Yagle

by Michael Ferner

Philadelphia real estate developer Edward C. Yagle campaigned a number of mostly Miller racing cars in the East, first with the National Motor Racing Assoc., then with AAA, where he hid behind his wife’s name on entry forms, presumably in order to fool the IRS. In 1928, he acquired one of the Frank Lockhart Millers, and Ray Keech drove it into Indy’s winner circle one year later. Keech also crashed the car heavily a couple of times, perishing in the second accident, while the car was completely rebuilt around new components on both occasions. Presumably from leftovers of those wrecks, Yagle’s team built a two-man car for the 1930 “junk formula” Indy 500, and powered the racer with a 1.65-litre version of a Miller ’91’ engine, shorn of its supercharger. Needless to say, the car was not really competitive with the enlarged ’122’s, nor with the huge stock block engines of more than three times its size, but it ran surprisingly well on a number of occasions.

Yagle ‘IC-30’

- 1930 #33 Betholine, ?, Miller 91-101, E. C. Yagle, Frank Farmer (ret Langhorne, ret Indy, ret Detroit, 3rd Altoona Flag Day, 6th Akron, dnq Altoona Labor Day, 5th Syracuse)
- 1931 #9 Pedrick Piston Ring, ?, Miller 91-101, E. C. Yagle, Frank Farmer/Gordy Condon (dns Indy)

N.B. The Yagles also still had the Miller ’91’, possibly now with a ’122’ engine, and ran it with the same competition number as the Indy Car, and since a few of the 1930 races still welcomed single seaters it is possible that some of the above results were actually achieved using the ’91’.

Last updated by Michael Ferner on 15 Dec 2009.

All text is copyright Michael Ferner 2009 - 2024.