A Report On The Accident That Killed Bill
Vukovich In The 1955 Indianapolis 500-Mile-Race
|
A Report On The Accident That Killed Bill Vukovich In The 1955 Indianapolis 500-Mile-Race
|
|
Main Menu
Current Racing News
Related Links
|
Unscrambling The Myth The Following column was written by motor sports writer Jerry Dorich and appeared in the May 24, 1995 issue of Checkered Flag Racing News The 1955 Indy 500 was a personal turning point for us. Before that race, we were starting to become an Indy 500 fan. After that race, we started becoming a racing fan. Coming from a Yugoslavian heritage, our family was first saddened in 1952, then delighted in 1953 and 1954 with the exploits of Bill Vukovich. We didn't exactly know what kind of Yugoslav he was, but with that name we knew he was a Yugo of some sort and not a Mad Russian, as he was referred to in the press. In the fifties in Chicago, the Indy 500 was the only race reported in Chicago's four daily papers. It was also the only race broadcast on the radio. Memorial Day usually found our family on a picnic. Since the race started early, the radio was usually tuned to it until the White Sox doubleheader came on the air. We usually would listen to the race, for periods as long as the normal attention span of a ten year old. Over the roar of the engines, the shouting voices of the announcers made the racing seem very exciting. The Chicago Tribune even had stories about Indy qualifying, so we knew that Vukovich had won from the pole in 1953. The cars had strange, exotic names like Fuel Injection Special, Agajanian Special and Hinkle Special. What was a "Special"? We could somewhat understand "Fuel Injection", but what in the world was an "Agajanian" or a "Hinkle"? Things looked bad in 1954 when Vuky's Fuel Injection Special was buried deep in the field. But he came through the pack and won anyway. The next year the papers made a big deal of the fact that no one had ever won the race three times in a row. After his death, they implied that had he won that third one, he would have retired. This wasn't true. His loyal mechanics, Frank Coon and Jim Travers, known as the Whiz Kids, were already working on next year's car, which was to be a new and radical streamliner. Despite the low mortality rate of race drivers in the fifties, why would a driver necessarily retire after winning Indy three times? All of our four-time Indy winners continued racing at Indy after their fourth win. But his death made a far better story with the retirement angle. After looking at the qualifying speeds, we couldn't understand why his Hopkins Special was starting in the second row. The Chicago papers, so long accustomed to the New York Yankees winning everything, favored those who hadn't won the Big One. They were predicting a win for fastest qualifier Jack McGrath. Playing at the picnic must have so absorbed us that we didn't listen to the race at all during the day. When we returned home, we talked to an aunt on the phone and enquired of her about Vuky's third win. She told us that he had been killed in a crash with some rookies and that some unknown guy had won. We thought she was joking. But there it was on the six o'clock radio news. We only knew of race cars that looked like Midgets. Even the cars in the few racing movies we'd seen on TV looked like Midgets, only bigger. The papers only seemed to have photos of Vuky's overturned, burning car. It didn't look like a Midget at all. Maybe its being upside down had something to do with this obvious distortion. Then, in Life Magazine we saw some sequence photos of the accident occurring. Imagine our surprise when we saw that not all the cars looked like Midgets. The mystery was solved after the 1956 Chicago Auto Show. There was a small booth there that sold Floyd Clymer Indy 500 yearbooks. The 1955 edition was available for the astronomical price of $1.50. We borrowed the money from an affluent friend and then snuck our purloined book home. Serious repercussions would result if our parents knew we spent $1.50 on a racing book. We tore off the price tag and, not knowing racing superstitions, replaced it with a piece of green cloth tape. The Clymer book was a cornucopia of information, drivers' biographies, racing history, and statistics. More importantly, it had photographs, lots of photographs. At last, we saw photos of those mysterious Indy Cars. We now understood the concept of a roadster and what was meant by a "Special". We also learned that these cars raced at such mysterious places like Del Mar, DuQuoin and Langhorne. We heard, for the first time, about people like Rex Mays, Ted Horn, Clay Smith, and Sam Hanks. It was then only a matter to time before we picked up Speed Age magazine and read Bob Russo's stirring accounts of races on those strange tracks that comprised what Catlin had called "the Championship Trail". Then there was the occasional Road and Track at the astonishingly inflated price of "Fifty Cents The Copy", which introduced us to faraway races with strange-sounding names like the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio. The drivers there had names like Juan Manuel Fangio, Eugenio Castellotti and the Marquis de Portago. We also learned that newer versions of the junky Stock Cars we had seen at Soldier Field also raced in exotic places with names like Darlington and Martinsville. They even had a race where they raced half on a beach and half on a highway. It was only a matter of time before we pestered an uncle into taking us to the Indy 500. The relative countered with a proposal to journey to Milwaukee and watch the Indy Cars race on The Mile. We had become hooked and remain so, today. From that magic typewriter of Russ Catlin, writing for those Clymer yearbooks, we learned what had happened in the race besides Vukovich's crash. And what a beautiful, dramatic race it was. When racing resumed on lap 72 after the cleanup, Jimmy Bryan and Bob Sweikert fought one another for the lead. Then, the colorful Bryan came riding into the pits on top of his car's fuel tank. Its engine was dead. Later, after pit stops put them behind, Art Cross and Don Freeland drove the races of their lives, making up as much as three seconds a lap on Sweikert. Both could have won, but Cross spun and broke on lap 168 and Freeland lasted only ten more laps. Near the end, there was a question of Sweikert running out of fuel. Sophomore sensation Pat O'Connor was poised to replace Sweikert, but his Ansted-Rotary Special soured and O'Connor had to settle for eighth. Cal Niday thought his late-race run could beat Sweikert, but Niday crashed viciously in turn four and nearly became the race's second fatality. If Sweikert had run dry or stopped, the legendary but lapped Tony Bettenhausen would have won. Among Sweikert's first words in victory lane were, "Who got hurt?" But the overwhelming story of the race was Vukovich. After the 1954 race, Howard Keck, Vuky's reclusive and enigmatic car owner, decided he wanted to run a streamliner with a supercharged engine. Coon and Travers started to work on the body and chassis with the superb craftsman Quinn Epperly. Keck wanted to purchase one of Lew Welch's famous supercharged Novi engines, but Welch refused. Coon and Travers then commissioned master engine designer Leo Goosen, of Meyer-Drake, to build a new 183 cubic inch supercharged V-8. As May neared, it became apparent that neither streamliner nor engine would be ready in time. Unwilling to run a conventional car, Keck released the Whiz Kids and Vukovich. There are conflicting stories about what happened next. Some sources say that the Whiz Kids then signed on with Lindsey Hopkins and took Vukovich along with them. Other sources say that Vukovich enlisted retired 1950 Champion Henry Banks to lobby for the Hopkins ride. Whatever, the Whiz Kids, former McGrath mechanic Jack Beckley, and Vukovich all signed on with Lindsey Hopkins. Hopkins owned a year old Kurtis 500-C, which had been driven in 1954 by rookie Pat O'Connor. The Whiz Kids started to apply their magic touch to the Hopkins roadster. Keck's enthusiasm waned after Vukovich's death. Coon, Travers and Epperly completed the streamliner, but the V-8 engine project was abandoned. The streamliner was fitted with a regular four-cylinder Offy. Speedway President Tony Hulman so badly wanted the streamliner in the 1956 race, that he paid the entry fee. We thought this might have been a fairy tale but the entry list for the 1956 race shows an unnamed car entered by one Walter J. Travers. One day, with no preamble, Keck's secretary called the Whiz Kids and told them that Keck was no longer in racing. The beautiful car remained in Keck's shops until 1985. It was then sold to a Memphis businessman who had it restored by Jim Robbins. In 1990, Open Wheel magazine did an article on it, complete with pictures. Before that, the car had achieved myth status. It was rumored to exist but few had seen it and there were no photos. In its 1990 resurrection, it was painted a bright red, numbered "four" and looked very similar to the 1955 Sumar Streamliner or the 1954 Mercedes-Benz streamliner which now sits in Indy's museum. Its tail sported a very small adjustable wing. Coon and Travers, wizards at the old Midget art of weight jacking, thought that the wing would enhance their weight-jacking efforts. Despite its never having turned a lap in any kind of competition, Open Wheel reported that it was worth 2.1 million dollars. After a serious accident in the 1954 Mexican Road Race left Vuky with some serious back problems, his pre-race demeanor during May had been moody and hesitant. Where previously he had practiced little, he now drove the blue Hopkins beauty for endless practice laps. He qualified third fastest, but due to Indy's enigmatic qualifying procedures, started fifth. McGrath qualified nearly two miles per hour faster, a tremendous difference in those days. It was widely rumored that McGrath had liberally peppered his car's methanol with nitromethane. The press, probably tired of writing Vukovich stories, had made McGrath the favorite to derail Vuky's bid for three in a row. Race day dawned cool and cloudy. Rookie driver and friend, Ed Elisian asked Vukovich if there would be "steak and whiskey" tonight. Vuky advised Elisian to take it easy and "...never turn right at the Brickyard. That's when they take you home in a box." In those unsafe days, Vuky dressed only in bowling shoes, tan duck pants, and a white T-shirt with "Mobil" stenciled on the back. Later, he would don golf gloves, goggles, and a white Cromwell style helmet. While donning the gloves, he entertained his crew with a parody of the other drivers donning their gloves. He contemptuously remarked that he had to get scared. When engine wizard Herb Porter had joked with him to hurry back because they had a refrigerator full of cold beer, Vuky had asked Porter if an hour and a half suited him. Before he climbed into his car he asked his crew what lap they wanted him to catch McGrath on. They were shocked. They tried to calm him down. They all knew that McGrath was using nitro and would be difficult to out-run. They were pinning their hopes on McGrath blowing his highly stressed engine. Vuky was having none of that. According to the still unpublished book written by Angelo Angelopoulos, Vuky then said, "Listen, the son of a bleep doesn't like to be run close to and I'm going to run close to him." Vukovich lived up to his words in the early part of the race. McGrath's number "three" led the first three. Vuky's number "four" then took over and led through lap fourteen. McGrath led fifteen, but Vuky was back in front on sixteen. There are photos of Vuky going nearly into the infield to pass McGrath. Later, McGrath said, "If he wanted the lead that bad, he could have it." The pair were distancing themselves from the field. McGrath's car started smoking, but he passed Vuky again and led laps twenty-five and twenty-six. Vuky re-took the lead on twenty-seven, setting the fastest lap of the race at 141.354. He had qualified at only 141.071. Then, in the words of the eloquent Russ Catlin, "...this time as he fairly flew down the stretch with McGrath at his heels, the colorful Californian raised his hand in salute to his pit. Twice before, in the past two years, I had seen Vukovich so salute his pit. Each time the gesture meant, 'The battle is over. I'm in command now so chart me a speed and a course and I'll see you in victory lane." But Fate intervened. With McGrath dropping out after his fifty-third lap, Vukovich now had a thirty-plus second lead over Bryan. Vuky had led fifty of the first fifty-six laps and was entering the backstretch on his fifty-seventh. The lapped car of Rodger Ward, ahead of Vuky on the track, broke an axle, spun, and overturned. Ward's car, now named the Aristo Blue Special, was the former Agajanian 98 driven to victory by Troy Ruttman in 1952 when Vuky's steering failed eight laps from the finish. It would now play a significant role in stopping another Vukovich victory. A single car spin can usually be avoided quite easily. But in between Ward and Vukovich were the lapped cars of Al Keller and Johnny Boyd. Then, in the version according to Johnny Boyd, came the wreck of the blue Hopkins Special--assisted by Al Keller. Keller, in a Kurtis Kraft 2000 that had carried Rex Mays to his death in Del Mar, had been driving the white line rather than looking far down the track. Boyd was slightly ahead of Vukovich. Boyd thought there was plenty of room on both the inside and outside of Ward. Both Vukovich and Boyd decided to go for the opening on the inside of the track. Keller decided to spin out. He didn't do it right. As Boyd, and no doubt Vukovich, watched incredulously, Keller spun into the small wooden inside guard rail and then bounced back onto the track and into Boyd. Boyd's car was then pushed into Vukovich's. Tire marks and photos published in the June 13th issue of Life Magazine showed Vuky, against his own advice to Elisian, made a last-ditch attempt to turn right. It wasn't enough. Vuky hit Boyd and went airborne over the small wooden outside guard rail. The Hopkins Special then went crazily end over end several hundred yards down the outside of the track, grazing parked cars and a utility pole. In the three movies available, Vuky's car seems to assume a personality of its own during the wreck. The car acted as if it was angry with him. It acted like a street fighter repeatedly kicking a downed opponent. Just when it seemed that it would settle, it bounced up a few more times, always beating the hapless driver. It came to rest upside down and on fire. Catlin, unable to see anything on the backstretch from his post in the press box, remembers seeing a small amount of white smoke. After counting cars coming past the pits and noting Vukovich missing, Catlin wrote that, "Then you thought--thought a lot and prayed a little and you looked at that white cloud and you knew." The race was under caution for twenty-seven minutes. Confusion reigned. Vuky and Boyd's friend, Ed Elisian was reported as being part of the wreck. He wasn't. What happened was that Elisian was travelling behind and witnessed the accident. Elisian brought his car to a stop in the infield and then headed toward the burning Vukovich car, but was restrained. Boyd pounded Keller on his chest and called him a few choice names. Keller kept asking, "What did I do?" Ward and Boyd suffered minor injuries, Elisian was sedated, Keller was uninjured and Vukovich was dead. Vuky had been well-liked by his crew. In an interview years later, Jim Travers indicated that it was a real blow for the crew to have Vuky crash in a car that they had tended with so much care. After they had all worked so hard, the unfair results were a guy they really cared for in the cemetery and their beloved car a pile of junk. Photos taken of the wrecked Hopkins show that Travers was not exaggerating. But those roadsters were tough birds. Frank Kurtis rebuilt the Hopkins Special for the 1956 race. Jim Rathmann qualified it in the middle of the first row. Then, in the race itself, the spirit of Bill Vukovich hovered above it for a short while. Like a magnificent blue and red Phoenix, it arose from its own ashes and led the first lap. |
|
|
|
