Due to the publicity thus created, Speedway management, which had for the previous two seasons of meets charged the effectively nominal entry fee of one dollar per mile of scheduled race distances, took measures to ensure that the likely large entry list did not include any that were frivolous: at an accordingly heightened fee of $500 per car, participation became a nominally risky proposition to teams and manufacturers, since, although the high finishers were due to receive record purse money and accessory prizes, no money at all was offered to finishers below tenth place. Interest, however, was far from dampened, with entry blanks distributed over the course of the following month quickly returning filled, the first of which being an automobile built by the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company of Racine, Wisconsin, to be driven by Lewis Strang. By 1 May 1911, the final day for entry filing, a high total of some 46 cars had been nominated to compete.