Let’s Save Motorsport’s #PrimalNumbers
I drive today’s race cars — I’ll have the incredible opportunity to compete in my seventh Indianapolis 500 this upcoming Memorial Day weekend — but I find myself thinking that some things just aren’t as good as they used to be. There is something wonderful about how certain cars of racing’s past sit on their suspension, and the way you can see the gladiators of old interacting with their wild beasts. As much as we tend to ignore it, I’ve also come to terms with the fact that the way these cars looked was a significant driver of interest, too; I just can’t deny it. The colors, old sponsors, and even the imperfections matter to me — right down to the way old racers had hand-drawn numbers painted on them by local sign shop artists and decal specialists. And over time I’ve become particularly obsessed with these numbers.
Unfortunately, these old numbers get an unsympathetic dismissal in the long view of history. Sometimes even the most historically significant race cars are restored with a completely different number design — this is something that really drives me crazy — and I think it’s about time we start paying attention and celebrating them. Along with a few friends, I’m going to be posting some great old racing numbers here over the coming months. We are working with a graphic designer to digitally ‘save’ these for future generations — and they’re available here to download in multiple formats with which you can do what you want. Share them, put them on a t-shirt, save them to your phone, hell you could even correctly restore them instead of letting this history go to waste. The details matter, our history is a part of our passion, and it’s worth preserving. Let’s celebrate these #PrimalNumbers and help their original form live forever.
We’ll be posting new #PrimalNumbers to this page every week. For our first, let’s start with a legend, Ray Harroun’s incredible 1911 car.
#32 Ray Harroun’s 1911 Marmon Wasp Indy 500 winner:
We thought it fitting that the Marmon Wasp be first on the list as the first Indianapolis 500 winner, but it’s also got a pretty awesome number design. It’s cool to notice that the number is slightly different in each location on the car as its orientation differs, in addition to its color combo (black/red, and what appears to be black/white). I love the angled number tips — for some reason this look reminded me of the old Spy vs. Spy comic! — adds an almost medieval look to the design. An incredible vehicle with a great (and unique) number. We’ve had both the black/red and black/white number made below:
The Wasp has been repainted and restored more than once, with the number changing throughout those restoration processes. There are a collection of photos from the late ‘20’s where the number has already changed after the car was repainted to denote its place as the first Indy 500 winner (it did not have the angled number tips, and coloring appeared different); it appears as though the car’s current restoration was much closer to that spec of number design than the original, despite the car clearly being restored to original spec in all other facets. Once I realized this I’ve not been able to look at it the same way in the museum ever since!
Keep an eye out for more #PrimalNumbers as we post them. And drop me a line on Twitter if you have suggestions of numbers we should save next.
