Sammy’s health while the relief driver took over for 20 laps or so to hold the position until Sammy could hop back in for the final stretch. As the Ann Arbor News put it, “Only an unkind turn of fate prevented Sammy Ross, Ann Arbor race driver, from placing up among the leaders and perhaps winning the 500-mile grunt at Indianapolis.” 

Impatient to get in the race, the relief driver attempted to start the car too quickly, ripping out the transmission and ending any chance at reentering the field. That relief driver was none other than Wilbur Shaw, “one of the most important people in the history of American auto racing.” Wilbur would go on to win the Indianapolis 500 three times and eventually save the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from demolition. But in 1928, he put a stop to Sammy’s first chance at Indy. In the end, Sammy earned $526. 

Sammy at the 1928 Indianapolis 500

Sammy continued racing despite this setback, but the luck he had maintained in evading damage ran dry. In 1929, just a week before the next Indy 500, Sammy was racing on a dirt track in Toledo when he lost control of his car. A fence was lined with fans in front of him and he did his best to steer toward a gap. He succeeded in missing the spectators, but he took the brunt of the harm himself. As a result of his injuries he was hospitalized for 13 months. The damage to his left arm was severe enough that doctor’s debated whether or not it would have to be amputated. Wilbur Shaw went on to win that Toledo race.  

Back at the Brickyard: 1931

1931 brought Sammy’s second chance at the top racing prize. He reached a qualifying high speed of 106 mph, only enough for him to start in 37th position out of 40. Having just regained his health, Sammy was again faced with the true risks of his chosen career. Just two days prior to Sammy’s qualifying run, driver Joe Caccia and his required co-pilot, riding mechanic Clarence Grover, died after their car slid in a turn, crashed through the retaining wall, and caught fire. 

Sammy and riding mechanic "Olie" Wilkinson at the 1931 Indianapolis 500

Race day arrived and Sammy remained steady in spite of the fact that he had been awake for the last 48 hours making final changes to his car. Still, he completed the entire race himself with no assistance from repeat relief driver Wilbur Shaw who had failed to qualify after a broken crankshaft. Relief drivers were shared across competitors and after stepping in for driver Phil Pardee, Wilbur crashed during the race, driving over an embankment. He was uninjured and walked back to the pits to continue his role as a substitute. Sammy crossed the finish line fifteenth, having gained 22 spots from where he started, but that also made him the last car to finish that hadn’t faced mechanical malfunction or been involved in a crash. 1931 would be Sammy’s final run at the Indianapolis 500 – at least as a driver.

Racing “Retirement”

Cars were his true love, and though Sammy gave up the driver’s seat, he remained a part of the racing community. For years Sammy returned to the Indianapolis 500 to work as a “goodwill mechanic” in one driver or another’s pit crew. He offered his assistance to men he had previously raced beside. 

Sticking to what he knew, outside of racing Sammy also continued to work as a mechanic and eventually transitioned his skills with machines into a job at Argus Inc. as a toolmaker. Argus’ employee newsletter included a feature on Sammy’s racing career and continued connection to the motorsports community in 1947. That year, Sammy served as a part of Shorty Cantlon’s crew at the Indianapolis 500. The two had raced against each other for years, but it would prove to be Sammy's last time working at the brickyard. Shorty died during the race after crashing into a barrier wall. 

Another Ann Arbor Generation

It took 48 years after Sammy's turn around the Indy track for another Ann Arbor native to compete in the famed 500. Howdy Holmes was born and raised in Ann Arbor as the heir to the Chelsea Milling Company and their famous Jiffy Mix. Leading up to Howdy's first race at Indianapolis in 1979, Sammy told the Ann Arbor News, “I’ve been reading about him. He sounds like a fine racer, a fine young man. And he sounds smart. That’s what you need down there at Indy. You need the smartness. Anybody can keep turning left.” Howdy rose from his 13th position start to finish seventh. As the only rookie to compete, he earned the title of Rookie of the Year. Howdy also raced alongside another teammate with Ann Arbor ties, Janet Guthrie. Janet graduated from the University of Michigan with a physics degree in 1960 and went on to become the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500 in 1977. 

The Finish Line

At age 24, early in Sammy's racing career, he married 21-year-old Ann Arborite Marjorie Bergeon. The press described her as Sammy's "mascot,"  “a charming petite little miss" who "has lent an air of charm and distinction to the races she has attended." The couple's rush to get married made the papers when they embarked on a race to the city clerk’s office before a new act went into effect that would have required them to wait five days before they could be issued a license. Their haste to get married was followed by a divorce not long after in June of 1927. In an era when divorce required a fault, Marjorie listed “extreme cruelty” as the cause. As one 1917 book on divorce law put it, “Extreme cruelty as a ground for divorce may embrace a good many different acts, and the term is somewhat elastic. What may amount to such cruelty as would constitute good cause for a divorce in one case may be entirely insufficient in another.” Whatever it meant in this case, Sammy did not contest it, and he never married again.

In his subsequent years, Sammy continued the trade he had learned in his youth. In 1968, the Ann Arbor News caught up with him in his small repair shop at 1342 N. Main St, located across the Huron River from where he had fallen in love with cars. A recent leg amputation now required him to use a motorized wheelchair. He joked, “Well, I guess you’d say I just ran out of legs.”

Sammy never held Wilbur's error against him. He recalled him later in life as, “the best friend I ever had in racing. He was sharp, eager, a tough competitor and a wonderful person besides. He was a good loser, a good winner, a credit to racing. I never said anything to him about that 1928 race. We just never talked about it. How can you fault someone who’s got his soul in the game.”

Sammy in 1973

What compels someone to repeatedly risk their life? To keep going even after watching compatriots killed on the track? Sammy described his mindset:

“Before most races I was scared, I was scared of the cars, the whole thing. But once that green flag is dropped, you just stop thinking about it. You stopped worrying and just drove by reflex and if you hit those big bumps on that Indianapolis brickyard you just tried to hit them a little harder the next time. It was always a pretty rough ride down there until you got over 100. Then you just flew over those bumps. But in any race when it was all over it was a good feeling to know you were still alive and if you’d won, it was that much better. If you had it in you– I mean that real passion for motors and racing and speed– well, it was something you had to do. I’m glad I did it.”

As Sammy's health was failing, friend and former riding mechanic Olin “Olie” Wilkinson, who had been alongside Sammy in the 500 in 1931, would take him out for drives. Sammy spent his final months in the Whitmore Lake Convalescent Home, where he could be found listening to races on the radio. When Sammy passed away in 1980 he donated his body to the University of Michigan medical school.