Checkered past: 101 years ago, he happened upon the Indy 500. His family never stopped going

INDIANAPOLIS — When someone dies in the family tree of Arthur Hauselman, a tiny black-and-white checkered flag is placed in their casket. The word Godspeed is repeated. This family really likes speed and if they are going somewhere after they die, it will be at a rapid pace.

When a baby is born into the family around race day, preventing the mother from going to the Indianapolis 500, black and white carnations are sent with the message, "We're sorry you're missing the race, but you have a little winner there, too."

In Turn 3 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the four "Backstretch Boys" have become a phenom — two of Hauselman's great-grandsons and two of their friends who wear black-and-white checkered suits. Media all over the world have published photos of them because the sight of four strapping men, most nearing 40, in that kind of getup is noticeable, even at the Indy 500 where fashion is always a spectacle.

In Turn 1, three of Hauselman's granddaughters, all in their 70s, sit reminiscing about the uncanny story of their grandfather who purely by accident — or maybe it was fate — happened upon the Indy 500 in 1923 and started a family tradition that has outlasted the patriarch himself by more than three decades.

Since Hauselman first attended the race in 1923, there have been more than a thousand Indy 500s attended by his family members — probably more. The 20 people connected to Hauselman who were in attendance Sunday, all of whom sat for hours during the rain delay and never once complained because this is the kind of stuff they live for, have 428 races combined.

They travel from all over the country — Virginia, Ohio, Nebraska, California and beyond. One great-granddaughter, Missy Sorohan, came from Hong Kong in 2023 for the 100th anniversary of Hauselman's first race. When the race was closed to fans in 2020 due to COVID, the family still traveled from all over the country to gather at the home of another great-granddaughter, Molly Sorohan, to watch it together in Muncie.

The matriarch of the group is Julie Nickell, Hauselman's granddaughter, who was at her 67th race Sunday.

Among the youngest of the group was Isaac Breitzmann, who may only be 15 but has thought deeply about this incredible custom his great-great grandfather started, even if he never got to meet him.

"I don't know much about him other than the story of, you know, he was in a moving company and he found out about the race," Isaac said. "And I'm like, you know, imagine if that didn't happen. None of this would have happened."

What if Arthur Hauselman had never been dropping off a load of furniture from Missouri and stopped in Indianapolis that May night in 1923 and heard about this massive racetrack with cars traveling at insane speeds?

"I can't imagine not being here," said Matt Day, his great-grandson. "I just, I still have the same feeling when I walk into this place. It's so big, it's so massive, it's so grandiose. I still can't get over it, and it's been 30 years."

A fateful rest stop

Arthur Hauselman was 22 years old on his way back from delivering a load of furniture in St. Louis in May 1923 when night fell and he became too tired to drive the rest of the way home. Hauselman stopped at a boarding house on the outskirts of the west side of Indy on U.S. 40. (Interstate 70 didn't exist at the time.)

"So, he stopped at this, what I would presume to be a flea bag with his brother Homer, and stayed the night not having a clue there was going to be a race," said Jeff Nickell, Hauselman's grandson, who started attending the Indy 500 in 1956. "Well, maybe they did, but they certainly didn't anticipate stopping there."

All night long in his room, Hauselman heard "Zing! Zing! Zing!" said Mary Jane Skala, Hauselman's granddaughter. "Cars and trucks were all coming into town." The lure of this race everyone in the boarding house was talking about — everyone in the city, for that matter — was too much for him.

The Hauselman brothers woke up the next morning and, instead of heading back to their home in Ohio, went to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They paid $5 each (the equivalent of about $92 today) and stood behind the pit area.

That was May 30, 1923, and Arthur Hauselman watched in awe. He was hooked. And soon he got his family hooked, too.

Hauselman returned to the race in 1925 and went back every year until World War II stopped the race. He resumed going in 1950 and went to his last race in 1970, doling out his tickets in Turn 1 to family members. It became a rite of passage for the grandchildren to get old enough to go to the race.

Julie Nickell didn't think her turn came quickly enough.

First girl to go: 'I get so excited'

Julie Nickell was older than her brother Jeff Nickell by 14 months but, for some reason, he got to go to a race before she did.

"I was a little upset about that. I was older and I technically knew more because I was older," she said. "So I guess I whined and fussed ..."

Until her dad, Bob Nickell, took her to time trials to see how she did. She did just fine and attended her first race at the age of 9, the first little girl in the family to do so. She went with Hauselman, her father, her uncles and her brother.

What she remembers about that race more than anything is how big the speedway was. "Daddy, I can't see the end of the track," she told her father. She also remembers how much her grandfather loved that oval.

He would bring a clipboard and record everything. He counted laps. And, of course, he would listen to Sid Collins on the radio.

The family always packed food, and Hauselman had a big metal cooler the family would pack with dry ice. When they got sick of carrying the thing one year, her father build a cart so they could wheel it into IMS. This was long before any cooler had wheels.

While they were up watching the race, someone stole the cart from below the grandstands. The next year, her father built another cart and locked it up with a padlock. Julie didn't care so much about the cooler or the cart. She loved Parnelli Jones.

When she and her brother and father would get home from the track on race day, her mother (who never came to the race) would have a huge dinner made with race decorations. As they pulled into the driveway, she would wave a checkered flag.

"The whole thing was magical," she said.

Twins Mary Jane and Martha

Another of Hauselman's granddaughters, Mary Jane Skala, grew up hearing all about the race and, after she was married in 1970, she went to her first Indy 500 in 1971. Her husband was in grad school at Purdue so they and two friends got tickets in the Snake Pit.

"And I had heard such horrible things about the Snake Pit, but, you know, it was only $10, so that's what we did," she said. "I sat right by the fence between the third and fourth turns, and I didn't move a muscle from the time the race started until it ended. I was absolutely enthralled."

She was right there down on the level of the cars speeding around the track. She suddenly knew what her grandfather had been talking about all these years.

"It was heaven," she said. "And if there was a lot of monkey business going on behind me, I have no … I can't talk about that because I just focused on the cars."

The night she got back to Purdue, she called cousins Jeff and Julie Nickell and said "Get me a ticket for next year. I'm going. I love it." She has been going ever since. Now living in Nebraska, she drives 750 miles every year.

"So, you multiply that story by 20 people," said Jeff Nickell, to get the family tally just at this year's race. "Everybody has their own story, their own history."

A couple of years after Mary Jane's first race, she got her twin sister Martha to go with her. It was 1973, a washout on race day.

"We sat in garbage bags for eight hours waiting for the race to get going, and it never did," said Mary Jane. "She said that was the most fun she'd ever had, and she's been back ever since. She didn't even get to see a race."

Martha Sorohan said Sunday there is just something about the greatest spectacle in racing and if you haven't seen it in person there is no way to describe it.

It has been such a big part of the Hauselman crew's past century, they self-published “Our Checkered Past," a 28-page booklet put together in 2023 by Mary Jane and son Matt Day for the family's 100th anniversary at Indy.

"This race is everything," Matt said Sunday. "This is Christmas, this is New Year's, all wound into one."

'I just like honoring the tradition'

Bob Day, Hauselman's grandson, was at his 45th Indy 500 Sunday with his partner Scott Wormell, who started coming with him in 2006.

Scott hadn't been to the race before he met Bob and he remembers Bob telling him, "You have to see it. You don't know how big it is. People think it's a little county dirt track."

Walking up the steps into the stands that first race, someone asked Scott, "What do you think?"

"I looked around and seeing it on the TV of all my life?" he said. "It was the Grand Canyon of motorsports."

The love of the Indy 500 for Hauselman's family has not come without sorrow. The family lost its beloved Jenny in 2016.

Jennifer Nickell, a granddaughter of Hauselman, was on pit lane producing the IndyCar race in Toronto as part of the NBCSN-TV broadcast team, when she became sick in 2016. She died of a heart attack at the age of 56, leaving behind a legacy her grandfather instilled in her.

She was a four-time Emmy Award winner and three-time Olympics producer for NBC, but her favorite sport, of course, was IndyCar racing.

Clay Nickell, Jennifer's nephew, said he is so glad his aunt got to see the checkered suits he, Matt and their friends wore to the race before she died two months later. They wore them to her funeral, too.

He knows exactly why his grandfather and his aunt were in love with IMS. "It's massive here. It's incredible. The smells, the sights, the sounds," Clay said. "It's just, it's Indy."

Isaac said he never wants his family tradition to end.

"I'm going to be honest, that feeling of like adrenaline and like just, it gets me really pumped up, you know? The food is great, too. The family is nice," he said. "But I just like honoring the tradition. That's really the biggest part of this to me is the fact that we've been doing this for so long and keep coming back to it.

"And, you know, I just want to keep this going for as long as possible."

Hopefully another 101 years.

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Patriarch's love of the Indy 500 lives on through his family