This Loss Was Really the Pits

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

--JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

I spoke to the winner of the 1972 Indianapolis 500 the other day. Had a long chat with him.

“Wait just a doggone minute!” you say. “How can that be? How can you speak to Mark Donohue? He was killed in a race car in Europe in 1975.”

Well, it seems the facts are in some dispute. At Indy, they often are. But the driver I talked to--although he has the greatest respect for Donohue’s memory--still believes a great mistake was made at the Brickyard that May 27 in 1972.

First of all, you have to understand that clear-cut winners are not necessarily the norm at Indy. Take last year, for example. Scott Goodyear crossed the finish line first. But he had committed a Speedway no-no. While comfortably ahead and with victory in sight and only nine laps to go, he had jumped the gun after a yellow light and passed the only car on the track you never should--the pace car.

He roared to the finish, ignoring the black flags--”Get off the track!”--waved at him. He showed up at Victory Lane for the kiss from the race queen and the gulp from the traditional bottle of milk, only to be told he hadn’t finished first, he had finished 14th, because the United States Auto Club had stopped counting his laps when he failed to respond to the black flag.

Two drivers showing up at Victory Lane, each thinking he had won, is not unusual for Indy. In 1966, Jimmy Clark thought he had won, but when he got to the trophy ceremony, they were giving it to Graham Hill.

In 1981, a winner’s number was actually taken down for a while. Bobby Unser finished first but, the next day, under protest that Unser had violated the rules about blending into traffic from the pits, Mario Andretti was declared the winner. It was not till October of that year that the courts decided again that Unser had won.

In 1972, the two drivers who showed up to accept the trophy were Donohue and Jerry Grant, a powerful, aggressive 240-pound, 6-foot-3 driver from Seattle.

Jerry was driving the second car for Dan Gurney that year. Gurney’s lead driver was Bobby Unser, who had broken the track record in putting his car on the pole. But he went out with a sour ignition rotor after only 31 laps, and it was up to Grant to save the day.

Grant had pounded into the lead, a lap ahead of Donohue, when he noticed a front tire was shredding. He decided to pull into the pits.

His radio was out. So his crew wasn’t expecting him.

When he got to his pit, Gurney waved him on to Unser’s pit, which was next to his. It had the more experienced crew.

Big mistake.

The routine tire change was no problem. But, unfortunately, a crewman connected the fuel nozzle to Grant’s car. The car didn’t need fuel, it needed a tire. The hose was in the tank only 1.3 seconds.

Grant streaked back out on the track. He repassed Donohue, who had unlapped himself while Grant was pitting. Grant cruised the last dozen laps and says he actually got the checkered flag. He took an extra slow-down lap and when he got to Victory Lane, it was occupied. Donohue, in Roger Penske’s car, was drinking the milk and getting the kisses. Grant had been penalized the dozen laps he ran after the pit stop for fueling from Unser’s tank.

Grant is still not reconciled. “I won the race,” he insists.

He adds, “Prior to that time, the penalty for wrong-pitting was a $500 fine.”

His “fine” was more like $500,000--the difference between the 12th place, where he finished, and first.

“They said I broke the rule, taking on fuel in the wrong pit. The fuel amount was limited per pit,” Grant says. “But the reality was, I didn’t need to take on fuel. I had plenty--as post-race evaluation showed. I didn’t need fuel, I needed rubber. And what’s the difference where you change a tire?

“I won. I had the fastest elapsed time, and 22 out of 23 scorers said I had won.”

They never even black-flagged him in those futile last dozen laps, Jerry says.

“I was rehearsing my victory speech and trying to decide whether to have milk or champagne in the lane. In my mind, I won.”

Protests were unavailing.

“They had better lawyers,” wryly admits Grant. “Lawyers decide races, not drivers.”

Grant, now vice president of Motor Sports/Marketing and Prolong Lubricant, drove four more years at Indy, 10 times in all. In various types of cars, he won 138 races--”139,” he tells you with a grin.

Losing off the field of play is as American as pumpkin pie. Dancer’s Image wins a Kentucky Derby and his bettors collect at the windows, but he loses the race nine months later in court.

Denis Watson sinks a 40-foot putt, which would have given him the U.S. Open title, but an official bounds from the crowd to rule he waited too long for that putt to drop. The facts are, it did drop. But Watson is penalized two shots. He loses the Open by one.

Fred Merkle runs to the clubhouse instead of second base on Al Bridwell’s single and is ruled out while he is in the shower. And the Giants lose the pennant.

So, you won’t find Jerry Grant’s name--nor Scott Goodyear’s--on the Borg-Warner Trophy at Indy. But that won’t convince him it shouldn’t be there.

“What’s the difference where you take on a new tire?” he asks.

Well, about 12 laps and half a million dollars, it would seem. What Jerry needed for the curves of Indy was not only a Gurney Eagle chassis and a turbo-charged Offy engine but a higher-powered lawyer. In a stock Rolls-Royce.