Indy Crash Kills Rookie Marcelo : Auto racing: Filipino driver dies after hitting wall during practice for time trials.

Ten years to the day after the last driver fatality at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, rookie driver Jovy Marcelo of the Philippines was killed Friday in a single-car crash during practice for today’s Indianapolis 500 time trials.

Marcelo, 27, had just recorded his fastest lap of the day, 172.328 m.p.h., in the Euromotorsports Lola-Cosworth when he did a three-quarter spin coming out of the first turn and slammed into the wall with the left front of his car. The car slid along the track in a half-spin until it stopped in the middle of the second turn.

Marcelo was slumped over in the cockpit, unconscious, when the Lola stopped sliding. He was taken to Methodist Hospital with severe head and chest injuries. Henry Bock, Speedway medical director, said Marcelo was pronounced dead at 4:35 p.m., about 30 minutes after the accident.

The last fatality on the track at the Speedway occurred on May 15, 1982, when Gordon Smiley crashed while warming up to take his qualifying run.

A spectator, Lyle Kurtenbach of Rothschild, Wis., was killed in 1987 when he was hit in the head by a tire that flew off Tony Bettenhausen’s car and was knocked into the stands by Roberto Guerrero’s car.

The last previous Indy car driver killed was Jim Hickman, at Milwaukee on Aug. 1, 1982.

Marcelo had moved up to Indy cars this year after winning the Toyota Atlantic championship. He had finished only one race, in Surfers Paradise, Australia, where he was 14th, nine laps behind winner Emerson Fittipaldi.

He failed to finish at both Long Beach and Phoenix and was credited with 19th place in both races.

Marcelo had raced all over the world--in his native Philippines in karts; in Northern California, while attending St. Mary’s College; in Sports Renaults; in England in the Vauxhall-Lotus series; in New Zealand, in Formula Atlantic and back to the United States for the Toyota Atlantic season in 1990 and 1991.

Last year he won Atlantic races at Lime Rock, Conn., and Nazareth, Pa., and had three second-place finishes to nose out Jim Vasser for the championship. Vasser, who qualified for this year’s 500 last week, won six races.

“I made a lot of rookie mistakes last year, driving over my capabilities a lot of the time,” Marcelo said at the start of this year’s season. “I made some bonehead moves at the time. This year I am determined to do better.”