Bob Jennings

I first met Bill Pappas in May 1982 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during practice for the 1982 "Indianapolis 500." Bill was sitting with his girl friend Denise in the old Tower Terrace seats behind the pits. I was with Guy Nadeau. It was the Wednesday prior to the first weekend of qualifications for the "500." I'd been to the Speedway the previous Saturday and Sunday for the opening of "500" practice. However Wednesday of the first week of "500" activity came to be known as "first day at the track" among the "three musketeers," which were Guy, Tim Pendergast and I. 

Spirits were high. This was the day I looked forward to all winter. Indianapolis was covered with the  bright green of spring time. I was away from Chicago, my job at Polysystems and my first wife. I was on vacation through the weekend. I was at the Speedway. I had my photo gear, including a brand new Minolta XGM camera to go with my year old Minolta XG1. My guy Al Unser, A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears, Johnny Rutherford, Gordon  Johncock, Mario Andretti, Tom Sneva, Pancho Carter, Mike Mosley, Danny Ongais, Kevin Cogan and the rest were on the track in their new race cars preparing for the "Indianapolis 500." Guy and I were ready to party and enjoy Indianapolis at its May best. There would be a little of this and a lot of that during the remainder of the week. 

"First day at the track" was always one of the highlights of each year and I was carrying all my photo gear. When Guy spotted Denise sitting with Bill, he asked me to use a telephoto lens to shoot her photo. No disrespect intended to Bill, but Denise was a stunningly beautiful girl. 

Guy Nadeau was the most outgoing person I ever met. I really miss him! He decided to introduce himself to Bill and Denise. Although Denise drew Guy's attention, he quickly became friendly with Bill too. At the time I believe Bill was studying for his engineering degree at Purdue University. We talked to them for a while and then said good bye.

Exactly one year later, under the same circumstances, "first day at the track" and all, Guy and I were again wandering the pits at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, when we spotted Bill and Denise sitting in the Tower Terrace seats. Talk about deja vu, this was incredible. Immediately Guy walked up into the Tower Terrace and introduced himself again. Bill and Denise remembered Guy and both were happy to see him. Of course I took more photos (with another brand new camera, a Nikon FE) of Denise (and Bill) for Guy and everybody had a good time.

In 1980 Guy Nadeau left Chicago for Portsmouth, New Hampshire after selling out of Polysystems, Inc. While in New Hampshire he built a small computer software firm called Renaissance, Ltd. But the Renaissance phase of Guy's career was coming to an end and he had some money to spend in Indianapolis in May 1983. I didn't know the exact reasons for Guy's sudden wealth nor why he was disengaging from Renaissance. I didn't feel compelled to ask either, although he would've told me if I had.

Actually I was preoccupied while I was at the Speedway in May 1983. My dad died a few days after the 1982 "Indianapolis 500." One year later, my mom was very ill in St. Vincent Hospital, trying to recuperate from colon surgery. So I was keeping one eye on what was happening at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the other eye on my mom, who was lying in a hospital bed. I wasn't prepared to become an orphan yet at age 37 and it was a very worrisome time. 

During the three days of practice leading up to the scheduled opening of qualifications for the 1983 "Indianapolis 500," Guy became acquainted with Jerry Karl. Jerry Karl found a way to help Guy Nadeau spend his new money. 

Jack Rhoades, an airplane dealer from Columbus, Indiana, entered a 1981 Wildcat chassis in the 1982 "500" for rookie Chip Ganassi. The young driver from Pittsburgh qualified eleventh for the 1982 race with an average speed of 197.700 mph. That was the fastest qualifying speed by any member of the 1982 Indianapolis rookie class which also included Dale Whittington (197.690), Danny Sullivan (196.290), Jim Hickman (196.210), Herm Johnson (195.920), Hector Rebaque (195.680),Chet Fillip (194.870), Bobby Rahal (194.700) and Roger Mears (194.150). Ganassi finished 15th in the 1982 "500," falling out of the race after 147 laps with engine problems. 

Allegedly the Jack Rhoades entry driven by Ganassi was the same Patrick Racing STP Wildcat chassis driven to second place in the 1981 "500" by Mario Andretti. Perhaps you remember Mario's "500" car in 1981. It was a beauty, painted in a dark shade of (almost navy) metallic blue that sparkled in the sunlight like a deep blue diamond. With the contrast of the STP day glow red trim, Andretti's car 40 had one of the all time great paint jobs in racing in my opinion. Remember Mario was declared the winner of the 1981 "Indianapolis 500" the day after the race when a penalty was assessed to Bobby Unser by USAC officials for passing cars coming out of the pits. In October, 1981 a three man panel voted to restore the victory to Unser, reversing the earlier USAC decision. But for nearly five months Andretti's STP Wildcat was the winning "Indianapolis 500" car. 

Jerry Karl comes from New York City originally but somewhere along the line Karl migrated to the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area. He made his "Indianapolis 500" debut in 1973, at the wheel of Smokey Yunick's beautiful black number 30 Oriente Express Eagle powered by a stock block Chevrolet V8 engine, starting the race in 28th place. Unfortunately Jerry only completed 22 laps in the 1973 "500" due to a variety of mechanical woes to finish 26th. The next year Karl drove an Eagle - Offy for longtime Indy car owner Lindsey Hopkins, starting and finishing 19th, completing 155 laps before a crash in turn three took him out of the 1974 "500." Jerry came back to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with Smokey Yunick in 1975 in the same black Eagle - Chevy he raced in 1973. Karl and Yunick had better results than in 1973, with Jerry starting 20th and completing 161 laps for a 13th place finish. 

Jerry Karl missed the "Indianapolis 500" for two years before qualifying an old McLaren - Offy entered by airplane mechanic Frank Fiore for the 1978 race. It's been written that Fiore was the last guy to punch a time clock, who was able to put a race car into the "Indianapolis 500" starting field. Jerry  qualified Fiore's McLaren in 28th position and finished 14th, completing 176 laps. 

Karl was back in the 1980 "500" lineup, qualifying another aged McLaren chassis powered by a Chevy stock block. He qualified 28th and finished 21st, completing 64 laps. At the 1980 CART season finale in Phoenix, Jerry had perhaps his greatest racing moment. Karl's crew chief Lew Parks built a rocket of a Chevy engine for Karl's McLaren. At one point, late in the Phoenix race, Jerry was running in second place and catching race leader Tom Sneva in his "shoe string" budget entry. But Parks' "masterpiece" exploded in a cloud of smoke and Karl ended up ninth.    

Jerry Karl's final "Indianapolis 500" appearance came in 1981 at the wheel of the same McLaren - Chevy he'd driven the previous year at Indianapolis and in the 1980 season finale at Phoenix. Karl started the "500" in 31st place, completing 189 laps to finish 15th. Jerry was at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May 1983, trying to put together a "500" ride when he met Guy Nadeau. 

Guy and I were hanging out on Thursday night of "500" practice week when we ran into Jerry Karl at the old motel across 16th Street from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Years ago the motel used to be a Holiday Inn. By 1983 the place had fallen on hard times and had lost its Holiday Inn status. The motel is still there today, although it has become a real eyesore. Actually I'm surprised it's still standing and I can't imagine anyone sleeping there. Guy and I were checking out action at the motel lounge when we saw Jerry.

The following evening, on the day before the scheduled opening of "Indianapolis 500" qualifications, Guy, Tim Pendergast and I were having drinks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway motel after the track's 6 PM closing. All of the sudden Jerry Karl showed up. Jerry was looking for money and apparently Guy let him know he had some to spend earlier in the day. 

If I recall correctly, Friday's "500" practice had come to a close when veteran driver Bob Harkey crashed. Harkey was driving a 1981 A.J. Foyt Coyote when he hit the wall in turn four. The outdated Coyote was damaged beyond repair but the Cosworth V8 turbo engine in the car was still intact. Jerry, who ran an air commuter service from Harrisburg to New York City, had arranged a deal with Jack Rhoades. The 1981 Wildcat Chip Ganassi had driven in the 1982 "500" was sitting in one of the old wooden Speedway garages and Rhoades had lost interest in racing the car. I'm working from memory here, but I believe Jerry had arranged to trade a helicopter to Rhoades for the Wildcat. However he needed another $17,000 to complete the deal. That's where Guy came in.

I could go into more detail here but I'll save it for another chapter. The first weekend of qualifications for the 1983 "Indianapolis 500" was rained out. But during the course of the weekend Guy Nadeau bought one third of a 1981 Wildcat - Cosworth that was prepared (sort of) for a "500" attempt. Guy's partners were Jerry Karl and the guy who owned the Cosworth V8 in the car Bob Harkey crashed during Friday's practice. I don't remember the guy's name now, but I do recall he had a racing shop on Guion Road, north of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 

By Sunday the maroon colors on the Wildcat had been covered with a fresh coat of a medium shade of teal blue paint, with the words Renaissance Racing on each side of the chassis tub. One of the first things Guy did as a race car owner was get Bill Pappas to work on the car and then he sent Denise around collecting media packages from other racing teams. I think Denise's stated role was to do the team's PR. She did this well, innocently drawing a lot of attention from the other racers as she walked around the Speedway garage area.

That was Bill Pappas' debut as a racer. The Renaissance Racing Wildcat only completed one in and out lap around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway throughout May 1983, but Bill Pappas progressed nicely through racing over the next 18 years with stops along the way, working for aerodynamics expert Lee Dykstra, Jack Roush, IMSA, Pat Patrick and Jim Hall. He also married Denise and they had kids. 

In 1999, Pappas was hired by Chip Ganassi to replace Mo Nunn as chief engineer for the Target Chip Ganassi racing team. Bill Pappas played a big part in Juan Montoya's 1999 CART championship and engineered the Colombian driver's dominant victory in the 84th "Indianapolis 500" in May, 2000. This brings us to the photo at the top of this web page which shows Bill Pappas working with Tony Stewart in an attempt to duplicate what he did the previous May with Juan Montoya. It gave me confidence to know Bill Pappas was playing a big role in Tony Stewart's fifth attempt to win the "Indianapolis 500."  

I was still in turmoil when I left work at 5 PM on Wednesday May 9, 2001 to go to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The time remaining for my current programming assignment was running out, with less than three weeks to go. I was having conversations with a contract firm about a long term assignment at Allstate in suburban Chicago. But that seemed to be dragging despite optimism from the recruiter trying to land the assignment. I was getting more nervous by the day. 

However I still had an exhilarating thirty minutes of "Indianapolis 500" practice awaiting me, the sun  was shining and my camera was ready when I pulled into the Speedway for my third "500" visit last May. The pace of "500" practice was picking up with qualifications three days away and the pits were full of cars. 

I became happy when Tony Stewart recorded the fastest lap (225.004) of "500" practice to that point, with about 10 minutes left to run for the day. However right at the 6 PM closing Scott Sharp gained 1.13 mph on Stewart, raising the bar over 226 mph. Tony appears to like the feel of his car in the photo above. Despite Sharp's faster last minute run, I was pleased with Stewart's progress with the Target Ganassi crew and there were still two days before the run for the "pole" on Saturday.

Greg Ray was the name mentioned most when speculating about the "500" pole position despite the runs by Sharp and Stewart on Wednesday. Tony said he wasn't interested in winning the pole but I didn't believe him. The two Kelley cars were running strong and Mark Dismore and Scott Sharp looked like threats on pole day too. Arie Luyendyk had been consistently quick since the start of the week and his comeback was going well.

After Ray, Stewart, Dismore, Sharp and Luyendyk, there was a closely bunched group (in speed) that  included Robby Gordon, Buddy Lazier, Jeff Ward and the two Penske Dallaras, which were starting to show some consistent speed. Eddie Cheever and Scott Goodyear were fast on opening day, but problems began to crop up with the electronics in the silver and black Dallara - Infinitis and they both  dropped in the speed charts. Michael Andretti appeared to be taking his time to learn the Motorola Dallara on loan from the Pennzoil Panther team and didn't look like he was in a hurry. I was surprised at how slow Sam Hornish was running. I'd expected a lot more from the yellow car. 

Al Unser Jr.'s performance during the first four days of "500" practice last May was discouraging. Pole day Saturday was shaping up as a disappointment for Little Al and his fans. As good as I began to feel about Tony Stewart's chances in qualifications, I felt the exact opposite regarding Al's opportunities. At the same time I was still hopeful Unser Jr. could be a force in the "500" even if he didn't qualify worth a damn. 

Mostly it felt good as I pulled on to Georgetown Road that evening with Donald Davidson's Talk of Gasoline Alley on WIBC, coming from my car radio. Things were taking shape for the big race in 2 1/2 weeks. It looked like the 85th "Indianapolis 500" was going to be very competitive and a lot of neat things were going on. It was time to drop off the film I shot during my 30 minutes at the track, so I headed for Sam's Club.