Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum has a collection of dozens of winning cars and a selection of second place cars.  I walked around the museum looking at the cars and remembering the races.  In the 80s and 90s I watched all of the races. When split between Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) and Indy happened in the mid 1990s, I became less interested and watched only the highlights.  Some of the best drivers and teams stayed away from Indy for several years. It was a sad time for the race.

The series and the race were great from the 1960s when I could see only highlights, but read about the races in Car and Driver magazine. After the Offenhausers dominated in the post-war era, the 1960s saw great innovation and change beginning with Jim Clark's win in a rear-engine Lotus-Ford.  After Clark's win, rear-engine quickly became the only winning design.  

Aerodynamics and wings were the center of innovation in the 1970s.  Great drivers crossed back and forth from Indy to Formula 1 to sports cars and stock cars.  Jim Clark was the Formula 1 World Champion in 1963 and 1965 and won Indy in 1965. 

Jim Clark's Lotus Ford

Mario Andretti is a winner across every kind of motor sports. He won Indy in 1969, the NASCAR Daytona 500 in 1967, the Formula 1 World Championship in 1978 and won the 12 Hours of Sebring sports car race three times, along with many other titles and championships.

Mario Andretti's Brawner-Hawk Indy Car

Al Unser Sr. won Indy four times. 

He won in this car in 1978, the third of four wins.

The Unser family has nine Indy 500 wins among three drivers between 1968 and 1994.  Al Unser Sr. has four wins: 1970, 71, 78 and 87.  Older brother Bobby has three in 1968, 75 and 81.  Al Unser Jr. has two wins in 1992 and 94.  With all those wins over nearly three decades, none of the Unsers has a second place finish at Indy. Al Unser Jr. won by 0.043 seconds in 1992 for the closest finish in Indy 500 history.  

Bobby Rahal won the Indy 500 in 1986

Bobby Rahal won both the Indy 500 and his first of three CART championships in 1986. He made a dramatic pass with two laps to go in the Indy 500 and was the first driver to complete the 500 miles in under three hours: an average of 134mph including pit stops.  

1960 Winner Jim Rathman's Offenhauser-powered Indy Car

In the 1950s and the early 60s, Offenhauser-powered, front-engined cars dominated the Indy 500. Jim Clark's 1965 win in a rear-engined Lotus caused a complete changed in the winning formula and the "Offy" engines were gone. As a kid, I built several plastic models of the Offenhauser Indy racer. 

A.J. Foyt won the 1977 Indy 500--his record-setting fourth win

The first driver to win the Indy 500 four times is also among the best drivers in American history. A.J. "Super Tex" Foyt is the only driver to win Indy, the Daytona 500, the 24-hour races at LeMans and Daytona and the 12 hours of Sebring. 

1993 CART Champion Nigel Mansell at Indy, bad luck ended his chance to win

Heartbreak is part of the world of racing. Over the 100-plus years of the Indy 500 just as many drivers have finished second as finished first and all of those drivers, in racing parlance, are the "first loser." Tragedy has haunted the race in both injuries and death. 

A sad moment for me was the otherwise magical year of 1993 when my  favorite Formula 1 driver--1992 Formula 1 World Champion Nigel Mansell--went across the Atlantic in 1993 and took the CART Championship as a "rookie" driver. He had four wins, but a freak accident caused by a real rookie in the pit lane took the possibility of Indy victory away from Mansell.

Heartbreak is part of Indy and I was heartbroken watching that race.  In 2000 I named my youngest son Nigel. I am that kind of fan.