Indy Mixes Old, New With Style

The Indianapolis 500 is as American as, well, as American as an auto race.

Or apple pie, or hot fudge sundaes or harvest moons.

It’s as modern as fuel injection but as old-fashioned as the bustle. It’s nostalgic as moonlight on the Wabash, as Midwestern as a quilting bee. It is as much a part of Americana as soap operas, barber shop quartets, the Lincoln log cabin or the scent of new-mown hay. It is part picnic, part county fair and part band concert, although the music is made by 33 of the most highly tuned combustion engines in the world howling like banshees in the humid May air.

It’s a sporting event that makes a Super Bowl seem like an intruder because it goes back to a kinder time four wars ago, when the cars--and the society--were not proceeding at near-sonic speeds.

There are certain things that will happen in an Indy 500 now:

1. It will be won by a foreigner. Foreign drivers have won three of the last five.

2. If the winner is not a foreigner, it will be an Unser. The race has been won eight times by two generations of Unsers.

3. If there is a fatal accident, it will probably be caused by a rookie driver. Rookies have racked up the field in about a dozen fatalities or near-fatalities, the most noted, the deaths of Pat O’Connor in 1958 and Eddie Sachs in 1964.

4. Don’t consider the parade lap a formality. In 1992, Roberto Guerrero, who was on the pole as fastest qualifier, no less, crashed in the pre-race turn around the track, hit the wall and was out of the tournament. Which was kind of like drowning in your own bathtub.

Jim Malloy hit the wall on the pace lap in 1970, making it the first time the race started without 33 entries.

The pace car crashed into a photographers’ stand in 1971, injuring a dozen, one near-fatally. They used to let auto dealers and auto execs pace this thing but now they pick guys who could be in it--like Parnelli Jones this year.

5. Expect a close finish. The old days when drivers had to maintain their positions under caution conditions are no longer and cars can now close up and bunch behind the leader, who loses what might have been a half-lap lead. So, Al Unser won a race by 43 thousandths of a second in 1992. And Gordon Johncock won by 16 hundredths of a second in 1982.

6. Don’t look for a rookie to win it. Six rookies have won it but one of them was Ray Harroun in 1911, when technically every driver was a rookie because it was the first Indy race. The last rookie to win was Graham Hill in 1966 but Hill was not really a rookie either, except here. He was a blooded, longtime Formula One driver who had won a world driving title. The last real rookie to win it was George Souders--in 1927.

7. Don’t necessarily expect the pole sitter to win it. In 77 runnings, it has been won only 14 times from the pole, by 11 drivers. Rick Mears won it three times from there and Johnny Rutherford twice.

8. Don’t think you’re safe in a seat or behind a fence. Four spectators have been killed by flying wheels or flying cars, not counting firemen in the pit or pit crewmen. Spectators also have been burned by crashing cars spewing flames through homestretch fencing.

9. You have to know the Indy qualifying rules are by Rube Goldberg out of the Red Queen in “Alice In Wonderland.” In 1974, Johnny Rutherford won it from the 25th position. But he had qualified faster at 190.446 m.p.h. than everyone but the pole-sitter! On time posted, not on day of the week, he would have been in the front row instead of the ninth.

This year, Bobby Rahal starts from the 10th row--but he qualified faster than the next 21 cars in front of him! Don’t ask me to explain it. I get a headache.

10. Don’t look behind the third row for the winner. Since Rutherford won from Row 9 in 1974, only two winners, both Unsers, have come from behind Row 3. Al Unser won from 20th, the middle of Row 7, in 1987 and his son, Al Jr., won from 12th position, outside in Row 4, in 1992. In fact, of the rest, only Danny Sullivan in 1985 started as far back as the third row.

11. Is the race really as American as apple pie? Uh-uh. More like fish and chips. With the Offenhausers long gone, most of the successful power plants in Indy cars have been made in England, including the “Chevy” engines of recent years, the Ford-Cosworths and even this year’s highly touted Mercedes-Benz machines.

12. Are the fans just a lot of morbid thrill seekers waiting for an accident? Nah! Of the quarter of a million people there, most will be frying chicken or drinking beer during the race. They used to have an infield club that fined anyone caught so much as looking at a race car. It’s a holiday.

13. Are race drivers great athletes? The ones who weren’t are dead.

14. Where’s the best place to watch the race? Los Angeles or New York. Channel 7.

15. Do race drivers have a death wish? No, they have a money wish. There’s $7.5 million put up for this thing. They want to live to enjoy it. People with death wishes don’t get in race cars, they get on bridge railings.

16. Are race drivers brave? Would you do it?

Gentlemen, start your imports!