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Indianapolis Star Racing Writer Curt Cavin wrote
this article on Vukovich in 1995.
1955: Death of Bill Vukovich
Written by
Originally published: 5/27/1995
No one who was at the 1955
Indianapolis 500 has forgotten the events of the day. Remember the winner? Most
who weren't present can't. All remember the loser - or have at least read about
them.
The Vukovich family.
Working Lap 57 of 200, Bill
Vukovich was in his most famous Indy position: first. That's where he had been
at the end of the 1953 and 1954 race, too. The Californian was on a three-peat
roll that has not since been matched or seriously challenged at the world's most
prestigious race track.
Then hell caught him a few
yards past the exit of Turn 2. Rodger Ward, who would win the race in 1959 and
1962, was two laps behind when his axle broke. That started the havoc that
silenced the Speedway.
"I saw Ward swerve, hit the inside wall and flip," said
Johnny Boyd, who was trailing the action.
"I thought to myself, `My God,' because Ward and I were
close . . . and when you saw someone flip in those days here in a dirt car . . .
I thought that was it for him."
Ward's car came to rest on the outside half of the race
track on the backstretch, facing the oncoming traffic diagonally. Boyd said
there was room to pass on the outside but he had been taught to opt for the
inside at a reduced and consistent pace, if possible.
He did. Al Keller did not.
Keller, who was killed racing at Phoenix in 1961,
grabbed his hand brake and locked the wheels, creating a significant cloud of
smoke near the inside of the track. His Traylor Offy veered back onto the track
in the path of Boyd, who drove the blue Sumar Offy.
Boyd nearly jumped out of his seat.
"I saw Keller reach out and grab his brake and there
was a ball of smoke," he said. "Then he made the move I was told never to make
here - he tried to overcorrect - and I guess he was still on the throttle
because that car shot back out of the infield and I thought, `He's going to hit
me,' and man he did, midship.
"He hit me a ton."
Complicating the crash was the application of rubber on
rubber. The right front tire of Keller's car touched the left rear of Boyd's,
sending Boyd's nose to the ground and to the right - still clear of Ward.
But not clear of Vukovich, who was scrambling for space
from behind. Boyd never saw him.
"As I started (to flip after hitting Keller), Vuky hit
me in the right rear and I mean it felt like a freight train running over me,"
he said. "It catapulted me forward and I blacked out from the shock. The next
thing I knew I was on my nose on the race track."
Boyd's car flipped end over end, striking the old
backstretch bridge - the original Brickyard Crossing - with the rear. Vukovich
was not so fortunate. His 18-inch front left tire hit Boyd's right rear, jetting
him immediately to the right. Vukovich barrel-rolled to the bridge and over the
wall, so fast that many missed it.
Speedway historian Bob Laycock and veteran observer
Charlie Brockman made three separate trips to the crash site and likely know as
much about it as anyone who wasn't in a race car. The two found a speck of blue
paint on the short outside wall prior to the bridge, but they originally thought
it was from Boyd's car. A scrape under the bridge proved Vukovich left the track
before the bridge.
His car landed upside- down several yards north of the
bridge alongside the outer wall. Laycock is among those who have studied all
known photo accounts.
"I think I'd be short when I say he flipped 20 to 25
feet into the air," Laycock said. "He was almost as high up as the trees.
"When he landed, he landed next to the Mobil gas tank
(north of the bridge) and there was a guy sitting in a chair who just got out of
the way. That roadster landed absolutely upside- down and . . . there was not
any space in those cars in that position for the driver. It almost sealed him
in."
Word quickly spread that Vukovich, who was driving the
Lindsey Hopkins car, died from burns, though that was not the case. Medical
personnel confirmed that the two-time defending champion was partially
decapitated during contact with the bridge. The fire that broke out after the
crash had no bearing on his survival.
"The bottom of my car brushed the inside of the bridge
and Vuky's cockpit caught the bridge," said Boyd, who incurred only scrapes to
his hands, arms and shoulders. "That's the only difference between my being here
and Vuky not.
"He never knew what hit him. The thing was, we saw it
coming and we should have been home free."
Ward was not injured.
Boyd, a rookie that May, went on to start 12
consecutive Indys and had a third-place finish in 1958 and a fifth in 1964.
Losing Vukovich was among the many devastating moments in his career. In the
days of frequent fatalities, being a driver of a race car - especially at Indy -
was a dangerous business. Boyd knew it, Vukovich knew it, Keller knew it.
"None of us felt we were going to die in a race car,
but we knew it was a possibility," Boyd said. "It was tough when Vuky was
killed; it hurt really bad. But that's what happened in those days, an era I'm
glad to say I raced in because car owners sought you out to drive their cars.
They thought you could be the difference in winning a race.
"(Bob) Sweikert (the 1955 Indy winner) was killed at
Salem in 1956 and that really got me because he was like a brother to me. Vuky
had given me all the confidence in the world that I could make the '55 race, but
Sweikert was the one who physically came over and helped me set up the car.
"So there I was after the race. I wanted to celebrate
because my friend Sweikert had won the race, but I couldn't because my friend
Vuky had been killed."
And there were others lost to the sport he dearly
loved.
"Jimmy Bryan (the '58 Indy winner) was killed at
Langhorne (Pa. in 1960), Jimmy Reece was killed at Trenton (N.J. in 1958) and
George Amick lost his life at Daytona (in 1959)," Boyd said. "Through the years
I had a lot of friends - not just acquaintances but friends - killed in this
business.
"People say, `That's racing,' but that's bull. That's
life. None of us has a guarantee that we're going to go through here forever.
It's a matter of when (we die), not if."
Champions included.
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