The Death of Ed Elisian

I remember the day very well. Not only was I there, but I also borrowed an 8MM movie camera to capture the day’s event and viewed my filming results dozens of times. It was the day after my 19^th birthday, and I drove the 90-mile trip from Chicago with two friends who had never seen an automobile race of any kind. They did not know what they were in for. Neither did I.

It was a very nice day. Our seats were high in the main grandstand of the mile oval looking into turn one. I was in an aisle seat. No one was sitting to my right. Perfect! In those days, practice, qualifying and the race were all held on the same day. We had lots of time to pick our favorites.

My hero was always the late Bill Vukovich. That was another day I’d never forget.

I also liked Tony Bettenhausen. I’d visited his farm in Tinley Park, Illinois about a year or so before. We had a great time as he shared many of his racing stories. He had quit the ride he had at Indianapolis, and that day drove for the great team of John Zink. So, Tony B. was my man of the day. Current Indy winner Rodger Ward started back in the field, but he had a team you could never count out. I liked Ward too.

Another driver that was in the line-up was Ed Elisian. He was making one of his first starts since being suspended for over a year for being directly responsible in causing the first lap crash in the 1958 Indianapolis 500. The 16-car crash had claimed the life of the very popular Pat O’Connor. The car Elisian was driving at Milwaukee that day was the Travelon Trailer Special, which was driven by Jack Turner at Indy that year. The car was painted green, a long time superstition of bad luck. At times a green car was referred to as a "Hoo Doo Wagon". Ed Elisian’s idol was Bill Vukovich. In the ’55 Indianapolis race when Vuky was killed, Elisian stopped his car and ran in vain to Vukovich’s aid.

The start of any Indy car race is always exciting, and Tony B. shot from his 5^th starting position to lead the first lap, then started to pull away. Around the twenty-something lap, AJ Foyt driving the Al Dean Roadster blew his engine big time at the end of the main stretch. I remember from short track stock car racing that the engine usually expires after max RPM when the driver suddenly eases off the throttle. Mr. Foyt did just that. Oil was all over the track, and the yellow came out immediately. Now, this gets weird. The field slowed behind the pace car, and the field went by once….. then a second time. Ed Elisian was flying to catch up to the field after two laps of yellow, then he hit the oil. What happened in the next ten minutes made me sick.

Elisian did a half spin and hit the wall with the left rear, approximately 50 ft from where I was sitting. I started filming. There was no one to block my view. The car did not bounce off the wall, instead the left rear tire rode up the wall and the car turned over. It did a half spin, so it was facing the right direction, but upside down, and leaning to the right, blocking Elisian’s exit. Then, Whooof, the car burst into flames. Why? It seemed harmless to that point. I had to stop from time to time to wind the movie camera. I thought I saw some movement in the cockpit area. A guy with a CO-2 extinguisher ran from the infield and started spraying. The fire got worse because things started to burn other than the methanol fuel. The race was stopped, and big fire trucks arrived on the scene and started spraying everything. At this point I knew I had just witnessed a human being burning to death. The bulk of the flame was in the cockpit area, similar to Pat O’Connor’s car at Indy in ‘58. But Pat was beyond knowing. Elisian, on the other hand, had just suffered a most horrible and painful death. The car was within 10 feet of the first turn bleachers. I was told later that the spectators felt the heat of the fire and the spray of water and chemicals trying to extinguish the blaze. The attached photo shows a fireman still spraying into the cockpit after Elisian was removed. The safety crews placed blankets against the fence to shield the spectators from what they might see. From my vantage point, I saw just a brief couple of seconds, and that was enough. The first turn looked like a war zone. It was quite a mess for just one car.

In automobile racing, like it or not, the show must go on. My two rookie friends could not believe what they had just witnessed. Neither could I. I don’t know if they ever attended another race. If they did, it was not with me. I thought about the similarity of O’Connor’s and Elisian’s deaths. Another fact: AJ Foyt and Elisian did not get along. They actually hated each other, yet it was Foyt’s car failure that was the source of Elisian’s death. After an hour or so the race resumed. I always wondered how drivers could put something like that behind them and continue on as though nothing had happened. Bettenhausen continued to lead the pack and pulled away at ease. Then about 30-40 laps from the finish, Tony spun out after trying to pass a lapped car. Rodger Ward inherited the lead and went on to win. Ward always did well at Milwaukee. Ed Elisian had a burden no longer. My friend Tony died in a crash at Indianapolis a year and a half later.

The Travelon Trailer Special was rebuilt… and repainted. The car appeared at Indianapolis in 1960 and made qualifying history in the hands of rookie sensation Jim Hurtubise. A chapter closes. A new chapter begins, but the book…. never ends.

Ron Austin