Against Death and Time: One Fatal Season in Racing's Glory Years (14 page)

I cruised beside the rig, gaping at the car's lacquered flanks and
chrome fittings, which shimmered in the Oklahoma sunshine.
Watson gave me a perfunctory wave as I spotted a wink of yellow in
my rearview mirror. Rushing up was a new Cadillac Coupe de Ville
Model 62, its enormous, egg-crate grille and its "Dagmar" bumper
gnawing at my taillights. I quickly moved right to let the monster
through. Drawing alongside, the hulking Caddy nose-dived from 100
mph, its front tires smoking and its driver, a large man in a Stetson,
sawing at the wheel for control. He had obviously seen the race car
trailer and wanted a closer look.

As our trio puttered along two-lane Route 66, a fourth machine
appeared, again rolling up at high speeds, then slowing to a crawl to
join the caravan. It was a 1932 high-boy roadster, a fenderless hot rod
being driven by a gaunt young man in a T-shirt and sunglasses.

This was a classic American hot rod, powered by a modified flathead Ford V-8-Henry's revolutionary, affordable, breakthrough
engine, which became the biggest factor in his company's domination
of the American market for over twenty years.

We dawdled along, my MG, the Cadillac, and the Ford roadster
representing totally divergent aspects of domestic automobile
enthusiasm-a powerful, flashy, be-finned Detroit mega-machine, a
spindly English sports car, and a pure, home-built hot rod.

The Cadillac represented the latest advances in luxury passenger
car technology-automatic transmission; power windows, seats, and
steering; all packaged in so much chrome it looked like a Wurlitzer
juke box on wheels. The other 2 vehicles-the hot rod and my MGwere simple cars compared to the Cadillac-at the time the undisputed king of the American road. Like its smaller, lower-priced
General Motors sisters, Buick and Oldsmobile, Cadillac's sales were
booming. It had far out-paced rival Lincoln, while the once-haughty
Packard had descended to a point so low that the company had made
a desperate alliance with the equally weakened Studebaker.

In fact, General Motors and Ford were on the verge of driving all
other domestic brands off the market. Even Chrysler, the traditional
third arm of the so-called Big Three, was struggling. Its Plymouth
brand, long the third-best-selling marque in America, behind Ford
and Chevrolet, had dropped to fifth in sales, now passed by both Buick
and Oldsmobile. Hudson and Nash, two aged and much-honored
makes, were united in a final, futile bid for survival, while upstart
Kaiser-Fraser and Willys, the maker of the world-famous and
beloved jeep, were both on the edge of bankruptcy.

With its impudent tail fins, the Caddy represented quintessential
American optimism; it was bold, oversized, overweight, and overtly
flashy. It was a perfect and proud representative of what one critic
denounced as "insolent chariots."

The Zink Kurtis-Kraft riding on Watson's trailer, its outrageous "tropical rose" paintwork blossoming for all to see, was itself a classic
American race car. While the first known rearview mirror was
believed to have been used on Ray Harrouh's 1911 Marmon Wasp in
the first 500, the Zink, like all American race cars, carried no such
device. At some point, long since forgotten, rearview mirrors were
removed from American race cars and were never reinstalled.
Whether it was for streamlining, or based on an unspoken policy that
left all passing responsibility to the car behind, with none on the leading driver, was not unknown. The Zink, like all its brethren, was an
elemental machine, bereft of top, headlights, turn signals, mirrors,
brake lights, windows, fenders, doors, and all other standard automobile accessories. Its gearbox, a simple two-speed unit, was used
only for acceleration out of the pits. Even the starter was missing. The
Offenhauser engine was activated by a portable unit to save weight.
While powersteering was being adopted for passenger cars, the extra
weight and presumed power loss made such devices undesirable at
Indianapolis. With its driver on board and its sixty-gallon tank
loaded with methanol-alcohol fuel, the steel, aluminum, and magnesium Zink weighed in at about one ton-a brutish, basic hunk that
had to be kept under rein at up to 180 miles an hour, for 500 miles.

I could not help but muse upon the contrast between the Zink and
my tiny MG. The little English roadster was widely used in amateur
sports car races both here and in Great Britain, but the two vehicles
were light years apart in design and intent.

Road racing cars-be they tiny MGs or ultra-powerful MercedesBenz or Ferraris that competed in Grand Prix races or in open-road
contests like the Mille Miglia-depended on four- and five-speed
gearboxes and giant brakes to give them maximum performance over
a wide range of speeds and differing track conditions. In contrast, the
Kurtis-Kraft was designed for constant high velocities exclusively on
sweeping left turns. Brakes and gearboxes were a relatively low priority for their designers.

The big Cadillac with the Oklahoma cowboy was yet another breed.
Its home was the Great Plains, where endless, flat roads ran to the
horizon permitted 100-mph cruising speeds with the air conditioning
running full blast and the radio trilling Hank Williams classics. The
kid's hot rod, on the other hand, was intended only for spotlight
bursts and occasional runs on the quarter-mile drag strips that were
springing up across the nation. Like the Indy car, its priorities lay in
light weight, high power, and one-dimensional performance.

By the time I reached the Missouri border and stopped for the
night in a tourist home outside Joplin, the foursome of strange automobiles had long since dispersed. Watson had moved on with the
Zink, no doubt planning a nonstop run all the way to Indianapolis.

Less pressed for time, I didn't reach the city until a day later,
whereupon I settled into my new quarters. The Manifold rooming
house was full, and I had found other, nicer lodgings even closer to
the track. Ray Newsome, a retired tool-and-die maker from the
long-defunct Marmon Automobile Works, owned a pristine bungalow on Georgetown Road. His property, set back in a grove of
tall Elms with a neatly manicured yard, bordered the fourth turn of
the Speedway.

A quiet man, Newsome and his younger brother, Elton, had
accommodations for five guests in two double rooms and a singlethat was mine. In the others were two Buick salesmen from
Philadelphia, who proudly parked their Roadmaster sedan close to
the house, and a Firestone tire dealer from Des Moines with his wife.
The Newsome brothers were Baptists, but they nevertheless joined
the Buick men and the Firestone dealer when they gathered late each
day in the backyard to share stories and drink Old Grand-Dad bourbon in water glasses borrowed from the kitchen.

In a corner of the yard, well back from the street, was the
Speedway's gray cement retaining wall, mounted high on a dirt
embankment. One evening, after Elton had had his second glass of bourbon, he told the story of how, in 1935, a driver named Stubby
Stubblefield and his riding mechanic, Leo Whittaker, had tumbled
over that wall in their Miller special and landed in Newsome's yard.

"Lemme see;' said Elton, pulling on the strap of the Oshkosh "Can't
Bust-em" overalls that appeared to be his entire wardrobe, "I was
about twenty-three at the time. Always stayed around for the big race
because our daddy, who owned the place, took in guests and parked
cars in the yard. Just like me and Ray do to this day. It was one of them
qualifying days when all of a sudden I'm standing on the porch and I
hear a terrible screeching of tires and a big boom. Here comes these
two guys and then a big orange car a-flying over the wall. Like birds,
ya see. Damned if they didn't land right by that juniper over there,
which was just a sapling in those days.

"Scared the hell out of me. I ran over to 'em. They were still as
stones. Bloodied up and everything. Then here come a bunch of guys
jumpin' over the wall with fire extinguishers and medical kits and
they shoved me back. Never did see a thing after that. The ambulance
came and hauled 'em away, but that wrecked race car laid in our yard
for a whole day.

"For years after that the family of poor of Stubblefield came all the
way from Oregon or some damn place out west. Of course we give
'em permission to lay some flowers on the spot. I ain't the superstitious kind, but I was near thirty before I'd go back there and mow
that part of the lawn. That I'll be honest about."

"Ain't the half of it," said Ray, his face ashen gray. "Thirty-five was
a terrible year. They brought in this hot-shot kid from the eastern circuit named Johnny Hannon. He gets in some guy's Miller and
damned if he don't make a lap. Not even one. Pitched over the wall
down yonder. At least beyond our property, thank God. So he's dead,
but the car owner gets the car repaired in time for the race. He sticks
in another rookie kid named Clay Weatherly. In those days they had
to carry a riding mechanic for some damn fool reason. You won't believe it, but on the ninth lap of the race Weatherly has a wreck in
about the same spot, and he's killed too.

"The poor guy riding with him gets a broken back. When that
month was over, four of 'em were dead, all within a stone's throw of
here." Ray Newsome took a long slug of bourbon, then looked at the
wall. "Sometimes in May this place can be hell on earth;" he said quietly.

The Buick men listened in silence. Then the older one, with a red
face and a heavy belly who wheezed when he talked and sported
enormous gold cufflinks on his French-cuffed white shirt, took
another swig of bourbon. He said, "You gotta wonder if that's what
folks come to see. Do they want to see some racing or do they want
to see guys get killed?"

"You gotta wonder," repeated the younger Buick man, slouching in
his chair and gazing at the wall.

"You see it once and you don't wanna see it again. I'll tell you that,"
said Elton.

"I think the essence of racing is watching men at the edge," I chimed
in. "People want to see 'em take big risks but survive. I think they vicariously ride with the drivers and do brave acts in their minds. When
a driver dies, it means failure. I think the crowd dies with him."

"Damn, I never thought of it that way," said Ray.

"But I can remember one year, maybe five or six races ago when
Duke Nalon whacked the wall with the Novi:' Newsome pointed
toward the short straightaway connecting the third and fourth corner, now shielded by a stand of elms.

"Duke hit hard and the car caught fire..."

"Hell, you see the smoke all the way to Terre Haute," interrupted
Elton.

". . . But then Duke rolled over the wall, right into our backyard,"
Ray continued. His coveralls were on fire, and my cousin Bert, who
was down from South Bend for the race, rolled him in the dirt and
put out the fire. When the public address system announced Duke was all right, you could hear a giant cheer go up." He paused, then
looked at me. "Maybe you're right with your theory. They die. We die.
They live. We live."

Somebody passed the bottle of Old Grand-Dad.

Thanks to my connections with Liberty, the director of press relations at the Speedway, a former Indianapolis Star reporter named Al
Bloemaker, gave me a "99" press pass. With it pinned to my shirt, I
was free to move almost anywhere. When practice opened on the first
day of the month, I spent most of my time in Gasoline Alley or in the
adjacent little cafeteria, where news and gossip was shared by the
mobs of mechanics, car owners, journalists, and drivers.

The center of my world was the Vukovich garage, where Travers
and Coon allowed me entry, even when the large green-and-white
wooden doors were closed. Vukovich was pleasant enough, but
always distant, feeling as he did that members of the press were needlessly nosy and bound to misquote him.

Lindsey Hopkins, the car owner, was a soft-spoken Georgian,
mannerly and reserved in that special way of Southern gentlemen. He
was part of a friendly alliance of wealthy car owners with a connection to Coca-Cola. The track owner, Tony Hulman, owned the franchise for the entire state of Indiana. Chapman Root, who regularly
entered cars at the Speedway, was the grandson of C. J. Root, who had
started the Root Glass Company, which still held the patents on the
famed pinch-waisted Coca-Cola bottle and was the primary bottler
for the world's most famous soft drink. Joining this group was
Hopkins, who was a major stockholder in Coca-Cola while owning
large parcels of real estate in Miami Beach-a boomtown that had
been created out of the mangrove swamps by entrepreneur Carl
Fisher, who had also been the prime mover in building the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Behind the fastest race cars in the
garage were immensely wealthy men like Root and Hopkins, who
engaged in big-time automobile racing for the pure sport of it.

It became clear during the first week of practice that three major
players were in the game to win the 500. Of course there was
Vukovich, who, many felt, was a sure thing to win his third
straight-even with a different car, albeit a first-class machine from
the Hopkins stable. There was McGrath, of course, whose Hinkle
held the outright lap record at over 141 mph, and who was the fastest
driver in the place. Following the 1954 500, McGrath had taken the
Hinkle to the new Chrysler Proving Grounds at Chelsea, Michigan,
for a demonstration run. On a sunny day in June he had blazed
around the 4.7 mile test track at a wink under 180 mph, to set a
world's closed-course speed record. He and the same yellow KurtisKraft were back to up the ante at Indianapolis. The third favorite was
Jimmy Bryan, his fresh new Kuzma roadster carrying a blue number
1 on its tail, signifying his national AAA championship. While there
were others who might challenge, including Sweikert's Zink-Pink
Kurtis, the trio of Vukovich, Bryan, and McGrath was considered by
the rail-birds to be in a class by itself.