Against Death and Time: One Fatal Season in Racing's Glory Years (8 page)

On the whole, safety, both for the drivers and the spectators, who
often watched road races from behind snow fences and other flimsy
barriers, was a minor consideration and would remain so until the
end of the decade. Modest efforts to protect spectators had been
made after an incident at Watkins Glen in 1952, when a CadillacAllard driven by millionaire Chicago sportsman Fred Wacker hit a
child sitting on a curb between the legs of his father. It happened on
the opening laps of the Watkins Glen Grand Prix, a race started in
1948 in the tiny upstate New York village around a 6.6-mile network
of public roads. The Allard had skidded while slowing for a corner on
the village's main street. It struck the seven-year-old, killing him
instantly. The ensuing outrage prompted the state legislature to outlaw further competition on state highways and forced the Watkins
Glen organizers to move the Grand Prix to local county and town
roads until a permanent, closed circuit could be built.

A year later, AAA champion driver Chuck Stevenson lost control
during the annual 100-mile race at the nearby Syracuse State
Fairgrounds and tumbled upside-down into a group of spectators.
Miraculously, no one was seriously injured, although when the
Stevenson car was righted, a small boy was found crammed in the cockpit. The Stevenson car had made a perfect landing on top of the child,
leaving him uninjured. These and other incidents were essentially
ignored, and the issue of crowd safety would have to wait until a shocking disaster rocked the world out of its apathy.

The sports car craze was attracting an entirely new demographic
mix. Because the automobiles were expensive, high-speed toys, with
little utility for everyday life, higher-income customers made up the
market. Upper-middle-class enthusiasts were buying the British and German imports, which generally cost three times as much as a basic
Chevrolet or Ford. Sports car ownership was instantly appealing to
upwardly mobile men and women, and the presumed sophistication
embodied in the ownership of a European sports car-as opposed to
mundane "Detroit Iron"-packed tremendous social cachet.

This trendiness was affirmed by the presence of the celebrities who
populated the pits of the sports car races and who often competed
themselves. In the east, TV broadcasters Walter Cronkite and Dave
Garroway drove in races, while bandleader Paul Whiteman and opera
star James Melton were regular attendees. On the West Coast, superstar Clark Gable was often seen at the races, as was fellow actor
Keenan Wynn. Competing in his own Maserati and Ferrari was international playboy Porfirio Rubirosa, the ex-husband of Barbara
Hutton (whose son, Lance Reventlow, would become a major presence in the sport). Sexpot actress Zsa Zsa Gabor often accompanied
Rubirosa, adding a glitter and panache virtually unknown in the grittier world of AAA championship competition, where the likes of
Vukovich, Bryan, and McGrath went to war.

While the schism between the two forms of the sport would
remain unbridgeable, the entry of such mainstream companies as
Chevrolet, with its new Corvette, indicated that Detroit now recognized that the dynamics of the automobile market were quickly
changing. The enthusiasm for imported sports cars was growing by
the day. Tiny firms like MG, Jaguar, Porsche, and even Volkswagen
imported only a handful of automobiles, but they were making
steady inroads among many influential customers. While many
Detroit executives laughed at these "silly" little machines and predicted that they would soon wither away, others, like GM's Ed Cole,
who had ramrodded the Corvette, realized that America's new fascination with power, speed, and performance would not abate and that
European sports cars had awakened an enthusiasm in a critically
important segment of the market.

Cole, among others, understood that motor racing was about to
explode in interest among the public and that, if exploited effectively,
it could become a major sales tool for the industry. Lincoln and
Chrysler were already using success in the Mexican road race as sales
promotion, while the entire industry was looking south at the struggling but growing world of stock car racing. A former Daytona Beach
service station operator named Bill France had formed the National
Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing (NASCAR) and was
steadily expanding his rough-and-tumble "Grand National" series
from the Piedmont Plateau of the Carolinas up and down the East
Coast. Already, Hudson, Ford, and Plymouth were entering cars in
the series. Other Detroit brands were sure to follow. "Win on Sunday,
sell on Monday" was about to become a mantra for Detroit in the
booming world of stock car racing.

In the meantime, the Indianapolis 500 remained the pinnacle of
the sport. Men like Vukovich offered the only recognizable racing
names to the general public, whose sporting distractions were mostly
restricted to major league baseball and college football. There was a
small claque of enthusiasts who followed the various forms of motor
racing, but their numbers were minuscule compared to the multitudes who followed the fortunes of such household names as the
New York Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Fighting Irish of
Notre Dame.

Years would pass before the rising thunder of motor sports would
be heard by more than just a tiny percentage of the American public. That is to say, until the sport grabbed headlines through its single unique component-the omnipresent chance for violent and
sudden death.

As the nation eased out of the traumas of World War II and
Korea, a new Eisenhower-style brand of optimism swept the public.
Breakaway pastel colors displaced the gray, woollen drabness in
women's clothing, while gadgetry infused the households of the nation. Fancy refrigerators, electric carving knives, bigger, clearer televisions, FM radio, and Waring blenders joined nylon, Dacron vinyl,
and other synthetics to make easier living through chemistry. With
this new technological exuberance came a fascination with power
and speed on the highway. That in turn energized technology, where
competition within the automobile industry and on the racetracks of
the world caused quantum leaps in performance. The advances
would not come without penalty.

BILL VUKOVICH RETURNED TO INDIANAPOLIS IN
May 1954, loaded for bear. His crewmen, Jim Travers and Frank
Coon, had modified the three-year-old Kurtis-Kraft roadster with an
advanced fuel-injection system developed by them and their friend
Stuart Hillborn. The car's owner, Howard Keck, remained the same
elusive personality, still insisting that his name not be associated with
the car and remaining in the shadows as he opened his Superior Oil
Company in Los Angeles. Other than the old machine being painted
a pale yellow to replace its original battleship gray, the Fuel Injection
Special number 14 appeared outwardly unchanged from its two earlier appearances at the Speedway.

While the "Mad Russian" or the "Fresno Flash," as the press chose
to call him, remained a favorite, other serious men were posing a
challenge. Jack McGrath, at thirty-four, was a year younger than Vukovich and also a veteran of the California midget and hot-rod
wars. The son of a successful Los Angeles meat packer, he was not
only a brilliant driver, but an accomplished mechanic and engine
builder who maintained his own race cars. He had been recruited in
1949 by wealthy Wichita oilman Jack Hinkle to run his Indianapolis
cars. Unlike Keck, Jack Barron Hinkle was a likable extrovert who got
deeply involved with McGrath's racing efforts. Working with another
mechanic, Jack Beckley, the trio was known as the "three jacks"
around the big-time racing AAA championship trail.

While McGrath drove the dirt miles with expertise, his metier was
Indianapolis, where raw speed on the paved rectangle appealed to
certain drivers. Many others were awestruck by the place, fearing the
blinding speeds required on the long straights and the blind, sweeping corners bordered by starch-white cement walls. But not McGrath.
From the moment he first saw the Speedway in 1948, he relished its
special challenge. After hooking up with Hinkle a year later, he
became a major force in the 500-always among the fastest, but never
yet able to win.

"Gentleman Jack," as he was known among the press, was tall, lean,
and courtly, a soft-spoken Californian who seemed to have nothing
in common with the rough-hewn Vukovich. Despite this, they were
friends off the track and often exchanged thoughts on race tactics
and car setup. They were members of a rare and exclusive fraternity-men willing to face the ultimate challenge in seeking glory in
the most dangerous race devised by man.

While McGrath and Vukovich were at the peak of their powers,
other, younger, more restless men were ready to make a challenge.
Jimmy Bryan was a rangy, brush-cut, cigar-smoking Arizona native
known among his peers as the "the Cowboy." Brash and goodhumored, Bryan was an ex World War II pilot. He had come up the
hard way, cadging rides in junk race cars, living in the backs of station
wagons between races, and even scavenging corn from farmer's fields and trading empty soda bottles for eating money. Bryan had
migrated across the country, racing sprint cars in the East, midgets in
the East and West. He was a vagabond in a helmet, ready to manhandle any car that would withstand his heavy foot.

Unlike Vukovich, who hated the dirt fairground miles, and like
McGrath, who excelled on the smooth expanse of the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway, Bryan loved the rough-and-tumble world of dirt
tracks, where his audacious, never-lift driving style worked to his
advantage. After several seasons spent struggling with second-rate
machinery, he had broken out in late 1953 with a win in the
Sacramento 100-miler at the wheel of Bessie Paoli's Springfield
Welding Kurtis-Kraft. Even better days lay ahead.

Another young lion, Bob Sweikert, a twenty-eight-year-old
charger from Hayward, California, had at the end of the 1953 season abandoned the seat of the Dean Van Lines dirt car-a stark
white, upright Offy-powered machine built by Los Angeles craftsman Eddie "Zazoom" Kuzma. Owned by Southern California
sportsman Al Dean, who operated the prosperous coast-to-coast
Dean Van Lines moving company, the Kuzma was regarded as one
of the finest race cars in the nation. Its owner quickly replaced
Sweikert with Bryan, thereby setting the stage for his breakout into
the top ranks of the sport.