Bobby Unser
1978 Indy 500© IMS | 2021




Bobby Unser
1980 Indy 500© IMS | 2021


Bobby Unser
Three-time winner! 1981 Indy 500© IMS | 2021


Bobby Unser
Presenting the pole award to Tony Kanaan, Michigan, 2004© Motorsport Images | 2021

 

Bobby Unser
Friends and rivals, 2019© IndyCar | 2019

Galleries, IndyCar

 

RETRO: Zimmerman and Fiore’s 1971 Indy upset

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emailBy Robin Miller | May 21, 2021 6:55 AM

Of all the shoestring stories that have graced Gasoline Alley through the years, it’s tough to top the accomplishment of Denny Zimmerman and Frank Fiore Racing in 1971.

Fiore, a ground maintenance machinist for United Airlines, had campaigned midgets on the West Coast for years with some decent shoes like Chuck Booth, Tommy Copp, Bruce Walkup and Dave Strickland but always had the Indy 500 bug. He’d made an attempt in 1968 with an old Huffaker that had been restored after Bobby Unser stuffed it under the guardrail in Turn 3 at Phoenix, but the Speedy’s Broasted Chicken Choker Special lost a water pump as Dee Jones was trying to qualify.

Then Frank mortgaged and refinanced his house to purchase a 3-year-old Vollstedt-Offy for Indy in 1971, which, when positioned next to the new McLaren, looked like a Soap Box Derby racer. But he and son Frank Jr. towed it back behind their motorhome in search of fame and fortune — or at least a chance to make the race. They wanted to hire Jimmy Boyd or midget ace Burt Foland but USAC rejected both drivers. "Shove it. We are running the show."

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USAC tech chief Frankie Del Roy suggested a young unknown from the East Coast who’d been running strongly in midgets, sprints and modifieds. He’d also logged some miles in previous Mays with Joe Hunt, Barney Navarro and Bulldog Stables but never made the show.

“I always felt that I had so much seat time with those guys that Firestone got me the ride with Fiore, and then it turns out it was Frankie Del Roy and I never got a chance to thank him before he passed,” recalls Zimmerman.

Of course there were still just a few obstacles. Big Frank got two weeks of vacation but needed four to compete at the Speedway so United gave him two extra weeks with no pay if he put their decal on the car. If he lost the race he would be greasing trucks and handling baggage for the rest of his life.

“We also only had one engine, four wheels, no spares and we slept in the camper in the participants’ parking lot every night and showered in Gasoline Alley,” remembers Frank Jr., who was then a sophomore in high school. “I was too young to get in the pits but after 6 p.m. a couple of the guards would let me go in and help Dad. Cost me a couple packs of cigarettes, just like in prison, but
better than nothing at all.

“But we never looked at it as a hardship or poor us. Hell, we were at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with our own car.”
Denny Zimmerman in 1971. IMS Photo

Zimmerman was a brainy driver who understood the landscape, so he didn’t rush anything or take unnecessary chances those first two weeks of practice.

“I figured we had a chance — we worked hard the whole month but we weren’t ready first weekend,” he said. “I did have a lot of coaching help from Bobby Grim and Bob Harkey, and then somebody suggested a little spoiler on the back and it made the car 5mph faster. It was comfortable and that’s why we made the show.”

There were 72 qualifying attempts (each car only got three) and 25 drivers didn’t make it as Denny qualified at 169.7mph (Peter Revson was on pole in his McLaren at 178.695mph), ran all day on one set of tires and finished eighth.

“I was blessed, put my heart into it and it worked out,” said the ’71 Rookie of the Year.

Little Frank appreciates the era and his family’s place in it.

“I’m so glad I lived in that era of IndyCar racing and I think Dad realized we’d done something special because Indy is Indy and we did all of our own work. My mom was a Rosie the Riveter in WWII and she welded everything on our race cars.

“Donald Davidson thinks Dad was the last car owner to make money because he spent $18,000 and collected $26,000. But it was never about the money — Dad was a USAC guy and that was the highlight of his life.”

Indy 500, IndyCar, Vintage Motorsport / Historic

 

RETRO: McLaren’s 1971 Indy wedgie

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emailBy Robin Miller | May 20, 2021 6:47 AM

The first time it rolled through the pits and Mario Andretti got a glimpse of it, he put his head down and declared: “We haven’t got a chance.” Bobby Unser was rendered speechless — no easy feat — and stood with his mouth agape.

A.J. Foyt made a backhanded reference to an English airplane.

Fifty years ago at Indianapolis, McLaren unveiled the M16, a space-age creation from the mind of designer Gordon Coppuck. It was a bit like the Trojan horse because it was as surprising as it was shocking. A sleek profile with side radiators, a wedge nose and an engine cover that was basically a wing.

Nobody had ever seen anything like it but Coppuck had taken the USAC rule book to the limit because it mandated that any aerodynamic device had to be a integral part of the bodywork. It was genius.

“That was a glorious time,” recalls E.P. “Chalkie” Fullalove, who started with Lotus, switched to Brabham and wound up working with McLaren and Foyt before starting his own fabrication business. “There were only five of us — Huey (Huey Absalom), Rabbit (Graeme Bartils), Slugger (Bevan Weston) and Tyler (Alexander) and built all three McLaren cars in the winter of 1971. (Pictured above: Absalom, Weston, Fullalove, Bartils and Teddy Mayer).

“When we took one to Ontario for Denny (Hulme) to test, he came in with a big grin and we all knew we had something special.”

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Peter Revson and Hulme were on board for the late Bruce McLaren’s team and Teddy Mayer of McLaren sold the third car to Roger Penske. “We never figured that out — it made no sense because we had such an advantage,” said Fullalove.

The McLaren plan was not to show their hand too soon but Mark Donohue started putting up big numbers in practice and turned an unofficial lap of 180mph — some 8mph faster than the track record. The question wasn’t whether Donohue would win the pole, it was by how much and at what speed?

“The morning of Pole Day we couldn’t get the car to run, so we never made a lap and got it in the qualifying line where we were thrashing, changing everything trying to find the problem,” continued Chalkie.

“We were about five cars behind Donohue and Revson called us into a little huddle and said: ‘If this thing runs, I’ll burst his #@&&^%$$ bubble.”

Donohue’s four-lap average was 177.087mph but as he was still being interviewed on the IMS public address system and with other media, Revson uncorked a 178.659 to steal the position from the team that could come to dominate Indianapolis.
Revson was unable to replicate his qualifying performance on race day. IMS photo

The race wasn’t nearly as dramatic. Donohue led the first 50 laps before breaking down and despite being 4mph slower than the polesitter, Al Unser’s old reliable Colt led 103 laps and breezed to a 23-second victory over Revson.

“Pete had the flu and he was a mess afterwards — we could barely get him out of the car,” said Fullalove. “He ran second all day but he was just out of it. Dan Gurney was out on the pit wall waving to Revvie to close up on Unser under a yellow but he just didn’t respond. It was a pity — we should have won that race by a lap.”

A year later, Donohue pulled Penske’s McLaren into Victory Lane.

Indy 500, McLaren, Peter Revson, IndyCar, Vintage Motorsport / Historic

 

PRUETT: Why isn’t Willy T Ribbs’ 1991 car in the IMS Museum?

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | May 28, 2021 11:27 AM ET

A friend asked an innocent question a few weeks ago: Why isn’t Willy T. Ribbs’ history-making chassis from the 1991 Indianapolis 500 on display in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum? Having reached the 30-year anniversary of Ribbs’ entry into the record books as the first African American driver to compete in the Indy 500, it was an interesting topic to consider.

In that tall, square building nestled between Turns 1 and 2, dozens of Indy cars dating back to the first 500 in 1911 are presented for tens of thousands of annual attendees to see. Dragsters, sports cars, off-road trucks and even Indy 500 obscura like the last car to qualify with an average speed below 200mph have been preserved and shown to the museum’s visitors.
Cars displayed at the IMS Museum commemorate significant days from the Speedway’s long history. Image by Marshall Pruett

Finding the reason as to why something as important as Ribbs’ No. 17 Walker Racing Lola T90/00-Chevrolet is missing from the hall of vehicular honorees didn’t take long to answer. Arriving at the conclusion also offered an interesting tour through IndyCar’s past.

“I bought the car from a guy called Antonio Ferrari, whose Euromotorsport CART team ran it in 1990,” Derrick Walker told RACER. “It all came about because I’d decided to start my own team in 1991 and was trying to find some money and a driver. So I went to Phoenix, which is where many teams went to test before the season. I was waiting there, mooching around, trying to see if there were any deals going, and somebody mentioned to me Willy T. Ribbs was trying to find somebody to run him in the Indy 500.

“So I tracked him down. He had some sponsorship — not enough, really — but with that, I decided to do it. I talked with Antonio, who had an old Lola for sale with an old, worn-out Cosworth engine to go with it. It was the best we could afford, so I bought that off of him. That was Lola chassis HU12.”
Derrick Walker in 1991. Image by Dan R. Boyd

Well chronicled in the documentary Uppity, Walker — the former Indy 500-winning Team Penske team manager — went from the proverbial penthouse to the outhouse after leaving the wealthiest and most dominant IndyCar program to start his own outfit. Stuck with last year’s Indy car design and a tired engine, Ribbs and Walker Racing were in for an epic uphill climb to make enough speed and qualify for the biggest single-day sporting event in the world.

Beset by crushing setbacks and mounting pressure to make the field of 33 starters, Ribbs and the Walker team persevered amid high drama and earned 29th-place on the grid with a four-lap qualifying average of 217.358mph.
A historic moment for Willy T. and Indy. IMS Photo

The 200-lap race was anticlimactic by comparison; a missed upshift by Ribbs overrevved the Buick engine on loan, and by Lap 5, the chartreuse and hot pink No. 17 Lola was coasting to a smoky stop.

Although their finish of 32nd was far from satisfying, Ribbs made history with Walker. The duo added one more Indy 500 start during their collaboration in 1993 where, using a newer Lola T92/00 chassis, they started 30th and placed 21st at the checkered flag. But the whereabouts of that original Lola T90/00, chassis HU12, is the one of interest.

 

But the whereabouts of that original Lola T90/00, chassis HU12, is the one of interest.

After the Indy 500 on May 26, Ribbs and Walker raised modest amounts of sponsorship to keep going and complete a partial season, with stops at the CART street race in Detroit next on the calendar, followed by visits to the airport circuit in Cleveland and another street race out in New Jersey where they earned a 10th-place finish. It was at the next round, on the big superspeedway oval in Michigan, where the story of chassis HU12 takes a pivotal turn.

“I had a conflict that Michigan weekend, so I couldn’t be there,” Ribbs said. “So they put Jon Beekhuis in the car.”

Raised 15 minutes from Ribbs in Los Altos, Calif., Beekhuis was a talented open-wheel racer who won the 1988 Indy Lights championship before waging a three-year campaign to find consistent opportunities to drive in CART. Nearly a year had gone by since Beekhuis took part in his last race — the 1990 Michigan 500 — when the chance arose to fill in for his fellow Bay Area man with Walker at the 1991 event.
Beekhuis and his ill-fated Lola at Michigan. Image by Dan R. Boyd

Beekhuis and the renumbered No. 10 Walker Lola-Cosworth were nothing less than impressive, qualifying 12th with a speed of 220.627mph around the fast 2.0-mile oval.

“I know Willy really didn’t want us to go and race without him, but I told him, ‘I have to go because that’s the only source of income I can get,’” Walker added. “And so that’s how we went to Michigan with Jon.”

“I didn’t find out about the old pushrod until I woke up in the hospital,” Beekhuis said.

As the official record shows, Beekhuis and chassis HU12 got through practice and qualifying, but didn’t take part in the Michigan 500 race.

“It wasn’t until after he’d crashed that we learned a [suspension] pushrod failed,” Walker said. “It was the right-front pushrod that went in the morning warm-up session, and he hit the Turn 3 wall very hard on the right side. When people from Lola came by and looked at the car and saw the pushrod, they said, ‘Well, you’ve got the original pushrods on this thing. We’ve made updated pushrods, since the originals were a problem… That’s why it failed.’”
Beekhuis at speed with the old pushrod highlighted in blue. Image by Dan R. Boyd

“The year before at the Michigan race, Al Unser Sr. had exactly the same crash I ended up having,” Beekhuis said. “He was in a ’90 Lola and the pushrod failed; he hit the wall hard, broke his femur, and they stopped the event for a long time while they assessed the reason and had reinforced pushrods done for the Lolas, because the field was mostly Lolas.

“Somehow, an older pushrod got used and we had a big crash ourselves; that was well over 200mph. And when the pushrod fails, the car just sits down on that corner and scrapes along the track while you’re truly a crash test dummy waiting to hit the wall.”

Decades later, Beekhuis — better known these days for his peerless broadcasting career as a motor racing pit reporter — has no problem recalling the small details.

“My right hand was trapped against the steering wheel,” he said. “The right-front wheel got trapped between the wall and the car in the impact and the wall pushed the wheel and tire into the side of the tub right where my hand was gripped on the steering wheel. The whole tub kinked around that tire. I was in the cockpit under major pressure for 20 minutes until they cut the car apart.

“So it smashed my hand against the steering wheel — which I still have — and then my helmet hit the wheel, so I think that, with the G forces in the impact, ended up knocking me out. But after I hit, I was sliding down the track with my broken hand on the radio button, I said, ‘Something broke on the car’ to the crew, and then I passed out. That’s such a driver thing to do…I needed them to know it wasn’t my fault, and then I was out.”
The pushrod-induced crash pre-empted Beekhuis’ run with Walker, and his IndyCar racing career ended shortly thereafter. Image by Dan R. Boyd

Heavily bruised and dazed, Beekhuis was extricated from the twisted chassis once it was cut away on the right side by the safety team’s hydraulic Jaws of Life machine. Transported to Foote Hospital in Jackson, Mich., Beekhuis was fortunate to escape with a single broken bone in his right hand.

“Of course, I’d never run a Lola before this one I’d bought,” Walker said. “I didn’t realize there was a part on the car just waiting to fail. We found out the hard way.”

 

In an era where CART IndyCar chassis technology relied mostly upon aluminum honeycomb construction, the suspension failure and the ensuing crash into the Michigan wall at nearly 220mph meant Lola T900/00 HU12 had met its competitive end. Owing to the extensive damage in the impact and the section carved away by CART’s emergency response team, there was no chance of repairing and racing Ribbs’ history maker.

“Beek-man was in the car when it was written off,” Ribbs said. “As a matter of fact, he about wrote himself off; that was almost his last race ever. It was a sad way for it to end up.”

Walker continues to lament the mistake that injured the blameless Beekhuis and wrecked his one and only chassis.

“‘Shame on you, dummy,’ is what I thought to myself,” he said. “I’ve still got the faulty pushrod to this day. And it’s clearly snapped off. But of course, I was damn unhappy.”

Returning to May of 1991, a request from one of America’s great institutions was placed with Walker Racing.

“Did you know the Smithsonian wanted that car?” Ribbs asked. “They wanted to get it after Indy. Walker said, ‘Well, we’re gonna run it and then we’ll give it to you at the end of the season.”

“At the time, it was my only car,” Walker said. “There was there was an approach from the Smithsonian on it, but you know, nobody said, ‘Here’s some money, we’ll buy it off you and you can go buy another one.’ I needed the car to race and earn my living and pay my crew, so there was no way I could give the car away to anyone after Indianapolis. I’d have needed to buy something else, and that wasn’t going to be possible after basically going broke running at the Speedway.”
Ribbs at speed in HU12 at Indy. IMS Photo

Transported from Michigan to Walker Racing’s shop in Indiana, a full damage assessment on HU12 was completed.

“We took it back to Indianapolis and stripped off everything we could that wasn’t damaged, because we needed to carry on if we got another car,” he said.

At the same time, Walker scrambled to find new funding to purchase another used Lola T90/00 and prepare it for the next race, held three weeks later on the streets of Denver. He was successful in that endeavor. Despite the sizable setback with Beekhuis at the previous round, a new coat of chartreuse and pink was applied to the replacement Lola, and in the thin Colorado air, Ribbs produced a career-best finish of sixth with the stand-in chassis.

With the crash dilemma resolved and Walker Racing back on the CART IndyCar trail, a fateful decision was made with old chassis No. HU12.

“It’s in the garbage dump,” Ribbs said. “I don’t know what dump it’s in, but that’s where it is.”

Unlike most sports where memorabilia of immense cultural importance or athletic excellence are thought of as items to preserve for future generations, the idea didn’t occur to Walker’s team 30 years ago.

“We eventually pitched the chassis; it’s in some landfill in Indianapolis,” Walker said in a regretful tone. “The thing is, you look back now, and having Willy as the first African American to qualify and race at Indianapolis was a big deal at the time, but it lasted a short period of time afterwards. The bubble was burst once the race was over. It was hard to get that support after that for Willy. Everything was done on a shoestring budget to get from race to race once Indy was over.

“After Willy qualified, we’ve got McDonald’s calling and wanting to be on the car. And they were — it helped us to dig out of the money pit we’d dug ourselves into. But after the race, it’s like the flame went out and everybody else went back to square one. It was back to how do you find money to continue? So what I’m saying is that almost immediately after Indianapolis, this feel-good story had run its course, and we weren’t patting ourselves on the back with this achievement.

“It’s only now, when I think back to then and wonder about whether I should have hung onto that chassis, and I think yeah, maybe I should. But you know, at that point, it was all about survival and trying to run a team and get established. A destroyed race car that we could no longer use was what we saw, and so we got rid of it.”
Original chassis plate and crash damage images courtesy of Derrick Walker

Barring an Indiana Jones-style archaeological expedition to find and recover chassis HU12 under decades of waste, the only chance of seeing Ribbs’ No. 17 Lola-Cosworth at the IMS Museum would come from the funding and assembly of a recreation built around an original T90/00 model. Ribbs says an initiative was afoot when Uppity was about to debut, but the notion has cooled and faded.

“About three years ago, the museum was looking to do a replica of the 1990 Lola,” he revealed. “And everybody wanted a half a million dollars, minimum, and we’re not talking about one with engine. A rolling chassis. They wanted a 1990, wanted to put it in the colors of Indy 1991, car number 17, to go into museum for history’s sake.

“You ever see hyenas out in the bush? They haven’t seen the carcass, but they smell it, nose up in the air. That’s what we got here, you know? People trying to take big money off the Indy 500 museum, wanting to sell an old chassis that isn’t even the real one Walker owned, and they weren’t gonna bite on those dollar amounts. My ass. They said, ‘No thanks.’”

With the purchase of IMS and the NTT IndyCar Series by racer and businessman Roger Penske in 2020, Ribbs has placed his hopes in solving the absence of having a No. 17 Lola-Cosworth — in those blinding period-correct colors — on the IMS Museum floor with the track’s new caretaker.

“If RP wants to get one, he’ll put the dogs out and they’ll track a ’90 chassis down and make that happen,” Ribbs said. “If anyone can do it who truly cares about history, it’s Roger.”

 

For racing history of all types, see last post in this thread......updating

****************************
Inside the NASCAR Hall of Fame*********************

You Tube

NASCAR Hall of Fame Tour 2013************************

You Tube

NASCAR Hall of Fame Museum Tour... Charlotte, NC



*************************************

Abandoned tracks in Florida area and other places (updated)
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...s-fl-area.html

Bonneville History
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...e-history.html

Daytona History
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...a-history.html

Drag Racing History
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/dr...ml#post9366328

This link has some historic drag racing pics.

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/dr...pics-ever.html


Local historic drag racing track Twin City Oldsmar

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...florida-4.html


Indianapolis History

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...ml#post9373490

24 Hours of Lemans history

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...s-history.html


Lime Rock Park history

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/au...rock-park.html


Pikes Peak racing history
Is Pikes Peak a road Race?


https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...ml#post9362624


History of Race Cars

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...ml#post9370578

Road Racing History
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/g...g-history.html

Sebring history

The way to part 2 "A brief History of Sebring Raceway" is here:
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/g...-40-posts.html
-------------------------------------------------
This was the original brief history of Sebring part 1
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/general-car-chat/816701-sebring-raceway-brief-history-part-1-has-now-exceeded-40-posts-115-posts.html
---------------------------------------------------

A bit of stock car racing history

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...ml#post9362625


Tying some Tampa Racing history together with links: Tampa International Raceway (Fair Grounds)

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/ge...l-raceway.html
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IndyCar

 

Milestone Moments in Indy 500 History

by Cyndi Paceley
Photo: IMSIndianapolis, IN – The Indianapolis Motor Speedway continues its “Traditions” series with the stories of some of the greatest moments in the history of the Indianapolis 500 — including the 30-year anniversary of Willy T. Ribbs being the first African American driver to qualify for the race, the 45-year mark of Janet Guthrie as the first female entrant, and the 25-year anniversary of Arie Luyendyk setting the all-time IMS speed record.



For a look at the earliest days of the Speedway — its founders, construction, first-generation racing heroes and more — check out Mark Dill’s First Super Speedway book and companion website. The book is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target and Blackwell’s.

And get ready to start your engines!

 

Not as good as I once was...but I can be as good ONCE as I ever was!

And that day happened to be the Indy 500 2021
Cantrell/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Marshall Pruett | June 3, 2021 1:12 PM ET

This year’s Indy 500 was one for the ages. There’s a lot to get through in our post-race column that wasn’t covered in the various stories that landed on RACER.com right after Helio Castroneves’ win, so let’s start with:

THE EXPENDABLES

If we’re talking expendables and retreads, Helio Castroneves, the guy who just won the Indianapolis 500 lost his job in November after 20 years with the same company, and was replaced by a newer model. And the guy who conjured exceptional speed for Helio Castroneves, who spent the last few seasons being moved around from one underperforming driver to another, fell out of favor as a full-time race engineer with the main team.

So together, first with Castroneves being signed to a six-race deal alongside Jack Harvey at Meyer Shank Racing, and second, with Andretti Autosport’s Mark Bryant dispatched to MSR’s extra part-time car, it would be fair to say the Brazilian and New Zealander duo weren’t exactly in high demand. Which makes the outcome of the 105th Indy 500, with the driver Team Penske no longer wanted, and the supremely talented race engineer bumped to end of the depth chart, one hell of a redemption story.

Look elsewhere on the timing stand, and former Chip Ganassi Racing lead mechanic Adam Rovazzini was the strategist for Castroneves on the No. 06 Meyer Shank Racing Honda. Across the pit crew, series veteran Didier Francesia returned and was rewarded mightily; Dario Franchitti’s former CGR mechanic Kevin O’Donnell moved across for MSR’s sports car program a few years ago and knocked out quick pit stops, and more talent– young and old – were part of this unique squad.

As Shank revealed after the race, only two full-time employees have been assigned to the No. 06 program; the rest were brought in on short-term contracts or borrowed from MSR’s IMSA program.

One of the full-timers was Helio’s chief mechanic, Matt Swan, who we wrote about earlier in the month, who joined MSR after 19 years and 11 months with Ganassi, and was reunited with his old driver after the two grew close in 1999 at the former Hogan Racing CART IndyCar team.

For Swan, who’d hoped to put his days as a mechanic behind him with the new opportunity as MSR’s shop manager, coming out of pit crew retirement paid off as he earned his first win – ever – as an IndyCar crew chief, at the biggest race in the world.

“I just want to get Helio his fourth Indy win,” Swan said of the motivation behind reuniting with his old pal Castroneves, and it’s exactly what they achieved.