Johncock, 48, Says Fun Is Gone, Ends a 30-Year Career

Ask any longtime race driver when he plans to retire, and he’ll invariably reply, “One day, I’ll wake up and I’ll realize it’s not fun anymore, and I’ll quit right on the spot.”

Friday, the day before he was to qualify for what would have been his 21st Indianapolis 500-mile race, Gordon Johncock woke up with that realization.

Johncock, 48, a two-time 500 winner, had lapped the Speedway at nearly 211 m.p.h.--faster than the official track record--earlier in the week, but Friday, he walked into the garage used by Pat Patrick’s racing team and announced that his 30-year career was over.

“Every morning this week, I woke up and asked myself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ And this morning, I decided I’d had enough,” Johncock said at a tearful press conference.

“I made my decision this morning, not last night, not yesterday, not last Monday. I wasn’t even sure when I drove off this morning for the track. Every time I stopped for a traffic light, my thoughts changed. At one light, I’d say to myself, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t do it.’ Then, at the next light, I would think, ‘You’ve got to. It’s no fun anymore.’

“The only regret I have today is that I should have done it earlier, as far as Pat and the crew is concerned. It was probably unfair on my part this way. I’m sorry.”

Patrick, a Michigan oilman who has been Johncock’s car owner since 1973, was shocked.

“The crew just about had the car ready for Gordie when he walked in and said he was quitting,” Patrick said. “At the time, I thought he was kidding. He’s always joking around like a little kid. But then I saw his face and I knew he was serious.

“I was shocked, but I’m happy for him. As long as he wanted to drive, I would have a car ready for him, but if there was ever the slightest hesitancy about driving, I wouldn’t want him in a race car.”

Don Whittington, who has not driven in an Indy car race since 1983, took over the No. 20 March-Cosworth later in the day and got it up to 212.715 m.p.h. Whittington, whose brother, Bill, is driving for the Arciero team, is expected to qualify No. 20 today and will drive the car in the oval-track races in the PPG Indy car series this season.

Johncock said he had no plans to stay in racing in any capacity.

“I started out in life as a farmboy in Michigan and I’ve never really changed,” he said. “I expect to spend the rest of life on my ranch in Arizona. That’s what I really enjoy.”

The ranch is a 14,000-acre spread near Fort Thomas, about 100 miles northeast of Phoenix.

“I’ve been living out of a suitcase, packing and unpacking, for 30 years, and it just about killed me to leave the ranch last week and come here,” Johncock said. “Racing has changed in the past few years, and the fun has gone out of it for me.”

Johncock said that the decision was not caused by Patrick’s hiring of Bruno Giacomelli, a Formula One driver, to drive Johncock’s car in CART road races, nor was it influenced by his numerous crashes last year. He broke his ankle twice, and after crashing at the Michigan 500, the 5-7 Johncock spent the rest of the season on crutches.

“If I had any fear of being injured again, I wouldn’t have come here and run 210,” he said. “It was not a factor at all. I would have liked to have driven the road races because the cars are working a lot better this year than the last couple of years, but that’s all water over the dam now.”

Johncock also said that accelerating speeds had not contributed to his decision.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to run that fast to put on a good race, but I feel the cars are much safer than they have ever been,” he said. “Like I said, if I felt afraid to run that fast, I’d have quit long ago.”

When Johncock first came to the Speedway in 1965, he qualified a front-engine roadster at 155.012 m.p.h. and finished fifth.

“I think I drove just as hard to get 155 then as I did to run 210,” he said. “It’s what your car is prepared to run that counts, and these cars today are prepared to run 210. If you want to run quick, you have to run hard, whatever you’re driving.”

Johncock’s retirement surprised his fellow drivers as much as it did his owner and crew.

“I’m certainly surprised,” 1969 winner Mario Andretti said. “Gordie and I broke into USAC together and were rookies here together. He and I had a lot of battles. I must say, many of them were intense and really a lot of fun.

“In a way, it’s hard to see him going, but I’m glad to see his career end this way. He’s walking away with his health. Believe me, it takes a lot of courage to do what he did. I admire that.”

Three-time winner Johnny Rutherford echoed Andretti’s feelings.

“Surprised?” parried Rutherford, who has also driven in 20 500s. “Shocked might be a better word. If that’s what he wants, then I’m happy for him. I mean truly happy. I like to see a guy go out standing tall after a great career.”

Only four-time winner A. J. Foyt had different thoughts.

“Everybody has days when they wake up and think they’ve had enough,” Foyt snapped. “That happens in any kind of business. Some days are wonderful, some are terrible. It’s the same in racing. Naw, I wasn’t surprised. Nothin’ surprises me anymore.”

Johncock’s two Indianapolis 500 wins, in 1973 and 1982, are among the most memorable in the race’s 68 years, but for widely differing reasons.

Johncock won in ’73 because he happened to be a minute in front of Billy Vukovich when the race was stopped by rain after 133 laps.

It was not a race to remember. Johncock’s STP teammate, Swede Savage, crashed and sustained injuries that led to his death a month later. An STP crewman, Armando Teran, was racing down pit row toward the accident scene when he his hit and killed instantly by a safety vehicle.

Earlier in the month, Art Pollard had been killed in a practice accident, and during an abortive race start, Salt Walther crashed, and his car sent flaming fuel into the stands. Nine spectators were hospitalized.

“I never felt like I won anything,” Johncock said later. “I never took the checkered flag (the race was stopped by rain and never resumed), I never sat in victory circle and I never had a victory banquet (rain had delayed the race three days, and the banquet was canceled) and my check ended up in bankruptcy court.”

The bankruptcy was caused when Johncock’s logging business failed in Michigan.

For the next eight years, Johncock had one of the best records of any driver at Indianapolis, but one pesky problem after another prevented him from winning. In eight races from 1974 to 1981 he finished 6 times in the top 10.

He was leading in 1977 with 16 laps to go when he broke a crankshaft and slowed to a stop at the end of the front straightaway. As Foyt came by to take over the lead, Johncock waved at him and then jumped into a small lake inside the first turn to cool off.

In 1981, he led 52 laps and was racing with Andretti and Bobby Unser for the lead when a fuel pump quit six laps from the finish.

“I get awful discouraged sometimes,” Johncock said when he arrived here for the 1982 race. “Whenever I’m out there and things are going good, I start thinking, ‘What’s going to happen now?’ ”

In 1982, he and Rick Mears put on the closest race in 500 history, ending with Johncock barely holding on to win by .16 of a second. For the last few laps, the two drove almost as one car around the 2 1/2-mile track.

That time, Johncock got the checkered flag, the swig of milk in victory circle and victory banquet, where he received a check for $290,609--which he got to keep.

Last year, even though a wreck on the front straightaway on Lap 104 ended his hopes of winning a third 500, he had the fastest racing lap in Indy history at 204.815.

Only Foyt and Al Unser have driven more miles at Indy than Johncock. He logged 7,037 miles and has led for 339 laps in 20 races. He is fifth in Indy 500 earnings with $1,157,293.

Friday, though, on a warm and sunny Indiana day in May, it wasn’t fun anymore for Gordon Johncock.