Indy 500 Gets Faster--and Safer

When 26-year-old A. J. Foyt screeched his bulky roadster out of the pits with just 16 laps to go in the 1961 Indianapolis 500, he figured second place was the best he was going to do.

A screwed-up pit stop earlier in the race had made the late stop necessary, and Eddie Sachs, the crowd favorite, had a commanding position. But with only four laps to go, Sachs flinched when a breaker strip showed on a tire, meaning the tire might blow at any second at high speed.

Sachs pulled into the pits to change the tire, giving Foyt victory in the “Golden Anniversary” Indy 500.

Sachs would later say that he did not want to gamble on a terrible crash.

Anthony Joseph Foyt would go on to attain legendary status, winning three more Indianapolis 500s. Incredibly, he will start in his 33rd Indy on Sunday, by far the longevity record for the event.

And Sachs?

He died in an enormous gasoline-fed fireball on the second lap of the 1964 Indy 500 in what still ranks as the most catastrophic crash in the history of the race.

In a microcosm, the two men represent the history of Indianapolis over the last 30 years: Fame and brutality, often separated by the smallest turns of fate.

But other than the presence of the seemingly indestructible Foyt, there is virtually no similarity between the Indianapolis 500 of 1961 and the 74th version to be run Sunday.

For starters, today’s sleek, low-to-the-ground cars are incredibly faster than the bulbous, tanklike roadsters of 1961. “Faster” really doesn’t say it; this is tortoise vs. hare stuff.

To put it in perspective, Parnelli Jones broke the 150-m.p.h. qualifying barrier on May 12, 1962. He lapped Indy’s 2 1/2-mile oval in a fraction under 60 seconds and race followers of the day considered the feat a sacrosanct milestone in speed.

On May 13 this year--28 years and a day after the first official 150 m.p.h. lap--defending Indy champion Emerson Fittipaldi ran the first lap at more than 225 m.p.h., making a circuit in just under 40 seconds.

Had Jones and Fittipaldi been on the track at the same time, Fittipaldi would have beaten him to the line by more than three-quarters of a mile. On one lap.

The biggest factor in the dramatic increase in speed has been aerodynamics.

Engineers mastered the art of downforce in 1972, placing large wings on the front and rear of the cars, creating the effect of an upside-down airplane wing that held the cars to the track surface.

The result was a quantum leap in speed.

In 1971, the late Peter Revson earned the Indy 500 pole position with a four-lap average qualifying speed of 178.696 m.p.h. In 1972, Cale Yarborough had the slowest qualifying speed in the 33-car field--178.864 m.p.h.

Bobby Unser sat on the pole in 1972 with a speed of 195.940, a 17-m.p.h. jump over Revson’s average the year before.

What few people realize is that the 1972 cars were actually slower on the long straightaways than the 1971 models. Engineers still had not mastered the air-flow design, and the large wings actually created air drag when the cars ran in a straight line. The sticking action in the turns made up for the loss of speed on the straightaways.

In 1979, Texas car-builder Jim Hall added ground effects to the equation. Hall’s design used air tunnels on the side of the car to create a suction action that virtually glued the car to the track.

The combination of wings and ground effects made a perfectly tuned Indy car seem as if it were running on a rail.

Although there have been assorted variations on the Hall design, today’s Indy cars are essentially built the same way. And despite attempts by rules makers to slow the cars, the engineers keep finding new ways to go faster.

You would think with such a precipitous climb in speeds over 30 years that Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 would be much more dangerous than the 1961 event.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1961, an Indy driver’s odds of dying or being horribly hurt in racing were frighteningly close to 50-50.

There were various reasons for the danger, but chief among them was the design of the cars themselves--big brutes with no superstructure to absorb energy on impact, running on huge supplies of volatile gasoline, and the driver dangerously exposed in an open cockpit.

The sport is much safer today.

The last driver fatality at Indianapolis was in 1982, when Gordon Smiley crashed with brutal force into the third turn wall while warming up for a qualification attempt. You have to go back to 1973 to find another driver fatality at Indy.

The secret to safety lies in the construction of the chassis and cockpit. Both are composed of a mixture of exotic carbon fibers and aluminum. Without getting technical, you have an indestructible cockpit surrounded by breakaway parts.

Today’s Indy-car crash looks more like an airplane crash, with the outer shell of the car disintegrating on impact. It looks fatal, but that disintegrating outer shell actually absorbs most of the energy of impact, while the cockpit protects the driver.

And there is another factor: The drivers are literally bound to their cars. If you watch the telecast of Sunday’s race, pay close attention as the drivers are being strapped into the cars just before the start.

Three-inch-thick seat belts--with a minimum tensile strength of 8,000 pounds--virtually immobilize each driver’s shoulders, waist, legs and groin. A collar around the neck locks the head straight up. A small belt runs under the left shoulder to the helmet, keeping the head straight against G-forces exerted when taking left turns at 200 m.p.h. The feet are wedged into the needle-nose front end. Finally, the driver has to turn sideways to drop down into the seat, and the sides of the cockpit fit almost like shoulder pads when he faces front.

Bottom line of all this: A driver’s body does not move around in a crash. And that saves lives. Ask any highway patrolman.

Add to the structural advances such safety improvements as rubberized fuel cells and an on-board restriction of 40 gallons of methanol fuel--which has about half the volatility of gasoline--and the Indianapolis 500 has become a fairly safe sporting event, at least as auto races go.