A CLOSE CALL WITH FAME : It Was 20 Years Ago: Jigger Sirois Came Within Split-Second of Winning Pole Position for Indy 500

Who is the most famous person who ever showed up here to drive in the Indianapolis 500, but never made the race?

A case could be made for Andy Granatelli, or Juan Manuel Fangio, or perhaps Willy T. Ribbs.

Granatelli came out with a book, “They Call Me Mr. 500,” after Mario Andretti had won the 1969 race in one of his cars, but in his only appearance as a driver he crashed during practice in 1948.

Fangio, the five-time world Formula One champion from Argentina, was here in 1959, but did not make a qualifying attempt, claiming his car was not competitive.

Ribbs, who made a highly publicized attempt in 1985 to become the first black driver in the 500, quit during rookie orientation because of what he called an “ill-handling car.”

But how about Leon Duray Sirois, better known as Jigger?

He may not be as famous as the others, but his attempt was more significant. He was partially responsible for a change in the Indy 500 qualifying procedure, and he has a trophy named for him.

Jigger Sirois never made the 500, but the circumstances of his qualifying attempt in 1969 remain one of the Speedway’s most enduring legends.

The date was Saturday, May 17, a brooding, overcast day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was the first day of qualifying for the 1969 race but an unwelcome drizzle fell most of the day.

Sirois’ car owner, Myron Caves, an auto dealer from Fresno, had drawn the No. 1 position for the four-lap time trials.

A break in the clouds at 4 p.m. brought the cars back to the track and when the surface had been dried, Sirois pulled off pit row in Caves’ turbocharged Offy-powered wedge built by Fred Gerhardt in Fresno.

Caves was hoping for a four-lap average in the 163-m.p.h. neighborhood for his car to make the field. Sirois’ first three laps averaged not quite 162 m.p.h.

A slow second lap had been the result of Sirois’ sliding in the third turn and when Caves heard the tires squeal again on the final lap, he feared the time would be off so he waved the yellow flag, officially calling off the qualifying attempt. Sirois’ speed would have been 161.486.

Before Arnie Knepper, the next qualifier, could take the green flag, the rain returned. And didn’t stop for two days.

Under the rules at the time, Sirois would have been the pole-sitter for the 1969 race, had Caves not aborted the run.

“At the end of the first time trial day, all successful candidates are assigned starting positions according to their respective speeds; the fastest car getting the No. 1 starting position, etc.,” the rules said. “Qualifiers on each subsequent day are lined up according to their speeds, behind the qualifier on the previous day.”

Sirois would have been the only first-day qualifier, therefore he would have been No. 1. The only way he could have been removed would have been if 33 other drivers qualified later at faster speeds. As it happened, only 30 bettered his 161.486, so Sirois would have been on the pole. Alongside him would have been A. J. Foyt at a record 170.568, and right behind him would have been Bobby Unser at 169.683.

“I came within a hair of not pulling him off,” Caves said at the time. “I wasn’t even thinking it might rain again. I was only thinking of getting the car into the race and when I heard Jigger had trouble for the second time in Turn 3, I thought he had lost too much time. It looks like I goofed, doesn’t it?”

The prospect of having such a slow car at the head of the field, though, caught the attention of United States Auto Club officials and two years later the rule was changed to assure that no one would be deprived of a chance to run for the pole because of weather.

Saturday, for instance, if it rains before everyone’s number is called, the pole winner will not be determined until Sunday, or if it continues to rain as it did 20 years ago, not until next weekend.

Sirois tried several times later to make the race but never did.

He had two attempts the following weekend but failed to finish four laps either time.

In 1974, he was temporarily in the field with a speed of 173.360 but he was bumped by Johnny Parsons Jr.

A year later, Sirois made his last appearance as a driver at the Speedway. Eighteen minutes after the track had opened for the first day of practice, he spun and hit the wall in the first turn. Two years later, he gave up racing entirely.

Sirois’ bad fortune in 1969, however, so touched Dick Mittman, then and now a sportswriter for the Indianapolis News, that he proposed a Jigger Award be given each year by the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Assn. to the person or persons with the worst luck during the month of May.

Sirois, of course, was the first recipient.

Never one to dwell on the dark side of events, Sirois’ responded: “There is no shortage of good drivers. There are plenty of them walking around here who never have had the chance I’ve had.”

Later, he refused to second-guess Caves, saying, “The owner had $50,000 tied up in that car. All I had tied up was $10 for a pair of driving shoes. Now how can I argue with his decision.”

Pressed to explain why Caves had called off his run, Sirois gave a straightforward answer: “I wasn’t going fast enough.”

Twenty years later, the upbeat Sirois hasn’t changed his attitude. There is no bitterness, no disappointment, only the happy memory that he had been given a chance.

“Racing meant a lot to me,” Sirois said by phone from his home in Yorktown, Va., where he is a pipe fitter and welder for the Amoco Oil Co.

“I’m a blue-collar worker and most of my associates will never have an opportunity to experience such things as happened to me at Indy. Often, when a bunch of the fellows are sitting around, one will mention that they’d love the chance to drive one lap at Indy, or Daytona.

“I feel fortunate that I had that opportunity. To pull out on the track to qualify for the 500, that was exciting. Memories like that are priceless.”

Caves, now retired, was slightly more fortunate. He did get a car into the 500, in 1972 with Lee Kuzman driving. It qualified 30th and finished 17th.

Caves’ son, Terry, carries on the family racing tradition today as sponsor of a midget driven by Tommy Astone, also of Fresno.

Each year, the Jigger Award is handed out during the STP press luncheon the day before the 500. The trophy, if it can be called that, consists of a metal whiskey jigger (used, of course) mounted on a base attached to a plaque.

Some years the plaque has a message, chronicling the winner’s fate, but some years there is no message, thanks to lack of imagination on the part of the selection committee.

Sirois, now 54, was practically born on the race track. His father, Frenchy Sirois, was a mechanic on George Salih’s crew for many years here, working on the winning cars in 500s driven by Lee Wallard, Sam Hanks and Jimmy Bryan.

Frenchy thought he was naming his son after a famous French race driver, Leon Duray, but in reality Duray was George Stewart, an Englishman, who changed his name for publicity purposes. He drove in seven Indy 500s between 1922 and 1931 and was a favorite on the board tracks around Los Angeles during the same era.

The nickname Jigger came from another race driving friend of his father, Jigger Johnson, who was a riding mechanic in the 1920s. He rode with Wilbur Shaw, among others.

Although he started driving race cars in 1957, Sirois did not get into an Indy car until 1968, when he drove in four races. He started the 1969 season with a fifth at Phoenix and Caves rewarded him with an invitation to drive in the 500.

“I was overwhelmed,” he said. “I’d been an Indy car fan from the days when I was a teen growing up in Hammond, Ind.,” he said. “I idolized Rex Mays. I always wanted to be like him.”

Mays sat on the pole here four times, a record since equaled by A. J. Foyt and Rick Mears, although he never won the 500. Duray, the driver for whom Jigger was named, sat on the pole in 1925 but he didn’t win, either, finishing sixth.

“I recently moved from Indiana to Virginia, with my new wife, Juanita,” Jigger said. “In racing parlance, I feel as though I am now in Victory Lane, compared to where I used to live.

“But around race time, I’ll always be a Hoosier at heart. Indy car racing continues to be a passion-like interest of mine, but the only racing I do now, though, is sitting on the sidelines reading Speed Sport News.”

Sirois will be here for the race May 28 but will miss Saturday’s qualifying.

“Has it really been 20 years since that day?” he asked. “I think someone’s turned up the boost on us.”