Taking the starting flag in Indianapolis

If people like going fast, it pretty much doesn’t matter how. Here’s some history on the topic by Deb Whitehorse in iceboat.org:

Until recently, few in the sailing or iceboating worlds knew that one of our own, Mel Jones, raced in the 1925 Indianapolis 500. As far as we know, he remains the only iceboater and A Scow sailor to have ever taken the starting flag at Indy.

That remarkable fact came to light thanks to Kristopher Strebe, a racing historian from Seattle and native of Janesville, Wisconsin. Kristopher has made it his mission to uncover the full biographical details of every driver who has competed in the Indianapolis 500.

A few days ago, Kristopher contacted me to ask if I had ever seen a photograph of Mel Jones. Fortunately, the Carl Bernard scrapbook provided what we needed, as Carl had pasted a large picture of Mel on one of its pages.

Kristopher also sent two black and white images from the 1925 Indy 500, one of a driver seated in car number 7 and another standing trackside. He had a hunch that the man in the photos might be Mel, the longtime sailmaker and a former Commodore of the Lake Geneva Yacht Club. – Full report