RETROAUTOS May 2014 ISSN 1836-9472

1964 Indy 500 Last Win for Roadsters

Retro auto Racing

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With this year’s running of the Indy 500 it will be half a century since a front-engined car last won the world’s biggest motor sports event. And the guy who caused the transformation from front to rear powered race cars at the famed oval was Sir Jack Brabham. He arrived quietly at the famed oval, did Jack. It was 1961 and he’d brought with him a small rear-engined Formula One style car, a Cooper Climax. No one gave him much of a chance, and many derided the Cooper as toy-like.

Top: The 1961 Ford Thunderbird Indy Pace Car. Middle: Jack Brabham & crew. Bottom: Brabham on race day.

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And, in comparison with the sleek Indy roadsters with their left-offset Offenhauser power plants, the Cooper was a small and fragile thing. You have to remember that some of these roadsters saw track time on rough dirt speedways, so it is no wonder they were built strong and solid.

Reflecting the cars they raced, the drivers were of similar ilk. Strong and solid. They were young and desperate to get to Indianapolis and they’d do whatever it took. If that meant spending most of your year on dangerous dirt ovals in United States Auto Club sanctioned races all across the USA, then that was the price willingly paid.

Image: Brabham’s Cooper is looking small , on the inside of the fifth row.

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Joe Scalzo, that great chronicler of American oval track racing, summed it up best: “The Indy 500 was the reason you raced (all year)… to be in that select club of 33 who drove 500 miles on Memorial Day....” And that’s what they did, these young ambitious men. They strapped themselves into midgets, dirt championships cars and the most lethal of all, sprintcars, if it meant they could have a chance to be at Indy. They raced cars without roll

cages and had only basic seat belts. Safety was not a priority. Getting to Indy was the goal. Accidents were common place. Guys died in terrifying crashes at a rate that would have politicians running scared and governments banning the sport today.

Top: The last roadster to win Indy. Driven by AJ Foyt, the Sheraton-Thompson Special in the Speedway Museum. Bottom right: A painfully young Mario Andretti , in 1964, ready to race in an Offy sprintcar.

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And just who were they, these young men, mostly in their early twenties? AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, Johnny Rutherford, Parnelli Jones, Pat OÇonnor, Ed Elisian, Jimmy Rathman, Jim Hurtbutise, Don Branson, Eddie Sacks, Jud Larson, Roger McCluskey, Roger Ward, Troy Ruttman, Tony and Gary Bettenhausen, Jimmy Bryan, Bobby Unser....the list goes on. These guys could see a direct line of sight from the half and quarter milers to the biggest oval in the world.

After all, the Indy roadsters were only bigger versions of the cars they raced every week. An oval is an oval, right? A simple transfer of skills and learnings. It was what Indy car owners demanded of their drivers. Keep turning left, son! You do it every week. It’s just faster here at the Speedway! So get your butt out there and go FAST!! And it put fans in the stands at Indy and at all the small tracks across the land.

Top and middle: The Zink Brothers roadsters. Winners in the mid-1950s

Above: AJ Foyt’s winning 1961 ride. Below: Parnelli Jones won in 1963,.

AJ & Parnelli at Salem

It was into this world of ferocious left hand turn competition that Jack Brabham appeared .It was a world he knew well, because his racing career had also started by manhandling cageless, open wheel race cars on small dirt ovals. He brought with him that small Cooper, with its little engine hanging out the back. And if that was not enough of a challenge to existing Indy orthodoxy, then the fact it was NOT powered by an Offenhauser really got everyone talking. You see, Offenhauser engines had dominated American oval racing for decades. Offenhauser owned the chequered flag at Indianapolis. Let me quote Scalzo again: “For as long as anyone wanted to remember, the sound of open wheel, oval track racing was Offy, Offy, and Offy…”

If you’ve ever heard an Offy you’ll never forget the bark and bite of this highly stressed four cylinder engine. The unitary construction of the motor (no separate cylinder head) meant it was not vulnerable to head gasket or cylinder stud problems. Accordingly, car owners could run higher compression levels than what was achievable with other motors of the day.

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It was the power plant you had to have to win at Indy and that was the accepted wisdom until Jack arrived. Brabham did not win in 1961. He finished ninth. AJ Foyt won. But Jack opened a window of opportunity for those who could see the future. And it wasn’t front engined and it wasn’t Offy powered. In 1963 Ford combined with Colin Chapman’s Team Lotus, Jim Clark and Dan Gurney in a two car team of fast rear-engined cars, running Ford’s new 260 cubic inch V8 out of the new Fairlane , and gave those in the front engine roadsters and USAC a BIG fright. They did not win in 1963. Parnelli Jones driving for JC Agajanian took the chequered flag. Clark ran second. Gurney was seventh. Chapman and Clark returned in 1964. It was to be a dark year in Indy history. Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald , in

two the “new fangled” rear engine cars , died in a turn four crash which became a raging inferno, when MacDoanld’s car spun out of control. You can see the horror of it all on YouTube by entering ‘Indy1964’. Clark exited on lap 47 with a collapsed left rear suspension. AJ Foyt won the 1964 Indy 500 and officials knew the writing was on the wall for the roadsters. As soon as the podium festivities were over they rolled his Sheraton-Thompson Special into the Indy Museum . It is the only Indy winner in the museum to not have been restored and made a recent appearance at the Ameila Island Concours de Elegance, still with the race grime on it and stones chips visible on the cowling. In 1965 Jim Clark won the world’s most famous motor race in a rear engine car. A front engine car never won at Indianapolis again.

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An era ends and begins: Winning cars from 1964 and 1965. Front to rear engines and Offy to V8 Ford.

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Above: Eddie Sachs at the 1964 Indy 500. Below: No roll cages here . Sprintcars at the fearsome

Salem half miler. That’s Parnelli Jones on the pole line jumping out ahead of AJ Foyt..

By 1967 even the venerable Offenhauser engine was seen in a rear engined car, a McLaren owned by Roger Penske. Johnny Rutherford gave the iconic engine its last win in 1976. Just as suddenly, those young dirt oval chargers found themselves competing for Indy rides with road racers, local and international, who had more seat time ahead of the engine rather than behind it. And drivers themselves were starting to ask if the short track path to Indianapolis was worth the cost. In 1966 the United States Auto Club alone lost five ( FIVE!! ) of its number to sprintcar crashes.

Parnelli Jones had already decided to leave sprinters “to save my ever lovin’ neck”, and Foyt hardly went near them after his 1967 Indy win. For many young Americans entering the sport via short track ovals, like Darryl Waltrip, Bill Elliot, Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Tony Stewart, JJ Yeley and David Blaney their line of sight and their ambition shifted to NASCAR. Indy was not their priority. What you see now at Indy is a direct result of the influence of Jim Clark, Dan Gurney, Colin Chapman and Sir Jack Brabham. They changed racing at Indianapolis as we know it, forever.

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Johnny Rutherford’s win in 1976 was the last time for an

Offy.