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    The Indianapolis 500 - Volume Two: Roadsters, Laydowns and Another World (1954 – 1958): The Indianapolis 500 - A History, #2
    The Indianapolis 500 - Volume Two: Roadsters, Laydowns and Another World (1954 – 1958): The Indianapolis 500 - A History, #2
    The Indianapolis 500 - Volume Two: Roadsters, Laydowns and Another World (1954 – 1958): The Indianapolis 500 - A History, #2
    Ebook188 pages3 hours

    The Indianapolis 500 - Volume Two: Roadsters, Laydowns and Another World (1954 – 1958): The Indianapolis 500 - A History, #2

    By Brian G. Boettcher

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    Second of five volumes closely examining the history of the Indianapolis 500 and American National Championship racing from 1946 to 1969. Volume Two: Roadsters, Laydowns and Another World includes the story of Bill Vukovich headed for his third straight Indianapolis victory, the development of laydown roadsters, the growing genius of A.J. Watson, and the intriguing "Race of Two Worlds" when American championship racers twice took on the best Europeans at the legendary high-banked Monza Autodromo in Italy. Plus, details of each 500-Mile race from 1954 through 1958, examining events and people who shaped the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" and its legend. With illustrations.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrian G. Boettcher
    Release dateNov 4, 2012
    ISBN9781301253777
    The Indianapolis 500 - Volume Two: Roadsters, Laydowns and Another World (1954 – 1958): The Indianapolis 500 - A History, #2
    Author

    Brian G. Boettcher

    Brian Boettcher developed his motorsports interest in the Milwaukee Mile's south bleachers, and has a lifelong fascination with going fast, on two wheels or four. The History of the Indianapolis 500 series reflects his love of history and writing. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Brian graduated with a degree in Mass Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His career has taken him to living in New Mexico, Germany, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

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      Book preview

      The Indianapolis 500 - Volume Two - Brian G. Boettcher

      The Indianapolis 500 - Volume Two: Roadsters, Laydowns and Another World (1954 – 1958)

      Brian G. Boettcher

      Published by Constant Velocity Publishing at Smashwords

      Copyright 2014, Brian G. Boettcher

      License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this ebook, which is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting this author’s hard work.

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      Chapter One: Blow off those hot dogs (1954)

      Chapter Two: There's a car burning… (1955)

      Chapter Three: The Red Headed Mick (1956)

      Chapter Four: Laydowns and Another World (1957-1958)

      Bibliography

      Preface

      The popularity of auto racing was continuing to grow through the Fifties as the nation universally took to wheels, striking out to see the U.S.A. as never before. The Indianapolis 500 Mile Race was on a par with the World Series or a heavyweight championship fight - front page news; its champion an immediate national idol.

      Volume Two picks up following Bill Vukovich’s 1953 victory at the Brickyard; the Sweepstakes and Speedway fully recovered from the effects of the Second World War, with new equipment and speedier technology on the track. The old guard of pre-war drivers was dwindling quickly as higher speed, get-to-the-front-style racing took its toll, either through retirements or worse fates. New names that would become household names appear on the grid, some immediate stars, while others would take years to earn their celebrity. Some became legend.

      Frank Kurtis continued building his winning KK500 series of cars, which proved the class of the track. Hilborn fuel injection, Hallibrand mag wheels, and wider Firestone tires were just a few of the innovations and improvements that allowed drivers to turn up the speeds, taking new, faster routes around the track. Car builders discovered center of gravity and worked to lower it by moving their cars’ heaviest components, like engines and drive shafts.

      And, fans gathered annually at the Speedway to hear Tom Carnegie announce, A new track record.

      BGB

      Columbia, MD

      Chapter One: Blow off those hot dogs (1954)

      Young champion and Californian Troy Ruttman invested his earnings in farmland near Salem, Indiana. I just took to liking it back here and bought a 23 acre farm in Salem and am growing corn and going into the hog business. he told Fresno newsman Ed Orman. I may become Indiana's Agajanian.

      Meanwhile retired three-time Indianapolis champion Mauri Rose put the first gas turbine automobile built and tested in the United States, the single seat XP-21 Firebird, through its break-in paces as a General Motors test driver.

      A February midget wreck at Carrell Speedway at Gardena, California, injured Johnnie Parsons. His racer rolled three times after hitting a rut broadsliding during a six lap heat race. Johnnie was pulled unconscious from his car with a concussion, two shoulder dislocations, and various cuts, including a gash to his arm taking 50 stitches. Doctors expected a six week recovery. From his hospital bed the next day, the banged-up Parsons told reporters he planned to be at Indianapolis to drive for Sandy Belond.

      After laying in a coma for fourteen months driver Bobby Ball died from a basal skull fracture suffered at Carrell a year earlier. Doctors played sound recordings of the Sweepstakes in an attempt to revive him. Twenty-eight year old Ball was survived by wife Sandra, and three children.

      The city of Daytona Beach, Florida, was in final negotiations to break ground on a new $2 million speedway designed for speeds up to 180 miles per hour. Complex plans included three courses – a four–and-a-half mile road course inside a two-and-a-half mile high banked trioval, and a half-mile bullring.

      By March nine drivers who had won the 500 or the AAA national driving crown entered the 1954 International Sweepstakes, prompting Wilbur Shaw, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, to christen the event the greatest race of championships. Ruttman, Bill Vukovich, Lee Wallard and Bill Holland were past 500 winners. Johnnie Parsons won both the race and the championship. It was the first time five previous winners entered since 1923. Chuck Stevenson, Tony Bettenhausen, Sam Hanks and Henry Banks had each won the AAA crown.

      T.E. Pop Myers, one of the Speedway's links to its first days, died March 13th. Myers, described as Carl Fisher's right hand man when the 1910 races were run, was named the track's general manager in 1911, the year of the first Sweepstakes. He was made vice president in 1927, and retained that office when Tony Hulman bought the complex in 1945.

      The Speedway opened for practice on May 1st with a new concrete and steel Grandstand B at the transition into the first turn. Its double-deck construction obscured the drivers' view of the smoke from the tall Prest-O-Lite chimney, which they used to gauge the wind into the turn. Rain and cold curtailed practice the first week. Sam Hanks was the fastest around, clocked at 132.7 miles per hour in his #31 Bardahl Special.

      Defending champion Bill Vukovich spent little track time as his #14 Fuel Injection Special, the same Kurtis KK500A he drove in both '52 and '53, was bedeviled by engine problems that were eventually traced to piston rings. Practice produced ever higher speeds, until Duane Carter registered a lap at 137.8 miles per hour. Freddie Agabashian told the press that would be the speed needed to qualify.

      Ruttman was finally recovered from his Cedar Rapids wreck arm injuries. Before allowing him on the track, AAA officials required Troy be cleared by bone specialists. It required 19 months to mend, though, but it's as good as new, he told reporters. Clark Griffith, badly burned in practice at the Speedway in 1953, came back with the # 22 Sarafoff Special, but couldn't bring himself up to competitive speed. He pulled out of the race saying, I'd rather be a damn fool than a dead hero. The car later failed to qualify.

      Duke Nalon was again piloting the now dark blue #8 Novi Special. The aging behemoth, the only front-wheel drive car entered, was the only one operative after Chet Miller's fatal accident, as Lew Welch decided not to repair that car. Practicing, Nalon hardly broke 130, saying he didn't feel nervous enough at that speed.

      Around the Gasoline Alley garages, Vukovich made the rounds. Closemouthed and guarded around the press, he was known as a prolific needler among his friends and competitors. Out sitting on the pit wall one morning, Stu Hilborn recalled, I heard Vuky telling Tony Bettenhausen how easy this race is. Tony has raced here many years but never won. Vuky says, 'This place is so easy, next year I am going to bring my grandmother back here and she can run for second place behind me.'

      Bill France, NASCAR founder and a AAA competitor, visited Gasoline Alley and was escorted from the track when found using someone else's credentials. AAA chief steward Harry McQuinn told National Speed Sport News, We have a long-standing disagreement with NASCAR on what constitutes good racing. France reportedly had come to Indianapolis to discuss a possible race at the Indiana State Fairgrounds track. France later said, It wasn’t Tony Hulman. He and I were friends. It was the AAA…they were jealous of NASCAR.

      On Pole Day Nalon and his Novi were still considered a top threat, along with Vukovich. The day was fair, with temperatures in the mid-70s – almost perfect. Sixteen cars were lined up to run when the track opened for qualifying with 125,000 fans reported in the stands. Jim Rathmann was first out in the #59 Elgin Piston Pin Special. He completed his two warm up laps and, according to officials, went to qualify without raising his hand, as required. After he was black flagged from the track an argument broke out near the starting line involving officials and car owner, Andy Granatelli. Rathmann's attempt stood disallowed. And, wanting to conceal the car's unique ram air induction system, Granatelli kept the hood closed throughout the rhubarb with the engine idling. By the time Wilbur Shaw finally relented, the engine overheated and could not be repaired in time to qualify. After eight years, the Granatellis swore they'd never return to Indianapolis.

      Johnny Thomson, the previous year’s slowest qualifier, drove his #43 Chapman Special, better known as Basement Bessie, to 139.686 miles per hour on his final lap to set a new one-lap track record. Bessie, a homemade car basement-assembled by Ray Nichels and Paul Russo, placed ninth in the 1950 Sweepstakes, and won at Darlington that December under Johnnie Parsons.

      California's King of the Hot Rods, Jack McGrath, next took the track driving the new light cream-colored #2 Hinkle Special, a new Kurtis KK500C, and stole Thomson's thunder. McGrath, who won the first California Roadster (Hot Rod) Association championship in 1946, averaged a record 141.033 miles per hour, with a top lap of 141.281, putting himself on the pole. I left plenty of safety margin and used the brakes on the turns, McGrath said. I was very much surprised that I went that fast. Conditions were just right. It was the fourth straight year that McGrath, who also served as his own chief mechanic, qualified in the front row..

      tmp_c777c28faec9972fb4411de73e3cdd9f_bS2YwW_html_m678715bb.jpg

      "Conditions were just right."

      Jack McGrath takes the pole, 141.033 miles per hour

      Jimmy Daywalt, in the #19 Sumar Special, took the middle of the front row with 139.789, and Jimmy Bryan, driving the #9 Dean Van Lines Kuzma dirt tracker, earned the outside spot at 139.665 miles per hour.

      Nalon's #8 Novi Governor Special earned the unlucky thirteenth position running 136.395 miles per hour. After a disappointing first lap of only 136.882, Nalon’s second lap was even slower. Lew Welch went out to abort the attempt, venturing onto the track after the third lap and pointing toward the pits. Pit men stationed themselves to ensure Duke stopped before crossing the finish. Instead Nalon blew past them. Welch could only shrug. Later Nalon claimed he missed Welch's signal – and he knew the Novi was almost certain of being bumped.

      Chet Miller's 1952 one lap record was smashed eleven times on Pole Day and his four lap average three times. Lighter and stronger Firestone Deluxe Champion racing tires, produced in sizes up to 20 inches, used nylon cords instead of natural fabric construction. Synthetic materials allowed cooler running, while wider tread rubber gripped the track better. Speeds in the turns increased three miles per hour over 1953. Thicker tread material gave longer race wear.

      Three veteran drivers, ‘51 Sweepstakes winner Lee Wallard, ‘50 National Champion Henry Banks, and George Connor, hung up their helmets to fully retire from racing. When you get older, Wilbur Shaw explained, your sense of self-preservation becomes a bit better developed and you get more cautious. Wallard, who took a few practice turns around the Speedway in Murrell Belanger's #99, admitted he was unable to regain full arm strength after surviving the terrible burns suffered after his Speedway victory. He took a job as a field service representative for the Aircraft Engine Division of Ford Motor Company. Signed to drive the #27 Chapman Special, Gentleman George Connor had driven in fifteen Sweepstakes. The fun is gone when you have to chase those kids, he said.

      A hole in an engine cylinder wall prevented Bill Vukovich, last year's pole and race winner, from attempting to qualify the first weekend. The ruined unit was replaced with one quickly flown in from Los Angeles. Vuky apparently wasn’t alone. Engine ring issues were a widespread problem. Yes, we're in trouble and don't have the answer, said Perfect Circle's expert Gene Stonecipher. If you want a guess, I would say that the boys have discovered some way to increase internal power over last year, he discreetly suggested.

      The apparent source of both the higher track speeds and engine troubles was use of new, hotter fuel mixtures. Many cars were running 5 to 40 percent nitro to add more pop to their engines, despite an earlier consensus agreement not to run with it.One car owner wants that extra two miles an hour to get his car in the field and so what does he do? He uses nitro and everybody else starts using nitro, complained Russ Snowberger, veteran owner and chief mechanic of the Federal Engineering Detroit team. Everybody is abusing crankshafts, Snowberger said. These (Offenhauser) engines aren't built for the use of nitro. They're made to turn 4,500 to 4,700 revolutions per minute. It's crazy to make them turn upwards of 6,100 RPMs with nitro. Sure, you get the added speed but you wreck your engine doing it. A dozen cars suffered cracked crankshafts in preparing for the race. So many crankshafts had broken that they were in short supply. Many teams hoped to replace theirs as a precaution but were stopped by the AAA race technical committee, which feared the substitution of illegal cranks.

      Second Saturday qualifying was spurred to a frenzy by the weather. Rain limited the previous Sunday qualifiers to just four, and rain threatened the second Sunday. Harry Quinn, AAA chief steward, said, We will qualify both Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting. If 33 cars qualify and it rains, those 33 will start the race.

      Mechanics Frank Coon and Jim Travers had torn down Vukovich’s Fuel

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