Built for Speed, If His Race Car Is

You look at William Theodore Ribbs in a flameproof suit, bubble helmet and wraparound scarf at a pit wall, and your first thought might be, “Oh, oh, someone ruined a great point guard or sure defensive back.” Some people have to resist the temptation to demand, “What’s an athlete like you doing something sitting down? How’s come you’re in a race car and not at a three-point line or in a zone defense? Why aren’t you batting leadoff for the Cardinals?”

It’s an attitude that disturbs Willy T. Ribbs. A young man with 20/15 vision (or five feet better than excellent), good straight-ahead speed in or out of an automobile, good hands, quick reflexes, a strong back, he looks perfect for the NBA, NFL, American League or National League, or maybe he’s just going to be the next Sugar Ray.

Ribbs just wants to be the next A.J. Foyt.

The thing is, he’s already--in a sense--the next Jackie Robinson, Jack Johnson, Kenny Washington. He has broken a color line. Not a barrier, in this case.

He is the first black driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 field. It’s an important breakthrough. It’s Jackie Robinson taking the field for the Dodgers, Johnson fighting for the title, Washington lining up with the Rams. It’s history more than sport.

It’s more like Doug Williams playing in his first Super Bowl than Jackie Robinson playing in his first major league game.

Willy T. Ribbs has been a race driver since he was 9. Or, at least, so he considered himself sitting behind the wheel of one of the family sedans. He has been a real--and good--race driver since he was 20.

Indy is not getting some wild-eyed, lead-footed young rookie who is apt to go at the field like a fullback on the Chicago Bears’ two-yard line. Ribbs has as much respect for a car as the National Safety Council.

He has been in as many race cars in recent years as the whole Unser family. He won 17 times in Trans-Am cars from 1984 to 1986.

Ribbs didn’t want to get to Indy until he--and it--were ready. It was a lifelong dream. “When I was a kid,” he says, “the other kids all wanted to be Willie Mays or O.J. Simpson. I wanted to be A.J., not O.J.”

Ribbs learned his craft the slow, hard way. “Some of the cars we pasted together had a harder job staying together,” he says. Whenever he got in a car that was competitive, Ribbs was, too. Willy studied his craft. He was either in a car--or under it. He either had a steering wheel in his hand--or a screwdriver.

Sometimes, a young driver is so eager to get in the Indy field that he will trust himself to a machine that should be a flowerpot some place or hanging off the back of a wrecker.

Willy T. Ribbs came to the Speedway in 1985 on a deal cooked up by the boxing promoter, Don King. The car went just faster than junk mail. Ribbs decided he wanted to be in the Indy 500, not under it. At 170 m.p.h., he’d feel parked. He wanted to be in the race, not watch it. He passed.

Immediately, the whisper spread: Ribbs didn’t really want to be in the Indy 500, just to talk about it. He ignored the talk. “Any race is 90% car, 10% driver,” he says. “That car I had came up about 80% short.”

The facts of the matter were, blacks were not in race cars for the same reason they were not on polo ponies. Or hunting foxes in red coats on horseback. Race cars are rich men’s toys or corporate writeoffs. They’re not parked in the inner city. “I was lucky,” Ribbs said. “I wasn’t raised in a ghetto. My father, Bunny, was a race driver. But we didn’t have the big bucks you need today.” He had a mom-and-pop operation most of his career.

The comedian, Bill Cosby, entered the scene at this point. He saw this black driver win a race at Sears Point, and Cosby decided it was time for another breakthrough. A black man had gotten in a World Series, a Super Bowl, a Masters, Wimbledon, why not Indianapolis? Victory Lane today, the White House tomorrow.

Cosby put up the money, and then, as Ribbs recalls it, “The coup of a lifetime took place. Porsche pulled out of racing, and that left Derrick Walker free.”

Derrick Walker, in Ribbs’ view, is “the best team manager the game affords.” The Englishman was a part of the most successful team in Speedway history, Roger Penske’s, with five Indy 500s won, and he set to work firing up a car Ribbs could keep up with traffic in. “We did it with nickels,” Ribbs recalls.

For most of May, the nickels were wooden. Cars kept blowing up, turning right, smoking and spilling. “If you were looking for Willy, find the nearest cloud of smoke,” the wags snickered.

The qualification run was right out of a 1929 Warner Bros. barnburner. There were only 45 minutes remaining and no places left in the 33-car grid when Walker-Ribbs and company ventured out on the track Sunday. The car had been hard put to find 212 m.p.h. all week, which would have been a nickel short and would have put it not in the field but on a truck.

But when they finally found some speed, Willy T. Ribbs knew what to do with it. He confidently pushed his Lola/Buick through the four-lap run at full throttle, missed the walls by a rabbit-hair, slammed into the corners like a fox fleeing hounds. He had four miles to spare when he took the checkered flag. If he had qualified at that speed--217.358 m.p.h--earlier, he would have been in the middle of the fourth row. Instead, he had to settle for the 10th row.

No one has ever won the race from 29th. But it has been won twice from 28th--by Ray Harroun and Louis Meyer--and Johnny Rutherford, no less, won it from 25th in 1976.

But as the Greeks used to say, the honor of Thermopylae was not the winning or the losing. It was being there.

Willy T. Ribbs will be there. Honor enough. Glory enough. He’s there on his own terms. He’s a historic figure. Jackie Robinson didn’t win the batting title his first year. First, you break precedent, then you break records. Willy has paid his dues. He’s due his pay.