Indy 500 Notes : Oval Is New for Rookie

Six rookie drivers, three of them foreigners, will help give Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 a new look to blend with 20-year-and-up 500 veterans such as A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Johnny Rutherford, Al Unser and George Snider.

The fastest of the six, Raul Boesel of Brazil, has never driven in an oval track race. A former Formula One driver, Boesel is a protege of veteran Dick Simon, who completed four qualifying laps last Saturday at 206.498 m.p.h. His only appearance in an Indy car race was last month in the Long Beach Grand Prix, where he finished 22nd in Simon’s car after crashing his car in practice when he came around a corner on the road circuit and found a wrecker blocking the track.

“When I came here in 1970, I said I wanted to win this race one way or the other,” said Simon, who has never finished better than 13th in 13 races at Indianapolis. “I think Raul is the one who will do it for me. I signed him to a three-year contract, and next year he will be the Simon team driver. I’m not retiring, but Raul will be the No. 1 driver, and if we have two cars, I will be in the second car.”

Boesel, who lost his ride with the Ligier Grand Prix team after the 1983 season, has been living with Simon and his wife in their San Juan Capistrano, Calif., home for the past three months. He came to the United States last year after he read reports that Emerson Fittipaldi, a fellow Brazilian who was twice world champion, had elected to drive on the CART Indy Car series rather than return to Formula One.

“I thought maybe I could come here and find a place,” explained Boesel, 27, who won the British Formula Ford championship in 1980. “I met Dick (Simon) in New York, and he said I could come to California and see what happened. I’ve been sleeping on a couch in his living room ever since. If I didn’t find Dick, I would still be knocking on doors.”

Simon had originally planned to run Mike Nish of Salt Lake City as his rookie teammate here, but when Boesel recorded much quicker laps during a practice session at Riverside International Raceway, Simon switched to the young Brazilian.

Rich Vogler, another of the rookies, is no new name to American racing. Vogler, 34, lives in Indianapolis and although this is his first Indy 500, he has been part of the scene here since 1981, when he first passed his drivers test. The previous year he became the only driver to win U.S. Auto Club championships in midgets and sprint cars the same season. He also won the USAC midget crown in 1983.

It’s a wonder he’s even at Indy, much less taking the 33rd and final spot in the field.

On April 12 Vogler was flying his Cessna Cardinal on a business trip to Plymouth, Ind., but as he prepared to land, he noticed that an indicator light for the front wheel of the retractable landing gear had failed to come on. He pulled back up to about 2,000 feet and circled the airfield while trying to get the wheel locked in place. It wouldn’t budge, so he carefully brought the plane down, landing on the two rear wheels while trying to hold the nose in the air. He cut the engine and managed to hold the front end up until he had reduced the speed to about 20 m.p.h. When it finally hit the ground, the front wheel folded up and the plane slid off into the grass. Vogler wasn’t hurt.

Five days later, Vogler was driving his 1983 Cadillac Cimarron, when he stopped for a four-way stop intersection. As he pulled out, he was rammed in the right rear by a truck which never slowed for the signal. Again, he wasn’t hurt, but after that, running 205.663 m.p.h. at the Speedway seemed easy.

Vogler received a $10,000 bonus for making the field from John Stiles, promoter of the Indy Speedrome, for parlaying the track championship to the Indy 500.

A rookie at the Indianapolis 500 is someone who has never started a 500 here. Graham Hill was a “rookie” when he was the world Formula One champion. So was Emerson Fittipaldi, who came out of retirement last year to run Indy cars. Bobby Allison had won 39 NASCAR Grand National races before he ran here as a rookie in 1973.

John Paul Jr. is one of the six rookies this year, but experience-wise he is far from a rookie. Paul, 25, won the Michigan 500 in 1983, and has driven in 19 Indy car races. He also won the International Motor Sports Assn. Camel GT championship in 1982.

Paul was here both the last two years and was expected to be a factor in the race, but both times he broke a leg in practice accidents in the first turn. This year he had not expected to race at Indianapolis, concentrating instead on the IMSA series as Phil Conte’s contract driver in a Buick-powered March. However, when Willy T. Ribbs withdrew as the driver of Sherman Armstrong’s car, Armstrong put in a call to Paul to drive.

He put the car in the eighth row--an all-rookie row--with a speed of 206.340. Ed Pimm of Dublin, Ohio, is on the inside of the eighth row with Boesel in the middle.

Pimm, a former New York state indoor pole vault champion, is a teammate of Tom Sneva on the Gurney-Curb team. He moved up to Indy cars after winning the Bosch Super Vee championship in 1983. Pimm, 29, has been a full-time race driver since 1978, when he quit Cornell to go racing, but he admits he was nervous when he took his official four laps here during time trials.

“Maybe it was the wind, or what, but the car was wagging,” he said. “Maybe it was nerves, but when you’re at those speeds and you get a rear twitch, it ain’t funny.”

The other rookies are Arie Luyendyk of the Netherlands, who succeeded Pimm as the Formula Vee champion, and Jim Crawford of Scotland, 37, who drove briefly for Colin Chapman and the Lotus team in 1975 as a teammate of the late Ronnie Peterson.

Twice Crawford finished second in the Can-Am Challenge series, to Jacque Villeneuve of Canada in 1983 and Michael Roe of Ireland last year. Roe was in this year’s field for a week, but was bumped by three-time winner Johnny Rutherford on the final day. Roe had qualified at 204.686, about a blink of an eye slower than Tony Bettenhausen’s 204.824, which is the slowest speed to make the race.