THE INDIANAPOLIS 500 : BACK WITH THE PACK : Rutherford Is Still Racing After All These Years

Anyone who stays in the same business for 25 years is likely to experience the highest highs and the lowest lows that business has to offer.

Johnny Rutherford has been driving race cars for better than 25 years and he knows all about that. Boy, does he know about that!

In April of 1966, for instance, just weeks after signing with one of the leading Indy car teams, he flipped in a sprint car race at Eldora Raceway in Rossburg, Ohio, and broke both his arms, missing the rest of the season. Bobby Unser, who ultimately replaced Rutherford on Bob Wilke’s Leader Card team, won the 500 and the national championship for Wilke in 1968.

And in 1984, just four years after having won the Indy 500 for the third time, Rutherford had to settle for one of A.J. Foyt’s spare cars here and went the entire season without a regular ride. He drove a lot of pace cars that season.

And that was after he had missed most of the ’83 season because of a broken right ankle and left foot he had suffered in a crash during practice here.

Those were dark days for Rutherford and the word at track side was that J.R. had gotten old, that his skills had deserted him.

Well, as people are wont to do, Rutherford had, indeed, gotten older. And his aging process didn’t stop in 1984, either. So today, in the 71st Indianapolis 500, Johnny Rutherford, now a doddering 49, will be starting from the middle of the third row with a faster qualifying speed than such noted young hot shots as Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr. and Kevin Cogan.

That’s the best he has qualified since 1981 and, he believes, just may be significant.

“I certainly hope you can consider it the return of J.R., ‘cause I’m ready,” he said.

“We’ve won a race each of the last two years (at Sanair near Montreal, Canada, in 1985 and last year’s Michigan 500) and we certainly are looking strong enough to be able to win this one.”

Strong is the operative word there, for there is nothing radical or exotic about Rutherford’s equipment. It’s this year’s model March chassis with a Cosworth engine but he feels comfortable with it.

“We didn’t go (engine) shopping,” he said. “We stayed with something we know is tried and true.

“We have been consistent with our speeds. We are able to run right around 208 pretty steadily, and that’s where we qualified. We’ve been 210, which was our best, so we’re not way up there in the raw speed department but we’re there in the consistency department and I think that’s what it’s going to take to win this race. Consistency and heads-up driving.”

Rutherford certainly is no stranger, though, to high-speed experiences. In 1974, he started 25th and still won.

“I came from 25th to 3rd in 12 laps,” he said. “I was flying!”

In his most recent victory here, he won from the pole, from where he has started three times.

That would indicate that Rutherford has been with some of the top teams here over the years, which is exactly the case. He won twice with Team McLaren and the third time for Jim Hall’s Chaparral team. In a way, though, all that success spoiled Johnny Rutherford.

“For 10 years I had the cream of the crop (in team owners), and I lived in a vacuum,” he said. “I was sheltered while the racing world was changing. When Jim Hall pulled the plug at the end of 1982, I had to go looking for a new deal.”

Unfortunately for Rutherford, one of the changes in racing had resulted in drivers bringing sponsors along with them, whereas team owners had previously found them.

Still, Rutherford almost got lucky. Bobby Unser’s retirement in 1983 left a seat open in one of Pat Patrick’s cars and Rutherford got it. But that car and Rutherford did not get on well. They crashed twice, the second one yielding the broken ankle and foot.

Rutherford drove only five races that season, then spent most of ’84 with his nose pressed against racing’s window.

“It was really tough, not being a part of the inside action,” he said. “But it was important for me to keep my face out there so people wouldn’t forget about Johnny Rutherford, and I went to all the races I could.”

Keeping his face out there eventually worked. When Rick Mears was hurt in practice for the Sanair race in September of ‘84, car owner Roger Penske picked Rutherford to replace Mears.

Rutherford finished fifth in that race, then drove two other oval track events for Penske before the season ended, setting a then-world record for an Indy car by qualifying at 215.189 m.p.h. at Michigan International Speedway.

“It was certainly an opportunity for me to prove myself again,” he said. “I was kind of floundering. I needed the boost in my stock that the qualifying run gave me.”

In the meantime, Rutherford, trying to put together something on his own, had been soliciting the Vermont American Tool Co., for sponsorship. Unknown to him, car owner Alex Morales had also been talking to that firm, whose representatives suggested that perhaps Rutherford and Morales would like to get together.

They did that, got their sponsorship deal, and with veteran Johnny Capels as crew chief, went racing. Now, in their third season, they can legitimately claim to be in a position to win here.

“You’ve got to change with the times or you get left behind,” Rutherford said. “If I had not made the transition, I wouldn’t still be in racing.

“I’d like to win Indy for a fourth time. Then I’d like to win it for a fifth time.”

Obviously, Rutherford is figuring it’s time, once again, for experiencing some of racing’s high life.