by Brock Yates
With its impudent tail fins, the Caddy represented quintessential American optimism; it was bold, oversized, overweight, and overtly flashy. It was a perfect and proud representative of what one critic denounced as "insolent chariots."
The Zink Kurtis-Kraft riding on Watson's trailer, its outrageous "tropical rose" paintwork blossoming for all to see, was itself a classic American race car. While the first known rearview mirror was believed to have been used on Ray Harrouh's 1911 Marmon Wasp in the first 500, the Zink, like all American race cars, carried no such device. At some point, long since forgotten, rearview mirrors were removed from American race cars and were never reinstalled. Whether it was for streamlining, or based on an unspoken policy that left all passing responsibility to the car behind, with none on the leading driver, was not unknown. The Zink, like all its brethren, was an elemental machine, bereft of top, headlights, turn signals, mirrors, brake lights, windows, fenders, doors, and all other standard automobile accessories. Its gearbox, a simple two-speed unit, was used only for acceleration out of the pits. Even the starter was missing. The Offenhauser engine was activated by a portable unit to save weight. While powersteering was being adopted for passenger cars, the extra weight and presumed power loss made such devices undesirable at Indianapolis. With its driver on board and its sixty-gallon tank loaded with methanol-alcohol fuel, the steel, aluminum, and magnesium Zink weighed in at about one ton-a brutish, basic hunk that had to be kept under rein at up to 180 miles an hour, for 500 miles.
I could not help but muse upon the contrast between the Zink and my tiny MG. The little English roadster was widely used in amateur sports car races both here and in Great Britain, but the two vehicles were light years apart in design and intent.
Road racing cars-be they tiny MGs or ultra-powerful MercedesBenz or Ferraris that competed in Grand Prix races or in open-road contests like the Mille Miglia-depended on four- and five-speed gearboxes and giant brakes to give them maximum performance over a wide range of speeds and differing track conditions. In contrast, the Kurtis-Kraft was designed for constant high velocities exclusively on sweeping left turns. Brakes and gearboxes were a relatively low priority for their designers.
The big Cadillac with the Oklahoma cowboy was yet another breed. Its home was the Great Plains, where endless, flat roads ran to the horizon permitted 100-mph cruising speeds with the air conditioning running full blast and the radio trilling Hank Williams classics. The kid's hot rod, on the other hand, was intended only for spotlight bursts and occasional runs on the quarter-mile drag strips that were springing up across the nation. Like the Indy car, its priorities lay in light weight, high power, and one-dimensional performance.
By the time I reached the Missouri border and stopped for the night in a tourist home outside Joplin, the foursome of strange automobiles had long since dispersed. Watson had moved on with the Zink, no doubt planning a nonstop run all the way to Indianapolis.
Less pressed for time, I didn't reach the city until a day later, whereupon I settled into my new quarters. The Manifold rooming house was full, and I had found other, nicer lodgings even closer to the track. Ray Newsome, a retired tool-and-die maker from the long-defunct Marmon Automobile Works, owned a pristine bungalow on Georgetown Road. His property, set back in a grove of tall Elms with a neatly manicured yard, bordered the fourth turn of the Speedway.
A quiet man, Newsome and his younger brother, Elton, had accommodations for five guests in two double rooms and a singlethat was mine. In the others were two Buick salesmen from Philadelphia, who proudly parked their Roadmaster sedan close to the house, and a Firestone tire dealer from Des Moines with his wife. The Newsome brothers were Baptists, but they nevertheless joined the Buick men and the Firestone dealer when they gathered late each day in the backyard to share stories and drink Old Grand-Dad bourbon in water glasses borrowed from the kitchen.
In a corner of the yard, well back from the street, was the Speedway's gray cement retaining wall, mounted high on a dirt embankment. One evening, after Elton had had his second glass of bourbon, he told the story of how, in 1935, a driver named Stubby Stubblefield and his riding mechanic, Leo Whittaker, had tumbled over that wall in their Miller special and landed in Newsome's yard.
"Lemme see;' said Elton, pulling on the strap of the Oshkosh "Can't Bust-em" overalls that appeared to be his entire wardrobe, "I was about twenty-three at the time. Always stayed around for the big race because our daddy, who owned the place, took in guests and parked cars in the yard. Just like me and Ray do to this day. It was one of them qualifying days when all of a sudden I'm standing on the porch and I hear a terrible screeching of tires and a big boom. Here comes these two guys and then a big orange car a-flying over the wall. Like birds, ya see. Damned if they didn't land right by that juniper over there, which was just a sapling in those days.
"Scared the hell out of me. I ran over to 'em. They were still as stones. Bloodied up and everything. Then here come a bunch of guys jumpin' over the wall with fire extinguishers and medical kits and they shoved me back. Never did see a thing after that. The ambulance came and hauled 'em away, but that wrecked race car laid in our yard for a whole day.
"For years after that the family of poor of Stubblefield came all the way from Oregon or some damn place out west. Of course we give 'em permission to lay some flowers on the spot. I ain't the superstitious kind, but I was near thirty before I'd go back there and mow that part of the lawn. That I'll be honest about."
"Ain't the half of it," said Ray, his face ashen gray. "Thirty-five was a terrible year. They brought in this hot-shot kid from the eastern circuit named Johnny Hannon. He gets in some guy's Miller and damned if he don't make a lap. Not even one. Pitched over the wall down yonder. At least beyond our property, thank God. So he's dead, but the car owner gets the car repaired in time for the race. He sticks in another rookie kid named Clay Weatherly. In those days they had to carry a riding mechanic for some damn fool reason. You won't believe it, but on the ninth lap of the race Weatherly has a wreck in about the same spot, and he's killed too.
"The poor guy riding with him gets a broken back. When that month was over, four of 'em were dead, all within a stone's throw of here." Ray Newsome took a long slug of bourbon, then looked at the wall. "Sometimes in May this place can be hell on earth;" he said quietly.
The Buick men listened in silence. Then the older one, with a red face and a heavy belly who wheezed when he talked and sported enormous gold cufflinks on his French-cuffed white shirt, took another swig of bourbon. He said, "You gotta wonder if that's what folks come to see. Do they want to see some racing or do they want to see guys get killed?"
"You gotta wonder," repeated the younger Buick man, slouching in his chair and gazing at the wall.
"You see it once and you don't wanna see it again. I'll tell you that," said Elton.
"I think the essence of racing is watching men at the edge," I chimed in. "People want to see 'em take big risks but survive. I think they vicariously ride with the drivers and do brave acts in their minds. When a driver dies, it means failure. I think the crowd dies with him."
"Damn, I never thought of it that way," said Ray.
"But I can remember one year, maybe five or six races ago when Duke Nalon whacked the wall with the Novi:' Newsome pointed toward the short straightaway connecting the third and fourth corner, now shielded by a stand of elms.
"Duke hit hard and the car caught fire..."
"Hell, you see the smoke all the way to Terre Haute," interrupted Elton.
". . . But then Duke rolled over the wall, right into our backyard," Ray continued. His coveralls were on fire, and my cousin Bert, who was down from South Bend for the race, rolled him in the dirt and put out the fire. When the public address system announced Duke was all right, you could hear a giant cheer go up." He paused, then looked at me. "Maybe you're right with your theory. They die. We die. They live. We live."
Somebody passed the bottle of Old Grand-Dad.
Thanks to my connections with Liberty, the director of press relations at the Speedway, a former Indianapolis Star reporter named Al Bloemaker, gave me a "99" press pass. With it pinned to my shirt, I was free to move almost anywhere. When practice opened on the first day of the month, I spent most of my time in Gasoline Alley or in the adjacent little cafeteria, where news and gossip was shared by the mobs of mechanics, car owners, journalists, and drivers.
The center of my world was the Vukovich garage, where Travers and Coon allowed me entry, even when the large green-and-white wooden doors were closed. Vukovich was pleasant enough, but always distant, feeling as he did that members of the press were needlessly nosy and bound to misquote him.
Lindsey Hopkins, the car owner, was a soft-spoken Georgian, mannerly and reserved in that special way of Southern gentlemen. He was part of a friendly alliance of wealthy car owners with a connection to Coca-Cola. The track owner, Tony Hulman, owned the franchise for the entire state of Indiana. Chapman Root, who regularly entered cars at the Speedway, was the grandson of C. J. Root, who had started the Root Glass Company, which still held the patents on the famed pinch-waisted Coca-Cola bottle and was the primary bottler for the world's most famous soft drink. Joining this group was Hopkins, who was a major stockholder in Coca-Cola while owning large parcels of real estate in Miami Beach-a boomtown that had been created out of the mangrove swamps by entrepreneur Carl Fisher, who had also been the prime mover in building the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Behind the fastest race cars in the garage were immensely wealthy men like Root and Hopkins, who engaged in big-time automobile racing for the pure sport of it.
It became clear during the first week of practice that three major players were in the game to win the 500. Of course there was Vukovich, who, many felt, was a sure thing to win his third straight-even with a different car, albeit a first-class machine from the Hopkins stable. There was McGrath, of course, whose Hinkle held the outright lap record at over 141 mph, and who was the fastest driver in the place. Following the 1954 500, McGrath had taken the Hinkle to the new Chrysler Proving Grounds at Chelsea, Michigan, for a demonstration run. On a sunny day in June he had blazed around the 4.7 mile test track at a wink under 180 mph, to set a world's closed-course speed record. He and the same yellow KurtisKraft were back to up the ante at Indianapolis. The third favorite was Jimmy Bryan, his fresh new Kuzma roadster carrying a blue number 1 on its tail, signifying his national AAA championship. While there were others who might challenge, including Sweikert's Zink-Pink Kurtis, the trio of Vukovich, Bryan, and McGrath was considered by the rail-birds to be in a class by itself.
Back-markers, strokers and struggling rookies were on hand as well, ready to nibble at the leftovers, happy simply to make the thirty-three-car starting field. Many were in ancient, battered automobiles that had seen better days. Al Keller, a thirty-five-year-old veteran of jalopies, midgets, and stock cars, was taking his first shot at Indianapolis in a six-year old-Kurtis-Kraft dirt track car, the former "Wolfe Special," which had carried the immortal Rex Mays to his death at Del Mar, California, in 1949. Like many of the cars in Gasoline Alley, the Keller car had a bloody past-now forgottenand was repainted with a new owner and revived hope.
Rodger Ward, the tough guy with the edgy reputation, was also back, with another veteran machine-albeit with a more positive heritage. His Aristo-Blue Special was the former Agajanian dirt-track car that had carried young Troy Ruttman to victory in 1952. After four seasons of combat, the aging car was now owned in part by an Indiana automobile dealer and in part by Hoot Gibson, the retired cowboy movie star of the 1930s.
The Chevrolet division of General Motors had descended on the Speedway with a full contingent of sales and public relations types. A new convertible would serve as the race's pace car, while Mauri Rose, three-time winner of the 500 and now a Chevrolet engineer, was on hand to give press demonstrations with a V-8-powered Corvette. The latter was intended to energize the flagging model in the face of Ford's vigorous new Thunderbird challenge. The fleet of Chevrolets that supported the campaign, as well as all of the handouts and sales brochures, were lavished with the division's ivory and red theme colors.
Dinah Shore would present the winner with the four-foot-tall silver Borg-Warner trophy. She was the hostess of a wildly popular Chevrolet-sponsored Sunday evening television variety show. Her theme song, "See the USA in Your Chevrolet," was one of the most successful musical numbers in the history of advertising. Her planned presence on race day would lend an air of big-time glamour seldom seen in a city that some New York and Los Angeles cynics referred to as "Indian-no-place." Dinah's wardrobe would, as expected, be red and ivory.
Practice leading up to the first day of qualifying was thankfully uneventful, aside from a few spins and some damaged egos. As expected, McGrath was easily the quickest; once more, an argument flared between Vukovich and Travers about the use of nitro. With his friend McGrath running almost two miles an hour faster, Vukovich wanted the extra boost of "pop" to narrow the gap. Travers stood firm as his star driver stomped around the garage demanding that the volatile stuff be loaded into his fuel tank. "McGrath will be quick in qualifying," Travers kept saying, his angry eyes shielded behind his ever-present aviator's Ray-Bans. "But I'm telling you, an engine with that junk in it won't last five hundred miles. So what do you want, the track record or some kissy-face with Dinah Shore at the end?"
The grumbling between the pair, usually good-natured, went on in fits and starts until the first day of qualifying, the so-called pole day, when the coveted pole position-and its bonus money-would be determined.
As I finished my scrambled eggs at Newsome's, the skies darkened and my walk down Georgetown Road took place under a spattering of rain. By the time I reached the garage area, the shower had cleared, but a brisk, chill wind began to stiffen the flags and send hats sailing.
By noon, heavy nimbus clouds hung over the track. Yet the giant, double-decker grandstands had filled with fans, each of whom had paid a dollar to watch qualifying and intermittent practice. No car moved. The track was buffeted by 30-mph gusts. A crewman from Chapman Root's Sumar team ducked into the garage and gathered up Vukovich and Travers. "The teams have all gotten together. We're saying, if you don't go, we won't go. Too damn windy."
Vukovich watched him leave. "Fuck 'em," he mumbled. "I'll go when I'm ready. Not when they tell me."
Still, the Hopkins stayed in the garage. So did McGrath's Hinkle and Bryan's Dean Van Lines, as well as every other serious contender. The giant track remained empty and silent. An occasional angry shout from inside the grandstand echoed into Gasoline Alley. The crowd was getting restless. Still there was no movement.
A small, spare, balding man in a gray suit bustled into the garage. He had a pinched, humorless face. The treasurer of the Speedway, Joe Cloutier, he pulled Travers aside. "Look, somebody's got to get out there and make some laps," he said with his squeaky Hoosier twang. "I've got sixty thousand of 'em sitting in the grandstands at a buck apiece. Unless somebody does some qualifying I'm in the tank for refunds. The last thing I need-and you guys need-is me passing out sixty thousand rain checks."
Travers shrugged and said nothing. Vukovich walked away and then turned. "Look, Joe. I ain't gonna take a chance of stuffing this thing in the wall so I can save you and Tony a few bucks. If the wind dies down, I go. If not, we go another day. Maybe you can get some other poor sucker to try it."
He did. Jerry Hoyt was a twenty-six-year-old Chicago native who had grown up around the business. At age nine, he was the mascot for Lucky Teeter's traveling automobile thrill show, where his father worked. He began racing midgets and sprint cars as a teenager. Three previous tries at Indianapolis had resulted in dry holes, although Hoyt was considered a solid player on the sprint car circuit and had teamed with Sweikert to run the half-miles for the remainder of the season. His Speedway car was an aged Myron Stevens creation owned by Detroit sportsman Jim Robbins that had done yeoman service over the years but had never been
considered a serious contender.
With less than half an hour left before qualifying officially ended at six o'clock, a whoop rose up from the remaining loyalists in the grandstand. The Offenhauser in Hoyt's Robbins Special rumbled into life on pit lane. Pulling on his driving gloves, he set out to brave the breezes in a wild charge for the pole position. As other crews, including Vukovich and Travers, sprinted to the pits, Hoyt took the green flag to begin his four-lap run against the clock. Dodging the gusts and driving perhaps beyond his skill, he ran a shocking average speed of 140.045 mph to win the number-one starting position. Two others then tried before the gun went off ending the day, with only former national champion Tony Bettenhausen joining Hoyt in the field, at a disappointing 138 mph. But Cloutier's precious money had remained in the bank. Surely higher speeds would come as the serious players faced the timing clocks the following day.
We slogged back to the garage area. In the distance, the impatient honking of horns rose up. The giant crowd had headed for the gates. Now Sixteenth Street and Georgetown Road had become a sea of fuming iron. "You gotta give it to Hoyt," said Travers. "The guy has some balls." Vukovich stalked ahead, saying nothing. A reporter from the Chicago Tribune came up. "Ol' Hoyt kinda snookered you hot guys. Whaddya say to that?"
"Nothing. Last I heard the race ain't till Memorial Day," snapped Vukovich.
Back at Newsome's, the Buick men cracked open another bottle of Old Grand-Dad and watched the sun set.
"Tomorrow oughta be good," said the cuff-linked one. "All the hotshots will be ready. Weather is supposed to improve. We'll see some serious speed."
"Not so fast that somebody ends up in my yard," said Eldon Newsome.
The Buick man was right. The next day, calm winds and sunny skies produced big speed. Vukovich put the Hopkins in fifth place at 141 mph while, as expected, McGrath was far and away the fastest, at nearly 143 mph. He would start third. Bryan was a wink off the pace and would be eleventh on the grid. The long day involved all manner of qualifying attempts, both fast and slow, with Keller surprising everyone by manhandling his antique Kurtis-Kraft around at 139 mph.