by Brock Yates
One who never left the garage was Manny Ayulo. He was a friend of Jack McGrath's who drove for Peter Schmidt, whose family owned a large St. Louis brewery. Manny, as he was known in the fraternity, both drove and served as chief mechanic on Schmidt's bright red roadster. The son of a Peruvian diplomat who had been raised in Los Angeles, Ayulo stubbornly refused help when the car's Offenhauser developed endless lubrication problems. The tiny, balding driver labored so furiously over the engine in search of the ailment that his friends urged him to get some sleep before testing the car. Ayulo shrugged them off and worked through the night to get the engine right.
Even his close friend Wayne "Fat Boy" Ewing couldn't dissuade him. Fat Boy was a metalworking genius. Armed with only a copper hammer, a pair of tin snips, and a bag of sand, he could form stunning, complexly curved race car noses and tails out of sheet aluminum. He was one of several such unique craftsmen in the sport, a hard-drinking drifter who often lived in the back of his beat-up station wagon as he rolled from racetrack to racetrack, "stooging" for various race teams. Fat Boy employed his mystical skills with aluminum and steel until the early 1960s when fiberglass and other synthetics began to replace his beloved metals. At that point he disappeared from the tracks and was never seen again.
"Manny's got a hair in his ass," grumbled Fat Boy as he left the Schmidt garage. "He's gonna do it by himself or not do it at all. He's in some kind of a zone. No sleep. Might as, well leave him alone," he said, shrugging his wide shoulders and walking away.
Late in the afternoon, during a lull in qualifying, the Offy was fired up. After loosely strapping on his seat belt, Ayulo surged onto the Speedway. Blazing down the front straightaway to complete the first test lap, the Schmidt never turned. Ayulo smacked the wall head on. As the car bounced away from the freshly whitewashed concrete and pinwheeled to a stop, it was obvious that survival of such impact was impossible. Still, the wiry little man who had banged his way to Indianapolis via a hundred other crashes lived out the night at Methodist Hospital.
Some claimed that in his haste to get on the track, Ayulo had failed to properly connect the steering linkage. Others were convinced that his reflexes had failed and his timing was off as he barreled into the corner. A millisecond's misjudgment in correctly finding a proper entry line at 175-180 mph, and the car might have augured into the wall.
Either way, on Monday his young wife, Bonnie, was on an American flight to Los Angeles, taking Manny Ayulo home for burial.
The two weeks of terror had begun.
On May 22, with qualifying for the race completed, word came via the Associated Press that Alberto Ascari, the former two-time world driving champion and well-liked personality among the Indy crowd, had suffered a strange accident in Monaco. While running the Grand Prix through the streets of the tiny principality and fighting for the lead, Ascari's D50 Lancia had locked up a brake entering a chicane in a section of the course that bordered the harbor. In an instant the Lancia mounted the low stone wall and pitched into the Bay of Hercules. For a moment Ascari was trapped-until skin divers, posted for exactly such an incident, hauled him to the surface. Although he spent a night in the hospital, the plump man known among his friends as "Ciccio," returned to his Milan home without apparent injury, other than a stiff back.
Ascari had run the Indianapolis 500 in 1952 with a factory-entered Ferrari. While he spoke no English, his easy manner and ribald sense of humor had won him many friends among the Americans. His car was ill-suited to the big track, and he retired after forty laps when a wheel fractured and he spun harmlessly. But it was clear that he had enjoyed his sojourn into the heartland and spoke of returning with a more competitive car.
Then Ascari's long relationship with Enzo Ferrari, the powerful, tyrannical capo of Scuderia Ferrari, broke up in a dispute over money and Ascari moved on to drive for the newly formed Lancia team. With that, further plans for a return to Indianapolis ended.
Little was said about Ascari's plunge into Monaco's harbor, other than the typical spate of gallows humor that followed all accidents in the sport. In the 1930s several drivers had ended up upside down in a now-filled creek that bordered the Speedway's first turn, but a muddy face was small potatoes to a salt-water dunking in a deep Mediterranean harbor.
Then, four days later, during a lull in practice, came the stunning news that Alberto Ascari was dead. How could this be? He had survived his Monaco crash, only to be killed at the giant Monza Autodome, located on a former royal park in a suburb of Milan.
The mad coincidence of his demise haunts the sport to this day. Ascari left his Milan apartment on a warm May day to visit some fellow drivers who were participating in the upcoming Super- cortemaggiore 1,000-kilometer sports car race set for the Monza track on the coming weekend. After a quiet lunch with his longtime Ferrari teammate Luigi Villoresi, who had run well at Indianapolis in 1947, Ascari visited the pit of Eugenio Castellotti, a darkly handsome Florentine who was considered a major talent. On a whim, Ascari asked Castellotti if he might take a few slow laps in his 750 Monza Ferrari to "work some kinks out of my back." After removing his tailored sports coat and tucking his tie into his pima cotton shirt, Ascari climbed into the car. He was handed a borrowed helmet, having forgotten his own favorite robin's egg blue one, which he considered a good luck talisman. Strapping it in place, he eased out of the pits and, per his promise, made three easy laps around the sprawling, treelined circuit. But passing the pits, he punched the throttle of the powerful Ferrari sports car and disappeared down the long straight, its V-12 growling like a deranged cat.
Then silence. Shouts of alarm echoed through the forest from a single witness. Ascari had crashed on a left-hand curve known as Vialone. It was an easy section of the track that an expert like Ascari would hardly acknowledge. Castellotti, Villoresi, and the car's crew rushed to the scene. Ascari had been flung from the tumbling car-it having no seat belts, as was the accepted practice in Europe at the time. Gravely injured, he died in Villoresi's arms in the back of an ambulance.
Italy was plunged into mourning. Ascari was a national hero, equaled only by a few soccer players and a handful of movie stars.
Telegrams of sympathy poured in from industrial and political leaders across Europe. The Church of San Carlo al Corso draped its giant front columns in black, with the huge inscription: "On the last finish line, 0 Lord, meet the soul of Alberto Ascari." His funeral was held at the immense Piazza del Duomo in the center of Milan. Thousands jammed the area while traffic stopped. The normal buzz of motor scooters and the incessant honking of horns fell silent, only the ringing of a telephone in one of the houses bordering the piazza broke the reverent silence.
Then came the numerologists and mystics, who began to reveal the bizarre coincidences that surrounded his death.
Alberto Ascari was the son of Antonio Ascari, a brilliant race driver for the Fiat Grand Prix team in the 1920s. While leading the French Grand Prix at Linas-Montlhery outside Paris, Antonio Ascari crashed to his death. The date was June 26, 1925. In memory of his father, Alberto had refused to race on the twenty-sixth day of any monthexcept on the day of his own death, May 26, 1955. Both Ascaris, as well as Alberto's patron saint, Antonio of Padua, were thirty-six years old at the time. Both Saint Antonio and Alberto had been born on June 13. Both Ascaris had died on the twenty-sixth day of the month, or twice thirteen. Antonio had lived for 13,463 days. His son had lived for 13,466 days. Some in the Italian press noted that both father and son had crashed on left-hand bends on circuits with predominantly right-hand corners.
Whatever the mystery, if any, the harsh fact remained that one of the world's most accomplished drivers was dead. The season was not halfway through, and Crockett, Nazaruk, Ayulo, and Ascari were gone, with another, young Sergio Mantovani, permanently disabled. Surely, this madness could not last.
Or could it?
THE BOMB'S DETONATION SHOOK ME OUT OF MY cot. It was still dark. I looked at my watch. Four in the morning. I thought of Korea. Shaking myself
awake, I heard the distant honking of horns. As I lay there it began to make sense. At this ungodly hour on race day, the Speedway management traditionally set off a charge of dynamite signaling that the infield gates would be opened. This triggered a mini-Oklahoma land rush as fans poured into the immense acreage, seeking the best locations along the backstretch fence. As the tumult continued, I crawled out of bed to wash up. Through the tiny window over the sink, I could see that Georgetown Road was already packed with cars, all seeking entry into the track. While I was shaving, dawn broke, dark and threatening, with banks of low nimbus clouds scudding in from the west.
The Newsomes cooked up breakfast for their guests. The Buick men had box seats for the race, facing the pits, while the Firestone dealer and his wife would be guests of the company in a special section in the first turn. I was silently envied as the privileged one, sporting as I did the "99" pass pinned to my blue blazer.
"Tell that crazy bastard Vukovich to take it easy," said the older Buick man as I left the breakfast table.
"He won't beat McGrath this year," said his partner. "That boy's too slick for of Billy this time."
"Don't bet on either one of 'em," said Eldon, wiping a crumb of toast from his freshly laundered bib overalls. "This place don't play no favorites."
I walked into the yard. In the gloom, Ray Newsome was parking cars, fender by fender, taking two dollars each from the drivers. Soon the entire plot of Newsome's land would be a sea of automobiles. I walked down Georgetown Road, paralleling the jammed traffic. I passed a modest house on the opposite side of the road, where twelve-year-old Wilbur Brink had been playing in his yard on Memorial Day in 1931. When race leader Billy Arnold crashed in the fourth turn, a wire wheel and tire shorn loose by the impact bounced crazily over the Speedway grandstands and killed the child. When the race cars ran at Indianapolis, nobody was safe.
I entered the track through a gate that permitted pre-race pedestrians to cross the main straightaway. The brick surface, having weathered forty-four Indiana winters and the pounding of thousands of cars during thirty-eight 500s, was shockingly rough, even to a new pair of Bass Weejun loafers. I could not imagine how it punished a human body in a cart-sprung race car at 180 miles an hour.
I squeezed past a blue-shirted Speedway guard, with his standardissue yellow pith helmet, into Gasoline Alley, and spotted big Ed Keating, the general manager of Chevrolet. He was the prototypical auto exec, well-tanned, his perfectly coiffed hair graying at the temples. His bright red blazer and ivory silk shirt were in Chevrolet theme and would match the convertible he would drive to pace the start. He was without his star, Dinah Shore, who, despite her celebrity, was not allowed into the all-male precincts of the garage area.
I eased into the Vukovich garage, which had been roped off. The royal blue Hopkins with its red number 4 and the owner's rabbit-in-a-hat symbol on its cowl, was ready. Coon nodded, silently acknowledging my entry as Travers gapped a spare set of spark plugs on the bench. "How ya doing, Smokey?" asked Vukovich, "Smokey" being his catchall nickname for everybody. "Look at this." He handed me a piece of blue-lined note paper. On it was a child's neatly printed message: "Dear Daddy. Be sure and smoke these guys today. Love Billy." Vukovich took the paper back.
"My kid. Little bastard. He's something. Little fucker is only ten years old. Already he wants to race. Maybe I'll make enough money to get him into another line of work." He began to frantically work on his hand grip.
"Esther wants me to quit. She's on my ass worse than ever. For her and the kids, she keeps saying-he began to mimic a female voice"`Come home to Fresno and run your gas stations. Be a family man like real people.' She's right. If I win this son-of-a-bitch, you've seen the last of me."
"Cut the shit," said Travers. "You're too fucking crazy to quit. Some smart-ass kid comes along and people start to say, `Hey, that guy could beat Vukie,' and you'd be back."
"Don't bet on it. I win and you've seen the last of Vukovich at Indianapolis."
This would not be the case. Bill Vukovich Jr. would become a fine race driver in his own right. Between 1968 and 1980 he would compete in twelve 500-mile races, finishing second in 1973 and third a year later.
McGrath walked in as Vukovich pumped up his ever-present hand exerciser. McGrath, a head taller than his friend, leaned against the bench. "Gotta watch that wind," he said.
"It's a shit day," said Vukovich.
"Whatya going to do about it?" asked Travers rhetorically.
"Nothing. The weather is the fuckin' weather. I didn't come here for my health in the first place," he said.
"Jerry says he'll move over," said McGrath. He was referring to Jerry Hoyt, who had won the pole on a fluke.
"He better, or I'll drive over his fuckin' ass," said Vukovich. Then a giant gap-toothed smile spread across his face. "And that goes for you too, asshole," he said, laughing at McGrath.
Vukovich grabbed McGrath by the arm. His vise grip tightened, making McGrath wince with pain. "How can a skinny fucker like this expect to run with me?" he asked no one in particular. Laughing, McGrath pulled free. He pointed to his head. "Up here, you dumb Russian. Here's where I beat you."
"Oh, yeah," smiled Vukovich. "Here's where I beat you." He raised his right foot.
Both men laughed. McGrath walked to the door. Then he turned. "Watch your ass with the wind, Vuke. I'll see you later."
"You gotta like that McGrath," said Vukovich.
"He's the one you gotta beat," said Travers, never looking up. "The rest of those guys you can handle. But that son-of-a-bitch can get around this place."
"If you fuckers would let me use that pop he's runnin' there'd be no problem."
"Here we go again with that shit," said Coon. You wait and see how long he runs before he scatters his engine."
Vukovich rolled his eyes, knowing the argument was futile and went back to working his hand exerciser. I walked outside. A writer for Speed Age magazine named Bob Russo was talking to McGrath. Russo knew everybody in the business. It was believed that he had coined the term "championship trail."
As I walked by, I heard McGrath say, "Nuke is a helluva driver, but I just won't take the chances he does. It isn't worth it in the end."
As the cars were rolled onto the starting grid, the usual prerace festivities had ended. The Purdue University band, chilled to the bone, had played their usual rendition of "On the Banks of the Wabash" and the national anthem. A few celebrities eased through the crowd, including singer Mel Torme and General Curtis LeMay, who had opened up his strategic Air Force bases for sports car racing until Congress shut him down.
The big guest star was Dinah Shore, who did a lap of the Speedway in a Chevy convertible, riding in the backseat with an unlikely companion, the four-foot-high silver Borg-Warner trophy reserved for the winner.
Vukovich barged out of his garage, smoking a small cigar. He was headed toward the track when his friend and fellow driver Freddy Agabashian moved in beside him. Agabashian was an old pro, having raced in the Bay Area with Vukovich since the 1930s and having run at Indy since 1947. He had won the pole position in 1952 aboard the strange and wonderful Cummins Diesel, and was considered one of the brightest and wisest of the drivers. He was also haunted by superstition. When asked to test-drive a green-painted Cummins car in 1951, he refused, until every last trace of the hue had been buffed and sanded away.
As the slight, handsome Agabashian stepped closer to Vukovich, a bystander brushed against them, causing Vukovich to drop his helmet. As he reached down to pick it up, Agabashian reeled in horror. This was to him the ultimate curse. The mark of death. Helmets were sacred talismans to many drivers, as Ascari's had been to him. Dropping it was, to Agabashian, akin to riding with a black cat in a car numbered 13 (a taboo number never used in big-time American racing).
Agabashian, his face stiff, pulled away from Vukovich and slipped into the crowd. Thinking little of the incident, Vukovich shrugged and headed toward his car.
Along pit row, Dinah
Shore, dressed in a bright red suit, began singing the traditional "Back Home in Indiana," which had in the past been the job of opera star James Melton. This time, in deference to Mitch Miller's popular sing-along TV show, the lilting star requested that the grandstand audience join her in the second verse. The response among the chilled crowd was limited at best.
Back in the fifth row of starters, Bob Sweikert made a final check of his pink Kurtis-Kraft before climbing into the cockpit. A week before, word had come from Glendale that chief mechanic A. J. Watson's young son had died. He had rushed home to be with his wife. Sweikert, an expert mechanic in his own right, had taken over the final preparations of the car.
Shielding the microphone against the wind that blustered out of the west, track president Tony Hulman gave the traditional call to arms, "Gentlemen, start your engines."
Thirty-three raucous, blatting Offenhausers bombarded the grandstands with noise and methanol fumes. Travers pulled the portable starter from the snout of the Hopkins as Vukovich pulled on his helmet and driving gloves. Coon stood behind the tail of the car, ready to push it away on the starter's signal. Holding his ears against the thunder around him, Travers went to the cockpit and brushed Vukovich's shoulder in a rough gesture of good luck. Vukovich returned it with a cursory nod. He had entered another zone.
The Chevrolet convertible pace car, driven by Keating with Tony Hulman beside him, rolled out of the pit lane. The thirty-three race cars lumbered slowly in its wake. They disappeared around the first turn and out of sight as the crews scuttled back to their positions in the pits bordering the straightaway.
Two pace laps. The massive crowd was on its feet. A deafening bomb exploded and an immense cluster of multicolored balloons blossomed over the infield and quickly scattered in the breeze. The field reappeared, gaining speed. The grandstands became a sea of waving hats, hands, and handkerchiefs. The drivers returned the salute with their gloved hands.