W. Wilbur Shaw and Mark Eutsler

00:02 My name is Warren Wilbur Shaw Jr. McMinnville age of 74 years.

00:11 Today's date is Thursday, October 17th 2019 in Chicago, Illinois.

00:20 My name of my interview Partners Mark Hiser.

00:24 I don't work through the Indiana racing Memorial Association Basin, Indianapolis.

00:32 And I'm Mark eutsler age 61, it's October 17th 2019 in Chicago, Illinois my interview Partners Bill Shaw and we know each other through the Indiana racing Memorial Association.

00:48 And Bill, it's great to have you here today and have this conversation together. Thank you. So nice of you to arrange this solutely as we were talking before coming in an event in your life should have prompted the founding of the Indiana racing Memorial Association believe it was five years ago that we had a memorial for the passing of your father who died with two others in a plane crash in Peterson Indiana near Decatur as they were returning from Chrysler Proving Grounds to to Indianapolis, and we had a memorial at the very moment that that happened 60 years before and it was so nice of you and Linda to to be able to attend that and can you share some Recollections about that that day and that experience what it meant to you. I believe it is your first time to be able to visit that site and and just what the Emoji

01:48 The day were about sure absolutely.

01:53 I suppose I had only know that I had a picture in my mind of.

02:00 General is just the countryside around with it for the correct took took place and

02:10 But it never been up there. I never visited location.

02:14 I was nine one dad died and

02:20 How do I thought about that a little bit not a lot a little bit and I was probably

02:31 I'm certain about what you want to do that or I didn't share but when you gentlemen ask

02:39 About never doing up

02:42 Doing the heavy gun visit to that may be doing a roadside Monument there or something.

02:48 Endo

02:50 I said that for sure.

02:53 Sure, Yes, let's do this great and give it a lot of thought leading up to it.

03:01 And

03:05 Is a 2 hour and change drive up there. I moved back on country roads, and we're tooling along my wife Linda and I

03:17 What's the wondering if we were on the right Road at all? And then fortunately found on you to stand alongside the road with your maroon van and thought all right, if there are four of us now. This is we've got this sorted out. We've got it and

03:38 The countryside the layout of where we were was almost exactly what I imagined it to be at was Farm country some Woods, oh farm house.

03:53 Just west of us and

03:56 Just girls, Indiana

03:59 Farm country

04:04 And we look around and we talked about it a little bit and then some people began to to arrive. I suppose there were about a dozen of them there were.

04:18 There were friends that drove up from Southern Indiana Put Some Drive Time into this and

04:28 And there were locals who had

04:35 Been around the time the only two people at the crash site when it happened or

04:44 Gentleman, who was a farmer right and his grandson.

04:49 And a grandson was there that day hopefully nice of him to to be there and

05:01 I guess nobody that may be the most surprising not surprising but

05:07 I knew that this was but undoubtedly provide some closure. Yes, and it felt it was kind of an open that was an open deal. So now I understand what people mean by closure. I having experienced.

05:26 It was a hard lifting experience the

05:33 Love the locals were just as kind as they could be and respectful was awfully nice of them. I remember that several clean up to you offering their condolences for 60 years you have lived there for about this year's to and

05:53 I got to love when we were finishing their I got a chance to just say a word or two and and thank them for for being present.

06:06 Thanks and further interest in their concern in them.

06:11 The Horseman in The Faults that that went into that and particularly the man's grandson Farmer's grandson. Yes. He's been about my age 9 happened.

06:25 I understand that that I didn't I'd never known this that dad died from a list for a moment or two. And in in this Old Farmer's arms and

06:40 How's that his company was in?

06:43 Did he survive did it all being in the conditioning was in a plain sites are truly brutal.

06:54 Did the dads Geiger kept saying to him at least once that I have to get home to my birthday? Yes. Yes, I was so he was in the reason they were flying home from Detroit.

07:11 As opposed to driving was because

07:15 A friend of his had an airplane there. And so will we can we can fly down and get your home in 2 hours instead of 5 so we will write and and off they went but the other the winds got iced, right? It was an old Cessna 170 old now.

07:38 Point out that this was October 30th to October 3rd and 19th in that bowl was a band of weather systems across Indiana at that location that

07:51 Notoriously Shifty they change frequently there was some It was a commercial plane lost up there not so many years ago.

08:04 Something similar weather right windshear and icing and that kind of thing that were available there without any kind of notice at all. Although they knew they were running into it the last radio contact they made was with Fort Wayne, right? Anyway have icing requesting it in emergency landing.

08:25 And that was the last communication. I was course. I never got there there never even got so much has turn toward Fort Wainwright and down. They went might point out that her father was a three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 and then at the time of his passing was president of the Annapolis Motor Speedway and had orchestrated really a Tony hallman's purchase of the track from Eddie Rickenbacker you did in 1945. So that's a little background on how this relates to to racing dead.

09:00 That is interested Indianapolis in the 500.

09:05 10 years before he won his first one. Yes, and then in 6 years.

09:13 Had maybe

09:15 2 seconds or maybe 3 seconds 1/4 of 7th and three wins unprecedented still almost three in a row almost almost. Yeah. Yeah video.

09:30 Car wheel that wouldn't

09:33 The collapsed

09:37 They didn't expect that right naturally and it broke his back and not put it into his racing career, but it was also right on the toes of World War II Gathering of Heroes was head of the race of the aviation division in Firestone, right? Cuz the Indy 500 was not held during World War 2 years. No and nor during World War 1 years. So after he racing then there was a span of time that he was at Firestone and then Eddie Rickenbacker was looking to sell the Speedway open.

10:15 And so he ran the radiation division during the war but it turned out that Eddie Rickenbacker. Who is he and

10:30 Prison in that. Thank you, 54 have Eastern Airlines, which was his career creation healing the speedway and

10:44 I think you needed money. Yes, and he might have also been so up to his ears and Eastern Airline that he he doesn't need the distraction. So he was going to sell the property or dad got wind of that noon Rickenbacker for years and contacted him and asked him if I should step back gesture.

11:06 Just a foot or two the

11:10 That's feeling about selling of the speedway Crohn's and probably making a Housing Development out of it, right he had done right?

11:24 Well that that was that was just couldn't be allowed to happen. The place needed to be saved.

11:31 So he has written Rickenbacker for an option to give him the time to to raise the funds to buy it.

11:39 Something akin to that did happen.

11:44 The reason dad knew that the speedway was in terrible condition at the end of the war was he had done a

11:52 1944 maybe in the winter and he has seen what miserable condition it was never Teresa had to be could be cut down also out of proportion to the speedway. Just you know, so they were I a hazard assessment was broken up. The grandstands are in total disarray, right and

12:21 It was just a it was hard running to you was a really miraculous that from November. I believe it was November 17th 1945. When it. The transaction happened at the Indianapolis Athletic Club, when they sign the papers you have till they opened on May 1st 1946 that they pulled it. They grounds even over the winter together and I think had a hundred thousand people for that 1946 race with his exact. Yeah, and your your father then was named president of the speedway. I did want to check on one. I don't know if it's an urban legend of the Hoosier Legend from Indiana about your father. There had been a commercial depicting Hoosier legends that Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance did a number of years ago and it showed your father and a goat race at the Shelby County Fair. Is there is that true. Did he start his racing career racing goats and hoes in a wagon?

13:20 Old Town Indiana go-karts go-karts. Yeah, and they had a

13:29 A horse track at the fairground ice short track very short truck and thought it was fine for sulky races and go kart races and things like that and it was so kind of you gentlemen to to do a memorial there. Yes, which was some

13:50 I'll come back to that the moment. I don't want to go back for a minute. So I don't forget that it was nice to have a moment to think that grandson of the farmer the held down in his arms.

14:07 For being present and and tell him how sorry I was at somebody of his age.

14:15 We had to experience something that gruesome.

14:21 And I hope that is hidden given in.

14:25 Bad dreams on 404 all of his life, right?

14:32 That could have been pretty the but we go back to move onto back to show me though. That was a marvelous event that you guys put on and that the Indiana racing memorials Association put on and we thank you repeatedly. It was really well-attended. They were shocked cousins, but I have never met people from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, who were there the speedway set up desk Maserati. I know you see him. Yes.

15:08 For now president Jay Douglas Bowles was present right and it was really cold was it called that I wanted to learn to just give him mine, but whoever wears a coat. Yeah, but he'd have none of it but it was it was wonderful thing and we had a soft unveiling of that marker at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum about the week before I start add an event you and Linda were gracious to come to and and were able to do it there for an audience and then the the the luncheon and the unveiling and and the Maserati that the speedway Museum sent out at its own cost was just just a tremendous a way to honor your father. Thank you. Yes. Thanks a little while. Thanks for letting us do it for people who haven't seen one of these plaques that that are MO.

16:08 Girls Association makes if if you seen those heavy bronze plaques around the country that

16:18 What does one word or Tom Mix have dairy or had passed away their others? I've seen battlefields and things like that. Caliber. It'll still be there in 100 to 200 years barring some human intervention. We hopes and it's a wonderful thing that just had kicked off the gun. She started

16:43 Got it. How many you've dug out around the country now, but we have a dozen in Indiana. Are they preparing to do our 3rd a national one? We created a brand called American Racing Memorial sociation or Arma. Our first one was just nearby here in Tinley Park, Illinois for the Benton House and family has been the second one was in Fresno, California for the bukiewicz family and we're doing one in Red Oaks River Oaks, Texas a suburb of Fort Worth for Johnny Rutherford on November 9th of 2019. So we're looking forward to that and we have many more planned as well. It was just so successful in Indiana my co-founder Bryan Hassler and I really thought maybe we would do a couple of year, you know what having to raise the funds for it and coordinate events and communities we've gone to with honorees have just embraced it and and five years later. We have nearly 50. So that's almost a paste of 10.

17:43 A year plus launching the national program this year. So we're just really pleased and and we always approach it very sensitively with family members like yourself is this okay to do and if someone would say no then we would stop and not do it and honor honor those wishes. I don't know that we've ever had that with an honorary, but we always want to be sure that we're going to we're sensitive to the memory of the person and do it do it the right way and do it with the way that honors the memory brings me back to when you first called me before any of this got kicked off and and your initial thought was

18:27 Oh, you had a helmet that you want her to auction as up at a fundraiser. Oh, that's right. That's when we first met. It was said he had a raise money for our ministry of Legacy folks like yourself. Yeah and asked me if I would sign it we met for coffee. We did maybe six and Meridian Indianapolis and we in during a conversation.

18:51 He said Wilderness your folks live near here somewhere so we can finish our coffee or took it with us. I don't remember which and we struck out Mom and Dad's house.

19:06 And then subsequently the one that Mom bills after after death. Your dad had died. I'd always been curious about that because it was it was shown in the film. My thing called Speedway star, which was a film about your father and one of the scenes in it was him you were actually in the film and we show Dad at the speedway Museum fundraiser when we did the soft and veil of the the marker. I think it was the first time you would actually seen that too in the in the theater there, but it showed your father leaving home in the narration was as he often has to do on the road with the with obligations kiss your mother. Goodbye and and give you a hug. Goodbye. That's what the house that house. And so I had to send some research and various newspapers try to see and what was the address of is curious. It was a house still there. What was it like and and things and so having you there and I had no idea it was that close.

20:06 To where we had our coffee make it 100 and 6th and Springmill. It was funny funny things you remember the address is 1052 Old Springville Road.

20:21 Okay, we were talking about doing things you remember getting talking with you that morning over coffee?

20:35 Didn't take me back to the crash site, but

20:39 Take out show you the house and how we got there and explain to you. What life was like you said to use to ride your bike down this path and it all came back to you. Yeah, I don't think I forgotten much of my childhood. It didn't sound like it now it was so I lived in a wonderful place of mom and dad were fun and loving in tandem.

21:05 Life was life was exciting living around dad was hard for it to be anything. But and about some of the famous people that came out to your house that I've read about in in the most a book most of my heroes. Yeah, like a Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy at the soap box derby in Akron one year, okay.

21:34 Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck and Loretta Young and and people like don't remember.

21:44 What rock did I say? Roy Rogers? I'd learned that threw the book gentlemen start your engines, which was a book your father wrote to buy autobiography a default. It's a fascinating read funny. I was reading part of the book and I read her every Reddit about every thought every 10 years. Yes.

22:07 Every time I reread it.

22:10 I recover run across things in there and I think you're kidding. I've had that wrong all these years, it's some

22:19 Doug Boles closing his manual. How's my manual to keep facts strength sure and having given a truck at the speedway last evening about the bunch of interesting people race fans.

22:38 I read some of the book ready early this morning.

22:42 And I thought shoot. I had a couple of points in their last night wrong. So you get straightened out and do it better than next time, but it was fun to see that and then then you you and Brian got started on the idea of well, let's do some kind of memorial memorial because at that point

23:06 The histories of people in around Indianapolis 500

23:11 Head really

23:13 Some to an all-time low it had yet. It was it was primed. It's just go away. It was we started Brian and I have known each other since our College days in Indiana State. So we're about the same age, but we would notice that things we used to know or how we followed the the Indy 500 this generation was not nor did they know who won uncertain years and so we we thought you know, what what could be done with that and I want to talk to Brian about that the memorial for your a memorial service for your father on the 60th anniversary. He said, you know, I think we could do more with that and have a marker program throughout the state cuz there's so much history just what you're saying. So we're really hoping that one of the byproducts of that will be as them.

24:11 If somebody May read the marker about Holly Wilcox in Crawfordsville, Indiana near where I live. They might we might Inspire the next generation of driver or crew member or engineer or team owner or even a fan really take a look at what we have in Indiana. So so easy, I think living in Indiana to take for granted that that is the world's largest one-day sporting event and it's at the racing capital of the world on the greatest race course in the world and and you know, some people in their lifetime achievement to come to Indianapolis one time to see a race or to visit the speedway and we get to do it all the time and I always I love this program and and speaking to 4th grade classes where Indiana history is taught it like you speak to groups because it keeps it fresh for me to see their eyes light up with it so that I don't take it for granted.

25:11 The last couple of years I've been around.

25:14 4 days before the race involved with a historic Indy cars and I've talked to so many people that have a think of one lady in particular who walked over to where I was standing and Tears In Her Eyes. She's talking about having been in one of the Turn 2 suites with her father when she was she was a kitten or an emotional thing. It was to her and she's one of those people that

25:50 And I'm and I'm another of them some of us have a sense of

25:56 Do you remember that piece in the movie Patton?

26:01 Were George C Scott was talking about Divas on a battlefield and patton had gone to that Battlefield and was just overwhelmed with he could feel it feel soldiers and the battle and the I've had that that feeling happens to me at when I get to Speedway and it can be buried in snow or yes. It's even strongest when it's vacant. Yes, but I've had that experience at Watkins Glen. Okay on the Formula One course and

26:39 Loma Linda and I were driving down the side of the Loch in Scotland boy. There was something in the air that just brought tears to our eyes. Yes there if you believe in it the spirits are still there and if you don't I'm sorry for you because it's almond Georgia's funeral and Bobby Rahal just look up into the

27:13 This guy an end.

27:17 You know, you know that he's another of us that it was just hitting hard. It's wonderful and it's it's so there are people thousands of people from all over the world and this country to whom the 500.

27:34 Is there any a pilgrimage? Yes and that is what they do and they remembered for generations and they have vivid childhood memories. Yeah, or if they didn't go as a child and come now. They have memories of listening to the radio broadcast of Troy in scoring the lapse in the newspapers. That's growing a score chart barbecuing or think. I think Bob Jenkins one of the former anchors of the the broadcast said he remembers dad growing up and so many so many have their their Traditions built around the race whether they come they still have that tradition of listening to the race or coming and some many miles to come.

28:21 Ipsum

28:23 It's agree with what you yeah, when it's quiet and or dark in the in the morning sometimes out there before a lot of people that you can hear the history, you can certainly field history. It's it's palpable in it. I mean you just can say this is a special place in a lot how to make your hair stand up on the back of my neck it is yeah, that's how I feel. That's why I keep coming back and have been to every race since 1965 out there. It's just I would want to be anywhere else when there's something going on cuz if it's done well and history is being made and it's just just has a special special place where there are people I can remember driving in that race.

29:13 As far back as 86

29:17 Andam

29:19 On the vision I talked about feeling like are going to the crash site was just the other day and it was five years ago. Right, but the Freddy aggravation of the Cummins diesel in the race that the urn it was whatever your it was 51 or thereabouts. It's just as Vivid in my mind and that

29:47 What triggered dad with firestone's blessing?

29:52 How to put together for the prospectus and a shopping all over the country

29:58 Looking for investors to

30:02 Help him put the speedway back together. Yes, only what came out of him feeling that he'll virtually everything that he had become to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the 500 and he just couldn't see this happen, right?

30:22 Thank heaven.

30:24 Car accident Tony home until my gosh. Yes, I think about that that shooting it through it could have been a Housing Development, you know just hard to imagine that it did come close to that had the young fables find someone and and and do you really found the right pre dad found the right person Antonio man who wanted to do it? Because it was the it was as he I think Tony home and said it was as Indiana what Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby was or is to Kentucky needs to stay there. And so he reinvested what it what it turned back into the facility and made it weird. That was that was one of the that had to be that whoever dad found.

31:13 Good Russian is how to be willing to put committed the money back into the total to the Improvement of the speedway. Look what they've made. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's Dad would be loved.

31:30 Well, I'm sure is yes just just delighted with it. Yeah, I wanted to take you back to that memorial service because there's that and we were we were talking about this earlier as well and have before and I've shared this remembrance that I want would like for you to share now to of when everyone had gone you and Linda were there and you you really had an experience feeling a real connection with your father. Could you talk about that?

32:03 You had brought flowers and they were mom's proper for the timing and

32:11 It was a cloudy day which was proper for the circumstances. I like it was them and

32:19 We were just standing there.

32:23 Looking out across that acreage to the field of plane it come down in and

32:32 And I know Downing.

32:34 Like some soil oftenly

32:37 Hand and felt it and smelled it and let it run through my through my fingers and

32:52 It was interesting to me that.

32:57 That would there was a very whole feeling about that. It didn't bring tears to my eyes. It's just felt very right to do. Yes. They're after they're a hundred times of somebody's asked me about something or a topic would come up.

33:15 Is it would just put such a lump in my throat that you can have temporarily disabled right and

33:25 That was a tremendous experience.

33:28 And

33:31 So fortunate to get to do it I know is Brian and I were driving away. We we had seen you kneeling down and Linda had her hand on your shoulder. She was standing behind you and and and we just commented, you know, it's so we figured you were having a really personal moment. And it's one of those great memories that we have of that event and what it meant to you. And I think you'd mentioned you hadn't felt such a connection to your father since you know in in the last six years, you know, I didn't know any of Rick Grimes Supply. Yes family right now, but I didn't know the ruse family daughters and Andrea Christina and even Chrissy to me.

34:22 I thought also at that time go to.

34:26 We don't know where they were right witcha made another attempt to find a moved had to come up that empty right and

34:34 I'm sorry, we can get to share that with him. Absolutely. Yeah, but it was some.

34:41 But since told daughter Christina about our experience there, hope your husband come back for the race.

34:52 Thank you. It's great stuff. Oh, yeah, so there's never been anything quite like it and

35:00 To tell you that I knew what it was going to look like and was totally familiar with it when we will stop there was some

35:10 Go figure that is so interesting like her true. You already had the pre connection y'all this confirmed it to ya. There was the only thing that was different was.

35:26 Somebody from the FAA had said that if conceivably had the plane not struck up an American Standard wire fence running across the script it yeah, they might have gotten away with it. But you don't very often that means nothing has the aerodynamics of a brick right when did iced covered with ice and but the only thing missing was the fence right? Yes. Yeah. I'm glad that the pieces of the airplane didn't hit the gentleman and his and his grandson, right? Yeah. He was out. I think the yes, the grandfather was I think harvesting corn and and in the plane came down so he came down very near him.

36:13 Add another person who was there I think was they were moving a chicken coop down the road or something and he was I don't know what fruit seller or something and felt the ground from from the poem sure from the crash and came up and he said we we didn't know what had happened, you know, didn't know you wouldn't wouldn't know if it was a UFO or how many muscles are they are ya amazing experience pretty country up there a little and I work.

36:43 In that vicinity not so long ago and she said you suppose we could find the site. I said it take me all day to find the road. Let alone the site. Yeah, there was just dumb luck. Yeah, so no we haven't. So yeah, I looked at some newspaper articles that had mentioned. I always knew it was near Decatur but I found one that said Peterson which is a little unincorporated town. I think just two miles west of Decatur. So I was there on business and one Sunday afternoon. I was just driving around didn't know what I might see probably nothing. But I Came Upon Heller's nursery and in the sign said established in 1946, I thought oh my goodness. This would have been this business would have been there when this happened so I went in and I got my wife some some Martha Wash.

37:42 Geraniums in the spring that this happened I said, hey, I'm looking for a site of an event that happened here. And she said my grandmother would know about that. She's outside talking to a gentleman who I think was was there and it which I saw them when I came in so I went out and and this person had been he was the person helping move the chicken coop. The second person that had responded to it and one that came up and offered condolences to you. And he said yes, so we just drove about 1/2 Mile and he showed me where it was. So that was that was interesting as well after all of those years to find a business in to find a person who owns somebody that meet immediately immediately. I didn't have to come back cuz you say do you know that's like two or three-hour trip for us and then to come back up there. And so I thought wow here it is and and I sort of Envision what we

38:42 Do there in terms of commemorating that I think it was that fall later that fall that we was going to be the 60th anniversary of that sounds like you enough for doing. Well. Thanks for the whole sequence. It is a story within itself really if a finding that site and just how would your

39:07 Doing of this. Memorial those memorials has triggered has

39:15 I have put this.

39:19 Historic a new car business has a history of it and the end of the end of visuals in full swing and I'm just delighted we are to we're seeing a lot more as you say a Resurgence if you will and interest in an Indy car history Indianapolis Motor Speedway history in darkness all about the people it is it's about them. It's about the speedway, right? It's about the individuals that made it happen. Yeah racing is about relationships. I think someone just posted that on social media today or yesterday that quote and I thought how appropriate that is as it is in most of life. I mean you get to do pretty interesting things or maybe you have achievements better really is all about the people you meet in person how you treat one another and what you do for each other.

40:11 I see the thing. I love about being involved with E and it in Indianapolis historic vintage Indy car gas.

40:20 You get to meet the people look at me the other grandkids to the people whose fathers drove those things.

40:29 And for some of the drivers themselves from from later on but how many of the people have such a sense of that history and everybody's got stories to share they have and this suck in the last.

40:46 Five six years. I've learned a ton of things that

40:50 Might have been missed. Yes. I feel the same way and and met people that I knew about that. I never thought I would hear yourself being one of them never thought I would cross paths with and and now we have a kindred a relationship. If you will about the the same things that we have passionate about and it's just been wonderful have learned so much two things. I never knew things. I didn't know I didn't know and have so much stuff. We have so much fun doing this we have it's a real good fit. It is a absolute labor of love to use a cliche but it is if ever there was and I was a sinner I will close by telling us that the

41:34 The cheers caught me part way home. Okay after that day sure. If so.

41:43 Can plants use I don't want to know if they'll thank you for letting us do it. We really appreciate it.

41:50 Where was the question sure, and thanks for being here today. Thanks for having us.

42:08 How you picture your dad when you remember him share about how you picture your dad when you remember him.

42:18 Usually well-dressed people said what's your first memory of your dad when you were little I said no shirt sandals and on and on a mower he was an Outdoorsman.

42:34 By the time I was nine and he died he had taught me he had a shop and wish you could have built anything imaginable. I knew how to I knew more about.

42:46 The machine tools that he had in his garage not to mention all the hand tools.

42:53 Access guns and knives

42:58 Sportsmanship shooting

43:02 Hunting training for dogs nature

43:08 He talked like his dad did him you tried to teach me everything he could yes, and he have.

43:15 We will have it done but I remember him.

43:19 At home and

43:23 I always fun. I can still remember The Descent of his aftershave, okay?

43:31 And his pipe tobacco. Oh, yes, isn't it lovely remember to the last to leave and I'm glad because it's so yeah.

43:43 Very nice. It was wonderful life was good as a child. I was very very fortunate fellow nice.