bob jennings' WORLD O' RACING
Vukovich: the Original
Legend - - part one (originally presented
02/07/97)
I remember my dad, William Robert "Bob"
Jennings, repairing a row boat, in our front yard, on Memorial Day May 30,
1953, with Sid Collins' voice coming from the radio, to report the
"Indianapolis 500." I also remember our next door neighbor, an
interesting guy, named John Johnson, walking across the yard, on East 77th
Street, on White River, in Indianapolis, to comment on the race, to my
dad. I don't recall the exact words they spoke, but the name Vukovich was
the one I remember. That was my first recollection of anything about the
"Indianapolis 500" or auto racing. It was the day Bill Vukovich won
his first "500," in what has been called the "hottest 500"
in history. Driver Carl Scarborough died of heat exhaustion. Most of those
drivers who ran the entire race did so with the assistance of relief drivers.
Vukovich took the lead, from Pole Position, at the start, endured the heat, and
led all but five laps.
The next Memorial Day, 1954, I recall disappointment upon
discovering that my older male cousins, Dave Yount and Steve Yount, were at the
"500," and not a family picnic, at my grandparents' home, in Carmel,
Indiana. After my cousins returned, from the race, the names of Jack
McGrath, Jimmy Bryan, Jimmy Daywalt and Wilbur Shaw joined Vukovich in my
sphere of awareness. That evening, the entire family, parents, sister,
grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, dogs, parakeets, etc. crowded around a
primitive box television to watch Tom Carnegie interview Vukovich, who had won
the "500" again, on WFBM channel 6. Joining Vukovich, on the
telecast, were the race's second and third place finishers, Bryan and McGrath,
along with three time "500" winner, and Indianapolis Motor Speedway
President Wilbur Shaw.
On May 30, 1954, however, I was preoccupied with the upcoming
Summer Vacation, from Nora School, and swimming in White River, rather than the
"Indianapolis 500." That was to change the following Memorial Day.
My obsession for the "500" and racing began exactly one
year later.
Going into the 1955 race, I knew that Wilbur Shaw was dead, the
victim of a plane crash, in Northern Indiana, the previous October. Shaw's
position as Speedway President was taken by Speedway owner Tony Hulman. I also
knew that Vukovich was trying to become the first winner of the "500"
three years in succession.
It was cool, if I recall, and overcast, on Memorial Day morning
1955. This was a big change from the hot, sunny conditions, for the previous
two runnings of the '500." I had a cold and sore throat, as I waited for
my parents to go to Carmel, for another family picnic. I was looking at the
special "Souvenir" editions of the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis
News, when the "500" broadcast came on the radio. I had
accumulated more "500" names as I listened to the race; Sam Hanks,
Art Cross, Freddie Agabashian, Walt Faulkner, Pat O'Connor to go with the names
I already knew.
Vukovich's name, however, featured in my mind, and on the
broadcast. He was on his way to dominating another "500" when the
announcers began talking about an accident. Remember that communications
weren't, in 1955, anything like they are today. Details of the accident was
slow in coming. Confusing as the events were to disseminate, I was aware that Vukovich
had been involved in the accident.
When we arrived in Carmel, I asked my grandma if she had been
listening to the race. My cousins had gone to the race again, so it was left to
my sweet little Grandma Yount to entertain me. As I was talking about Vukovich,
grandma told me that he had been killed.
I "half heartedly" listened to the rest of the race,
with my Uncle Joe. A driver I hadn't heard of, Bob Sweikert, won.
The next morning, the Star carried the bold front page
headline: SWEIKERT
WINS; VUKY KILLED. I was still feeling
ill and my mom let me stay home from school. I spent the next several days
assimilating as much as I could about the race. The details of Vukovich's death
were frightening to an eight year old and they traumatized me. Even today, I
can picture newsreel footage of Vukovich's Hopkins Special number 4 flipping
and somersaulting crazily out of the track, on the backstretch. In May, 1995,
when I read a pre-"Indianapolis 500" newspaper feature, reporting
that Vukovich had been "partially decapitated," I got a macabre
feeling, which took me back 40 years to the 1955 race. Vukovich's
"500" dominance and violent death generated a fascination with the
men who drive racing cars that continues today.
Since 1955, I've been at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for every
"500" since.
The drivers of the "Vukovich" era appeared to be vastly
different from the personalities we associate with racing today.
Even at the highest levels of racing competition, in America, as
at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, many of the top drivers had other
occupations. Their earnings from racing usually weren't enough to support a
family.
They weren't endorsing products for hundreds of thousands of
dollars, which is what it costs to get Dale Earnhardt or Al Unser Jr. to lend their
name to corporate marketing efforts. Often they would come to the track without
a race car to drive. An agreement to drive for a percentage of winnings often
represented their only means of racing income. Racing wasn't on television. The
novelty that greeted the early days of the automobile and its accompanying
competition had long since worn off. During the Depression, racing lost favor,
and the break in the action, during World War II, resulted in a general decline
in the popularity of motor sport. In the 1950's, racing was not generally
regarded as a major league sport. Rather it had more of a regional following;
concentrated perhaps in Midwestern rural and Southern California environments.
The drivers, during Bill Vukovich's time, drove midgets and
sprinters, on dirt quarter mile and half mile ovals, throughout the week. Eight
to 10 times, each season, they would gather at one mile tracks, used primarily
for horse racing, often located within fairgrounds complexes, to run the
"big cars" or championship cars, as they were also known. This
series, which included the "Indianapolis 500," carried the title
"the Championship Trail."
Perhaps the starting field, of drivers, in the 1996
"Indianapolis 500," was more representative of the drivers of the
Vukovich era, than any other starting field, at the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway, in thirty years. The attraction to Tony Stewart, that came last year,
was due in large part to his resemblance to those earlier racers.
The American Automobile Association (AAA) governed the sport of
Indianapolis style racing. The drivers sat high in their race cars. The tires
were thin and had little traction. There was no down force or "ground
effects" to hold the cars through the corners. Even, at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway, the cars were in slide through the long quarter mile corners.
Their safety equipment consisted of plaster like helmets, called
Cromwells, that barely covered the base of the skull, offering little, if any
head protection. They wore WWII tank style goggles to protect their eyes.
The latter style jet pilot helmet began appearing in 1953. Dan Gurney
introduced the contemporary full face helmet, in 1968. Many of the drivers wore
tee shirts to race. "Fireproof" uniforms didn't become mandatory until
1959. Many drivers refused to wear seat belts or safety harnesses and sometimes
those drivers paid for that choice with life and limb. Roll bars weren't
required until 1958.
Vukovich was one of the group of drivers whose careers began,
seriously, after the war. Like many of his contemporaries, he made his
reputation racing midgets throughout the West Coast. That group included 1950
"500" winner Johnnie Parsons, Troy Ruttman, Duane Carter, Chuck
Stevenson, Manuel Ayulo and Rodger Ward. These were tough guys, who risked
their lives each time they got into a racing car. They fought with each other,
with racing cars, on the track. They often fought with their fists off the
track. Many paid for their addition to speed with their lives. Death was a
regular companion of racing drivers in the 1950's.
If you've seen the great racing film, To Please A Lady, which
featured the 1950 "500," the Clark Gable character portrays a
glamorous, but reasonable representation of early 1950's drivers. The popular
impression of the race driver, of that era, was a speed crazed
"dare-devil." A lot of the drivers had been in combat, and, perhaps,
they lusted for the same danger and adventure they had experienced during the
war.
It's difficult for me to picture those post WWII racers competing
in today's motor sport. They were tough guys, driving beasts of brute power,
with pure muscle, in treacherous conditions. Each moment they were on the
track, they were traveling on the ragged edge of life and death. Yet they
probably weren't that much different from the drivers of today; for all intents
and purposes, adrenaline "junkies" inside and out.
Many, like Vukovich, were mechanics by trade. To drive the
"Indianapolis 500," in those days, was to submit to four hours of
physical torture, as the cars danced over the slippery brick surface, on the
main straightaway, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Vukovich came to Indianapolis, in May, 1950, and passed his
driver's test, I believe. I don't think he made a qualification attempt though.
By 1950, the pre-WWII stars were fading from the sport. The first
three time Indianapolis winner, Louie Meyer, had retired after crashing out of
the 1939 race. Shaw retired during the war and assumed the presidency, of the
Speedway, after saving it from destruction, in November, 1945, when he
persuaded Tony Hulman to purchase the property from Eddie Rickenbacker. Mauri
Rose, co winner in 1941, and winner, in his own right, in 1947 and 1948, was
beginning to wind down his career. Rex Mays and Ted Horn, two of racing's best
stars, who hadn't won at Indianapolis, but who had both been AAA champions,
were dead, by 1950, the victims of racing crashes.
These legends, and their contemporaries, were being replaced by a
combination of drivers, who had either begun their careers immediately before
or after the war. Many had begun their racing careers driving "home made
roadsters" in California.
By 1950, the cars were changing too. The heavy front wheel drive
racers, which had dominated in the immediate post-war runnings, of the
"500," were being challenged and replaced by the smaller designs,
which were also raced on the dirt miles, during the rest of the AAA season.
Second year "500" driver and 1949 AAA Champion Johnnie Parsons, the
winner of the rain-shortened 1950 "500," was driving one of the
smaller dirt track style racers. Parsons' win brought an end to the three year
domination by the long, heavy front wheel drive metallic "bluish"
silver Blue Crown Spark Plug Specials, entered by former driver Lou Moore.
Vukovich returned to the Speedway again, from his Fresno,
California home, in May, 1951, for another attempt at the "500." At
32, he was one of 12 rookies qualifying for the 1951 race. That group also
included Bobby Ball, Carl Forberg, Gene Force, Cliff Griffith, Joe James, Andy
Linden, Bill Mackey, Mike Nazaruk, Carl Scarborough, Chuck Stevenson and Rodger
Ward.
Vukovich was driving the number 81 Central Excavating
Special. This was a powder blue "dirt track" style racer, owned
by Pete Salemi, of Cleveland. Salemi brought cars to the Speedway, throughout
the 1950's. The car, qualified by Vukovich, was a 270 cid Offenhauser powered
car, built by veteran mechanic Floyd Trevis. Trevis would later build the copy,
of A.J. Watson's basic roadster, that carried A.J. Foyt to his first
"Indianapolis 500" win, in 1961. The particular chassis, qualified by
Vukovich, in 1951, had a long history in racing. I recall my original
racing favorite, Tony Bettenhausen, drove the 81 car, in 1958, during his run
to the National Championship, that season. For all I know, the 81 car may be
part of some race car being raced, somewhere obscure, by some unknown racer.
Race cars weren't relegated to a hotel lobby, as a show car, after a single
season of competition, as has become the recent practice. They were raced for
years, competitively.
Vukovich was 20th, on the 1951 "500" grid, after posting
133.725 mph, during Time Trials. Duke Nalon had qualified one of the powerful
Novi Specials, on Pole Position, with a 136.498 mph qualifying run.
Joining Nalon, on the front row, for the 1951 race, were Lee
Wallard, in the number 99 Belanger Special (135.039), and Jack McGrath
(134.303), in the number 9 Hinkle Special.
In the race, Wallard fought off an early race challenge, from
McGrath, and survived a battering, from a broken shock absorber, to lead 159
laps, including the final 120.
Wallard's race winning average speed, 126.24 mph, marked the first
time 500 miles had been completed, in less than four hours, at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway. His navy blue and gold trimmed Belanger Special, was something
of a revolutionary design, as both its Offy engine and Kurtis chassis were
smaller than the other cars in the race. In fact, Tony Bettenhausen, the car's
regular driver, turned down the car, for Indianapolis, declaring it too small,
in favor of one of the Blue Crown Spark Plug cars. However, Bettenhausen
took the same 99 car to wins at Milwaukee, Langhorne, Springfield, DuQuoin
(twice), Syracuse, Denver and San Jose, on the 1951 Championship Trail, winning
the 1951 AAA Championship.
Wallard was seriously burned, I believe, four days after the
"500," although I don't remember where his accident occurred. That
crash, unfortunately, more or less ended Wallard's career.
In 1951, cars were permitted to complete 500 miles, if they were
within reasonable distance of the winner. There were only six cars running to
completion. Following Wallard, at the finish, were rookie driver Nazaruk,
McGrath, two more rookies, Linden and Ball, 1950 AAA Champion Henry Banks and
rookie Forberg, the father-in-law of Pancho Carter.
Three time "500" winner Mauri Rose retired, as a driver,
after crashing, in turn four, after 126 laps.
Vukovich's race was disappointing. He was out, after 129 laps,
with an oil tank fracture, on car 81.
To be continued.