Sullivan Takes a Sunday Spin, Wins 500 : Former N.Y. Cabbie Edges Andretti by 2.477 Seconds

INDIANAPOLIS — An old trick Danny Sullivan learned as a cab driver in New York’s Central Park paid off Sunday in the Indianapolis 500.

Sullivan spun completely around in front of Mario Andretti in mid-race, but with only the slightest pause, got back on the throttle and set out after Andretti again. Twenty-two laps later, he caught him and led the final 60 laps to breeze home the winner of the 69th 500 in one of Roger Penske’s Cosworth-powered, British-built March cars.

The win should be worth about $300,000 to the Louisville bachelor when Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials finish toting up the receipts today.

Those in the cheering crowd of 400,000 who saw Sullivan’s first turn gyrations must have been astonished to see the red car not only miss the wall in a 360-degree spin that smoked the tires so much that Andretti was momentarily blinded, but also do it so quickly that only Andretti got by.

“When it started to loop, I thought that was all she wrote,” said an elated Sullivan after taking a swig of milk, his sponsor’s Miller beer and a hug from his mother in the winner’s circle. “But the car came around, the smoke cleared and after I saw I was headed in the right direction, I jammed it in gear and took off. It’s something I learned racing with other cabbies in Central Park.”

Before the 35-year-old Sullivan became a race driver in 1971, back in what he calls his wild, fun days, he drove a cab as well as working at a variety of other fly-by-night jobs such as a waiter, bus boy, dishwasher, chicken farmer, sod cutter and logger in the Adirondacks.

Andretti, the defending national champion and former world champion who hasn’t won here since 1969, said he thought “it was rather weird that he tried to pass there.” Sullivan had all four wheels down below the yellow line, on the apron of the track. He managed to squeeze in front of Andretti, but before he straightened out, he lost control and the car started its spin.

At the end, Andretti was 2.477 seconds behind Sullivan. The margin was close only because a yellow caution flag brought the cars together with three laps to go. Once the green flag came out for the 7 1/2-mile sprint to the finish, Sullivan cruised away easily.

Andretti led 107 laps and earned $48,150 in lap prize money, but it will be small consolation to him.

“Second means nothing here,” said the disappointed 45-year-old sentimental favorite. “I ran as hard as I could all day. I ran everything out of the car every lap. We just got smoked today.”

Sullivan led 68 laps, but the most important were the final 60.

Roberto Guerrero of Colombia, the second-place finisher as a rookie last year behind Rick Mears, drove a steady race to finish third. He and Andretti were the only drivers on the same lap with Sullivan.

Fourth was three-time winner Al Unser, in another of Penske’s stable of cars. Big Al would have been third had he not been assessed a lap penalty early in the race for running over a hose while leaving his pit.

Another three-time champion, Johnny Rutherford, moved up from 30th to finish fifth. Sixth was the fastest rookie, Arie Luyendyk of The Netherlands.

Although Sullivan, Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi spent most of a warm and breezy day running laps in the 204 and 205 m.p.h. range, the winning speed was slowed to 152.982 by eight caution flags that totaled 33 laps.

Three of the caution periods were caused by accidents during late stages of the race.

The first was triggered when rookie Rich Vogler, a sprint-car driver making his first start in an Indy car, touched wheels with Howdy Holmes as a pack of cars raced into the first turn. Vogler was spun into the wall with a terrifying thud and Tom Sneva spun while trying to avoid Vogler and also hit the wall.

A loose tire from Vogler’s car followed Sneva and, after ramming the side of Sneva’s Eagle, it rebounded into the air and came down again on the rear end as Sneva slid backwards along the wall.

“I saw two cars in front of me as I came around the corner and when I hit the brakes, the Eagle snapped backwards and we hit the wall,” Sneva said. “I didn’t see the loose tire, but I could see bits and pieces flying around when my car jumped sideways.”

Vogler, 34, was taken to Methodist Hospital by helicopter, where his condition was reported as satisfactory with a concussion and cuts above the eye lids. Only last Friday night, Vogler had won a midget race at the Indianapolis Speedrome.

Sneva was also hospitalized briefly for observation, but said his bruises wouldn’t keep him from playing golf today.

The Vogler-Sneva accident almost took Sullivan out of the race.

“I was racing with Sneva and when Vogler headed for the wall, we both backed off and went to the brakes,” Sullivan said. “Luckily, I had backed off enough so that when Tom spun in front of me, I managed to slip by him.”

Two one-car accidents, one involving John Paul Jr. and the other Bill Whittington, came as the race was winding down.

Paul lost a wheel coming out of the third turn and the wheel beat him to the wall as both crashed almost head on in the fourth turn. Paul’s car careened back across the track into the infield grass. This time it was Luyendyk who was fortunate to slip by the sliding Paul and avoid a crash. Paul suffered a bruised hand.

“I saw it (Paul’s accident) happening and I wanted to get low to avoid it,” said the Dutchman. “I was going to go all the way on the grass if I had to, but I just got through in time. I was intent on being the first rookie to finish and I made it. I’m pleased. Sixth is pretty good.”

Whittington hit the wall on the 192nd lap, bringing out the yellow flag that enabled Andretti to close the gap between his car and Sullivan’s. The younger of the two racing brothers got a bruised chest out of it.

Although at the end it was only Andretti futilely chasing Sullivan, most of the race had been a three-car shootout with Fittipaldi also in the hunt. Fittipaldi, the former two-time Formula One champion from Brazil, had passed Andretti and was running in second place when his car slowed to a stop 12 laps from the end. He ended up 13th.

“The Indy 500 is a testimony that one has to have good luck in order to win this race,” said Fittipaldi, who earlier had the misfortune to make a pit stop while cars were racing at top speed only to have a yellow caution flag on the next lap. This enabled Sullivan and Andretti to pit as the field slowed down to about 120 m.p.h.

“Auto racing is good luck and bad luck,” he said. “I’m just glad this race is over so that we can return to normal.”

The two turbocharged Buick V-6s which Pancho Carter and Scott Brayton qualified first and second, went out even sooner than their detractors had predicted. Carter, who set a four-lap record of 212.583 m.p.h., was the first driver out. His Buick Hawk lasted only six laps before it started smoking and quit with a sick oil pump. Brayton, who had set a one-lap record of 214.199, made it a little farther, succumbing to a similar oil pump problem on lap 19.

Bobby Rahal, the other front row driver, also fared poorly. After jumping Carter and Brayton at the start from his spot on the outside, Rahal led the first 14 laps before Andretti caught him. A stuck throttle on lap 51 kept Rahal in the pits for three laps and before the halfway point he dropped out with a burned piston.

The third of Penske’s drivers, defending 500 champion Mears, went 23 laps before the car quit, but Mears said he was pleased that he felt no discomfort from his badly mangled feet which were injured in an accident last September. This was Mears’ first race since then.

“I never felt my feet at all in the car,” Mears said. “I didn’t even know they were down there. My real problem was a loose faceshield. I kept having to come in because it fell off. There was a pin on the left side that kept coming loose. It was frustrating because when I was running in clean air I had no trouble going 205.”

Penske called the win a team victory, noting that Sullivan, Unser and Mears shared all their trade secrets after each practice session and each had the same equipment.

“I told them before the race that only one of them could win,” Penske said. “But if any of them won, we all won because the team won. The reason I have three guys out there is because when three guys sit around and exchange ideas, we get three times as much information as a one-car team gets.”

Sullivan credited his experience driving in Europe in Formula cars with his success here. He drove six years in Europe and one in New Zealand before switching to Indy cars last year.

“Racing on the junior level in Europe is about the most aggressive racing anywhere,” he said. “It helped me become aggressive, maybe too aggressive when I was here before.”

Sullivan crashed in both of his previous two Indy 500 starts.

Despite having a 15-second lead over Andretti with only a handful of laps before Whittington’s yellow flag, Sullivan said he feared something would go wrong.

“When I saw Fittipaldi smoking and his car quit after it had been running so strong, I thought to myself, uh oh, that could happen to me.”

But it didn’t. The Cosworth-March was running laps at 205 m.p.h. right to the end.

The win was the Penske team’s fourth in the last seven years, but the boss isn’t going to rest on his laurels.

“We’ll be back next year with our own Penske design and our own Chevy V-6 engine,” Penske promised.

For the trivia minded, this was the first time a winning car had ever started from the eighth position.

THE FINISH

Po. Driver Hometown Car-Engine Laps 1. Danny Sullivan Louisville March-Cosworth 200 2. Mario Andretti Nazareth, Pa. Lola-Cosworth 200 3. Roberto Guerrero Colombia March-Cosworth 200 4. Al Unser Albuquerque, N.M. March-Cosworth 199 5. Johnny Rutherford Fort Worth March-Cosworth 198 6. *Arie Luyendyk Netherlands Lola-Cosworth 198 7. Johnny Parsons Brownsburg, Ind. March-Cosworth 197 8. Michael Andretti Nazareth, Pa. March-Cosworth 196 9. *Ed Pimm Dublin, Ohio Eagle-Cosworth 195 10. Howdy Holmes Ann Arobr, Mich. Lola-Cosworth 194 11. Kevin Cogan Redondo Beach March-Cosworth 191 12. Derek Daly Ireland Lola-Cosworth 189 13. Emerson Fittipaldi Brazil March-Cosworth 188 14. Bill Whittington Fort Lauderdale, Fla. March-Cosworth 186 15. *John Paul Jr. West Palm Beach, Fla. March-Cosworth 161 16. *Jim Crawford Lees Summit, Mo. Lola-Cosworth 153 17. Danny Ongais Santa Ana March-Cosworth 141 18. *Raul Bossel Brazil March-Cosworth 134 19. Geoff Brabham San Clemente March-Cosworth 129 20. Tom Sneva Paradise Valley, Ariz. Eagle-Cosworth 122 21. Rick Mears Bakersfield March-Cosworth 122 22. Chip Ganassi Pittsburgh March-Cosworth 121 23. *Rich Vogler Indianapolis March-Cosworth 119 24. Don Whittington Fort Lauderdale, Fla. March-Cosworth 97 25. Al Unser Jr. Albuquerque, N.M. Lola-Cosworth 91 26. Dick Simon San Juan Capistrano March-Cosworth 86 27. Bobby Rahal Dublin, Ohio March-Cosworth 84 28. A.J. Foyt Houston March-Cosworth 43 29. Tony Bettenhausen Speedway, Ind. Lola-Cosworth 31 30. Scott Brayton Coldwater, Mich. March-Buick 19 31. Josele Garza Mexico March-Cosworth 15 32. George Snider Bakersfield March-Chevy 13 33. Pancho Carter Brownsburg, Ind. March-Buick 6

Po. Comment 1. 2. 3. 4. Running 5. Running 6. Running 7. Running 8. Running 9. Running 10. Running 11. Running 12. Running 13. Crash 14. Crash 15. Crash 16. Electrical 17. Engine 18. Radiator 19. Engine 20. Crash 21. Linkage 22. Fuel line 23. Crash 24. Engine 25. Engine 26. Oil pressure 27. Waste gate 28. Front wing 29. Wheel bearing 30. Engine 31. No power 32. Engine 33. Engine

*Rookie driver. Time--3:16:06.06. Winner’s average speed--152,982 m.p.h.