SWC75
Bored Historian
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I am a Luke-warm auto racing fan at best but there are certain things on the sports calendar you don’t miss and it’s always been a tradition in my family to watch the Indianapolis 500, just as we watch the Triple Crown horse races, the Grand Slam Golf tournaments, etc. I also find that the history of anything can be fascinating and love seeing vintage sports films. I found that U-Tube had some highlight films of Indianapolis 500’s from the 50’s and 60’s and thought I’d link them here with some comments derived from other sources, especially Wikipedia, which has an article on each race, with full standings.
I’m really more interested in the people involved than the machines so my focus is on them. The sport has always had two things that people find appealing, the bright side, (the competition and the joy of winning), and the dark side, (the crashes and the deaths). It’s impossible to talk about one without talking about both, because they both happen to people.
That’s especially true of the era depicted here, what might be called the “flying cigar” era, where aerodynamically shaped cars whizzed around the track but without the down force “ground effects” attachments that enable modern drivers to make turns more safely. Also the concept in those days was to protect the driver by building a rigid car around him. That concept did not include roll bars and the impact of the rigidity was to transfer the mechanical energy of the crash to the inside of the vehicle- where the driver was seated. It resulted in a lot of relatively in tact cars with drivers in them who were not in tact. Now they “give” the crash things along the outside of the car to tear up and use up it‘s energy. The resulting crash can be spectacular but drivers are much more likely to walk away from it. They’ve also done things with barriers that are not always made of concrete to hit if you go veer off the track. Finally, they altered the type of fuel used so crashes don’t look like napalm attacks, as the infamous 1964 McDonald-Sachs crash did.
The earliest full highlight film I found on U-Tube was of the 1950 race, (there are clips and home movies of prior races). Here is the Wikipedia article on that race, with the standings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_Indianapolis_500
If you click on the driver’s names, you’ll find out that 9 of the 33 drivers died in racing accidents, (none of them in this race). That’s actually somewhat low for those days. A tenth died in a plane crash. Racing drivers are often also pilots both because it’s a natural transition and because it enables them to get to racing venues quickly. To show how things have changed, all 33 drivers in the 2000 Indianapolis 500 are still alive today. To show how you can never completely get away from the danger, last year’s winner, Dan Wheldon, is not. He died in a crash in Las Vegas last October.
Three drivers in this 1950 race were very young. Drivers in those days sometimes did what young boxers did: trade identities to get into races before they were of legal age to do so. Troy Ruttman, Jim Rathman, (both future winners), and Jimmy Davies all did this at the start of their careers. (By the way when Sugar Ray Robinson fought Rocky Graziano, it was really Walker Smith vs. Thomas Barbella while somewhere the real “Ray Robinson and Rocco Graziano watched). The minimum age was 21 and yet at the time of this race, both Ruttman’s and Davies were still age 20, (and Ruttman had just turned that). Rathman was 21 but he wasn’t really Jim Rathman. He was really Dick Rathman, who had borrowed his older brother Jim’s driver’s license to race. When the real Jim decided to race, he did it as “Dick” Rathman. Dick “Jim” had more success than did Jim “Dick”.
The Formula One series began that year and included Indy on it’s schedule along with six races in Europe. But none of the European drivers came to Indy that year and the American drivers didn’t go to Europe although there were some who crossed the Atlantic in future years. Nonetheless, the Indy winner, Johnnie Parsons, finished 6th in the Formula One championship race as the result of winning this race. He was thus the first American winner of a Formula One race.
Parsons had been the favorite, having finished second the previous year and gone on to win the driver’s championship for 1949. He had the ignominy of having his name misspelled on the Borg-Warner Trophy as “Johnny” until the trophy was restored in 1991, the only driver to have his name misspelled. Parsons’ win was controversial as the race was shortened to 345 miles due to bad weather. “People began to ask if I would have won if the race had gone 500 miles. How should I know? Up until then I had raced every car on the track and won.” Parsons was expected to dominate racing in the 50’s but disputes with car owners slowed his career. He wanted to run the full Formula One circuit in an American car but that never transpired. He eventually got involved with NASCAR as an executive, organizing their west coast operations.
Other drivers mentioned:
Bill Holland
, the 1949 champion. He was later blacklisted for taking part in early NASCAR events.
Jack McGrath
, “King of the Hot Rods”, in post-war California, was his own chief mechanic. He became one of the top drivers until he was killed in the final race of the 1955 season in Phoenix, when his axles broke and his car flipped several times with no roll-bar. Like Parsons, he was looking into a Formula One ride in Europe at the time of his death.
Walt Faulkner
, 5-4 and 120lbs as noted in the film, was a former motorcycle and midget car champion who won the pole in 1950. He died trying to qualify for a USAC stock car event in 1956.
Chet Miller
was 47 and had been racing at Indy since 1930. He missed out on the qualifying this time but was considered the “Dean of the Indy 500” because he’d been in so many races. He was killed in a qualifying run in 1953.
Johnny McDowell
was a “middle of the pack” racer who died qualifying at Milwaukee in 1952.
Cliff Griffith
was another middle of the pack guy who didn’t qualify for the 1950 race.
George Connor
was another veteran who never came close to winning the race but did make Lou Moore’s team along with Holland and Tony Bettenhausen. Moore seems to have been the Roger Penske of the era, with three cars in the race and three prior victories.
Tony Bettenhausen
was one of top drivers of the era, as popular for his out-going personality as for his many successes, despite never winning the 500. He took over the car of Joie Chitwood, later a famous stunt-driver, after his own car broke a wheel bearing and finished 5th. Tony died testing a car at Indy for a friend in 1961 and was much mourned. His sons became successful racers to carry on the family name. By the way, his real name was Melvin. He so admired Gene Tunney, the boxing champion that his friends called him “Tunney” which became “Tony”.
Bill Schindler
was 41 year old former boxer who gave up that sport because “I always ended up looking worse than the men I beat“. He’d been racing with one leg since a 1936 crash. During the war he toured hospitals to convince veterans who had lost legs that it didn’t mean the end of their lives or their careers. He was President of the Race Driver’s Club for 6 years. Schindler became the “stand-in” for Clark Gable when he filmed “To Please a Lady”, about car racing. They actually filmed some scenes at the 1950 Indy 500. (I’ve seen that movie and part of it takes place in Syracuse, although no scenes were filmed here). Schindler was killed in a race in Allentown Pa. in 1952.
Mauri Rose
was already a three time Indy winner, nearing the end of his career. He lived to a ripe old age.
Gene Hartley
was another perennial also-ran at Indy.
Cecil Green
was a promising racer who had already won 34 races in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. He was just moving into the big-time with a 4th place finish in 1950 but died in a 1951 crash in Texas.
Lee Wallard
would win the 1951 Indy 500 but get badly burned in a crash a week later and then gave up the sport.
Here is the 20 minute highlight film from U-Tube, produced, (as you can probably tell,) by Mobil. It takes them a while to get to the race but you have a real feeling of “being there”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0bg3ztLGfk
Note: you can get it full screen by clicking on the box with the four arrows in it.
I’m really more interested in the people involved than the machines so my focus is on them. The sport has always had two things that people find appealing, the bright side, (the competition and the joy of winning), and the dark side, (the crashes and the deaths). It’s impossible to talk about one without talking about both, because they both happen to people.
That’s especially true of the era depicted here, what might be called the “flying cigar” era, where aerodynamically shaped cars whizzed around the track but without the down force “ground effects” attachments that enable modern drivers to make turns more safely. Also the concept in those days was to protect the driver by building a rigid car around him. That concept did not include roll bars and the impact of the rigidity was to transfer the mechanical energy of the crash to the inside of the vehicle- where the driver was seated. It resulted in a lot of relatively in tact cars with drivers in them who were not in tact. Now they “give” the crash things along the outside of the car to tear up and use up it‘s energy. The resulting crash can be spectacular but drivers are much more likely to walk away from it. They’ve also done things with barriers that are not always made of concrete to hit if you go veer off the track. Finally, they altered the type of fuel used so crashes don’t look like napalm attacks, as the infamous 1964 McDonald-Sachs crash did.
The earliest full highlight film I found on U-Tube was of the 1950 race, (there are clips and home movies of prior races). Here is the Wikipedia article on that race, with the standings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_Indianapolis_500
If you click on the driver’s names, you’ll find out that 9 of the 33 drivers died in racing accidents, (none of them in this race). That’s actually somewhat low for those days. A tenth died in a plane crash. Racing drivers are often also pilots both because it’s a natural transition and because it enables them to get to racing venues quickly. To show how things have changed, all 33 drivers in the 2000 Indianapolis 500 are still alive today. To show how you can never completely get away from the danger, last year’s winner, Dan Wheldon, is not. He died in a crash in Las Vegas last October.
Three drivers in this 1950 race were very young. Drivers in those days sometimes did what young boxers did: trade identities to get into races before they were of legal age to do so. Troy Ruttman, Jim Rathman, (both future winners), and Jimmy Davies all did this at the start of their careers. (By the way when Sugar Ray Robinson fought Rocky Graziano, it was really Walker Smith vs. Thomas Barbella while somewhere the real “Ray Robinson and Rocco Graziano watched). The minimum age was 21 and yet at the time of this race, both Ruttman’s and Davies were still age 20, (and Ruttman had just turned that). Rathman was 21 but he wasn’t really Jim Rathman. He was really Dick Rathman, who had borrowed his older brother Jim’s driver’s license to race. When the real Jim decided to race, he did it as “Dick” Rathman. Dick “Jim” had more success than did Jim “Dick”.
The Formula One series began that year and included Indy on it’s schedule along with six races in Europe. But none of the European drivers came to Indy that year and the American drivers didn’t go to Europe although there were some who crossed the Atlantic in future years. Nonetheless, the Indy winner, Johnnie Parsons, finished 6th in the Formula One championship race as the result of winning this race. He was thus the first American winner of a Formula One race.
Parsons had been the favorite, having finished second the previous year and gone on to win the driver’s championship for 1949. He had the ignominy of having his name misspelled on the Borg-Warner Trophy as “Johnny” until the trophy was restored in 1991, the only driver to have his name misspelled. Parsons’ win was controversial as the race was shortened to 345 miles due to bad weather. “People began to ask if I would have won if the race had gone 500 miles. How should I know? Up until then I had raced every car on the track and won.” Parsons was expected to dominate racing in the 50’s but disputes with car owners slowed his career. He wanted to run the full Formula One circuit in an American car but that never transpired. He eventually got involved with NASCAR as an executive, organizing their west coast operations.
Other drivers mentioned:
Bill Holland
, the 1949 champion. He was later blacklisted for taking part in early NASCAR events.
Jack McGrath
, “King of the Hot Rods”, in post-war California, was his own chief mechanic. He became one of the top drivers until he was killed in the final race of the 1955 season in Phoenix, when his axles broke and his car flipped several times with no roll-bar. Like Parsons, he was looking into a Formula One ride in Europe at the time of his death.
Walt Faulkner
, 5-4 and 120lbs as noted in the film, was a former motorcycle and midget car champion who won the pole in 1950. He died trying to qualify for a USAC stock car event in 1956.
Chet Miller
was 47 and had been racing at Indy since 1930. He missed out on the qualifying this time but was considered the “Dean of the Indy 500” because he’d been in so many races. He was killed in a qualifying run in 1953.
Johnny McDowell
was a “middle of the pack” racer who died qualifying at Milwaukee in 1952.
Cliff Griffith
was another middle of the pack guy who didn’t qualify for the 1950 race.
George Connor
was another veteran who never came close to winning the race but did make Lou Moore’s team along with Holland and Tony Bettenhausen. Moore seems to have been the Roger Penske of the era, with three cars in the race and three prior victories.
Tony Bettenhausen
was one of top drivers of the era, as popular for his out-going personality as for his many successes, despite never winning the 500. He took over the car of Joie Chitwood, later a famous stunt-driver, after his own car broke a wheel bearing and finished 5th. Tony died testing a car at Indy for a friend in 1961 and was much mourned. His sons became successful racers to carry on the family name. By the way, his real name was Melvin. He so admired Gene Tunney, the boxing champion that his friends called him “Tunney” which became “Tony”.
Bill Schindler
was 41 year old former boxer who gave up that sport because “I always ended up looking worse than the men I beat“. He’d been racing with one leg since a 1936 crash. During the war he toured hospitals to convince veterans who had lost legs that it didn’t mean the end of their lives or their careers. He was President of the Race Driver’s Club for 6 years. Schindler became the “stand-in” for Clark Gable when he filmed “To Please a Lady”, about car racing. They actually filmed some scenes at the 1950 Indy 500. (I’ve seen that movie and part of it takes place in Syracuse, although no scenes were filmed here). Schindler was killed in a race in Allentown Pa. in 1952.
Mauri Rose
was already a three time Indy winner, nearing the end of his career. He lived to a ripe old age.
Gene Hartley
was another perennial also-ran at Indy.
Cecil Green
was a promising racer who had already won 34 races in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. He was just moving into the big-time with a 4th place finish in 1950 but died in a 1951 crash in Texas.
Lee Wallard
would win the 1951 Indy 500 but get badly burned in a crash a week later and then gave up the sport.
Here is the 20 minute highlight film from U-Tube, produced, (as you can probably tell,) by Mobil. It takes them a while to get to the race but you have a real feeling of “being there”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0bg3ztLGfk
Note: you can get it full screen by clicking on the box with the four arrows in it.
