“Put in front or burn it up,” August Duesenberg told Joe Boyer midway through the 1924 Indianapolis 500.
And he did.
Joe Boyer is the only Missouri native to win the Indianapolis 500 although Missouri’s connection to The Greatest Spectacle in Racing is long and varied, stretching from its earliest days to today. The story of his victory has been equaled only one other time in the 105 runnings of the race. The 106th edition will be run Sunday.
The race had changed engine rules in 1923, cutting engine size by one-third to only 122 cubic inches. The average speed of Tommy Milton’s winning car was about 3.5 mph slower than the winner’s speed in 1922.
But new technology powered Boyer’s car in 1924. It was the first 500 that allowed superchargers and the impact of them was immediate. Motor Age magazine told readers, “The perfected and groomed 122 cu. in. racing cars not only thrilled the ardent admirers of motor car racing with a new and unexpected record for average mileage but brought them to the ecstasy of sheer joy by setting a pace that rolled the first five over the finish line at greater speeds than the old record.”
The eight fastest qualifiers for the race all ran more than 100 mph with Jimmy Murphy’s Miller Special leading the way at 108.037. Boyer started fourth, the inside position of the second row, in the field 22 cars, at 104.84.
Joseph Boyer Jr., was 34 years old the day of the race. He was born in St. Louis, the son of the inventor of the first successful rivet gun. Boyer senior helped one of his employees, William Seward Burroughs develop a “calculating machine” in the company machine shop. Burroughs put Boyer in charge of the American Arithmometer Company that then absorbed a competitor. The Boyer family moved with Burroughs to Detroit when Joseph junior was 15. The company became the Burroughs Adding Machine Company and Boyer senior served as its president until his death in 1930.
The Boyer family was quite wealthy and Joe Junior soon got into boat and car racing. One day before his 29th birthday, Joe Boyer Jr., started 14th in his first Indianapolis 500. He lasted only 30 laps before his rear axle failed. The next year, he was the second fastest qualifier but crashed out of the race eight laps from the end and finished 12th. In 1921, he started fourth again but was sidelined by a failed rear axle again after only 74 of the 200 laps. He missed the 1922 race and Differential failure in 1923 left him 18th.
It appeared his fortunes were changing in 1924, at least for one lap. Reporter Clarence Phillips, in the press box, records, “As they pass the starter Murphy, in his gilded chariot, sprigs ito the lead. ‘Look at Murphy,’ I hear someone say excitedly. But Boyer shoots past Murphy like a streak and finishes the lap in first place…” But by the fifth lap he was “out of the immediate picture suddenly.”
A key was sheared in his supercharger. He could still run but not at competitive speeds. His teammate, L. L. (Lora Lawrence) Corum (on the left), who started 21st because he was a late qualifier despite having the 16th quickest speed, had worked his way up to ninth at the 150-mile mark. He was fourth at 200 miles. Just past the halfway mark, the 109th lap, Corum made a pit stop. Boyer had turned his crippled car over to another driver shortly before and Duesenberg ordered Corum out, put Boyer in and issued his famous order.
He was third behind Murphy and Earl Cooper after 120 of the 200 laps. Twenty laps later he was a minute-25 seconds behind Murphy and Cooper. When Murphy popped a tire on the 146th lap and had to pit, Boyer moved to second and started to close the gap on Cooper and was only 52 seconds back at 375 miles.
The lead shrank to only 37 seconds with 100 miles to go, down to 30 seconds with 30 laps left.
And then on lap 178, “Cooper goes into the pit…, Boyer springing into (the) lead and crowding his supercharger for full benefit…Each time the leaders pass the stands now there is yelling…Cooper gains four seconds…”
Twenty laps left and Boyer has expanded his lead to a minute-to seconds.
“Only ten more laps for Boyer. If he has good luck and drives the rest of the way as consistently as now he’ll win handily.”
Lap 195: “’Boyer is increasing his lead. He wants to finish strong. The starter is getting the flags redy. In one hand he has the green flag and in the other the checker. Boyer is given a big ovation on the next to the last lap. They know he is the winner unless he falls dead or some other calamity occurs.
“The checkered flag is waved in front of Boyer as he comes down the stretch. He wins.”
He finished the race in five minute more than five hours, an average speed of 98.24 mph, four miles an hour faster than the record set two years earlier. Cooper finished second and Murphy was third.
Boyer and Corum were recognized as the first co-winners in Indianapolis 500 history. In three other races (1911, 1912, and 1923) the starting drivers had relief drivers for part of the race but they got back behind the wheels and finished the race. This was the first time a winning car started with one driver but finished with a second one in control.
The only other time it has happened in race history was 1941 when Mauri Rose relieved Floyd David on the 72nd lap and went on to win the race. Davis is the only driver in the race’s history to win without leading a single lap. Rose also won the race by himself in 1947 and 1948.
Bowyer remains the only driver to lead the first lap and the last lap of the Indianapolis 500 in different cars.
Boyer drove during an era when some tracks were made of wooden boards and had high banks and featured motorcycle as well as automobile races. One of those tracks was the Altoona Speedway in Pennsylvania.
The annual Altoona Fall Classic, held about Labor Day, attracted the big names in auto racing. Boyer again was trying to run down Jimmy Murphy when his car blew a tire and crashed into the guard rail at 125 mph. Boyer was pinned in the car, his legs crushed. Rescuers got him to a hospital where both of his legs were amputated and he received blood transfusions. But he died on September 2, 1924, four months after he became the only Missouri driver to win the Indianapolis 500.
Motor Age concluded its article about Boyer’s 500 win, “As a result of this race the talk that has been heard heretofore about the maximum speed of the rack having been reached has been dissipated and some of the experts now confidenty believe that more than 100 miles an hour can be maintained for the 500-mile circuit of the famous speedway.”
On the 97th anniversary of Joe Boyer becoming the first (and so far, only) Indianapolis 500 winner from Missouri Helio Castroneves, using an engine about the same size as the one in Boyer’s car, averaged 190.690 mph in winning his fourth Indianapolis 500.
(Photo credits: Corum and Boyer—Bob Priddy, taken at the IMS Museum; all other illustrations are from Motor Age magazine, June 5,1924)