I Love to Make the Dirt Fly: A Biography of Carl G. Fisher
By Carl Hungness
By all accounts, Carl G. Fisher was an extraordinary man. For starters he promoted bicycles and the racing of them, then partnered with James Allison to found Prest-O-Lite, a firm that supplied gas-burning headlights for early automobiles. Funded by that success, he next conceived and built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and created the Indy 500. He also was an active balloonist, which explains why the first race at Indy was for lighter-than-air balloons.
Later he would carve Miami Beach out of the South Florida swampland and propose the creation of both the transcontinental Lincoln Highway and the north-south Dixie Highway—among other things. In the end, however, he died penniless, having lived his life to the full.
Author Hungness, who for years published the official Indianapolis 500 Yearbook, devoted more than a decade and a half to researching Fisher’s life, and the result is this comprehensive narrative about one of America’s brightest entrepreneurs that provides a fascinating look into not only the life of the subject, but the nation growing up around him as well. In a historic era of rapid change and progress, Carl Fisher fit right in.
Available for $59.95 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway gift shop and select bookstores, or direct from the publisher at www.carlhungness.com
