What ever happened to those days of
yesteryear, when I could listen to the entire daylong, Indianapolis 500-mile
race on the radio?
I love it that a woman, Danica Patrick, led
the race and almost won recently. That
will cause a lot of talk in Gasoline Alley[1]. I remember when the big talk was whether a
foreigner, Mario Andretti, could possibly compete with the Gasoline Alley
regulars. The race in those days was
always on a Sunday and would start at 10 am California time. I began listening to the pre-race show
starting at eight. I knew for days by
then who was favored, who had pole position, what drivers hadn't made it and
could be possible substitute drivers later on in the race [that’s never done
anymore]. I would listen for an hour or
two of the race at home, just to make sure that I knew what my opinions were on
each driver's chances. Then I would
venture out to meet up with other friends of mine who were also listening, like
Jerry Ashe, whose father knew all about cars.
Jerry’s dad ran the Chevron station in downtown San Jose.
We loved names like Johnny Parsons, Troy
Rutmann, Tony Bettenhausen, and of course wild Billy Vukovich. Lead foot Billy. When we were old enough to drive cars
ourselves, we always imagined handling them just like Billy Vukovich would have;
taking curves on two wheels, coming out onto the straight-aways,
flat-footed. The Foyts and the Unsers
were long off in the future. The car
teams were run by names like Akajanian and these were the dominant days of the
Offenhauser engine, although we young’uns silently rooted for the Novi
super-charged V-8, which we knew would eventually rule the Brickyard[2].
On and on into the afternoon the tension
would build as famous names, that for years we had known and rooted for, would
jockey for position and exchange the lead.
The tension sometimes became unbearable, not unlike the double overtime
basketball game Walter Matthau was looking forward to in “House Calls,” 1978
with Glenda Jackson. The sights and
sounds and the smells of auto racing we knew well from attending the “hard
tops” on Saturday nights at the San Jose Speedway. We were able to conflate the play-by-play
coming over the radio with the visceral reality that we experienced at the hard
tops.
There’s nothing like the smell of soft
rubber dust in the air from cars continually spinning their wheels. Half-burnt fuel is another great smell. These smells pervaded the tiny 7,500 seat
Speedway bleachers. The first time I
went there, we were walking up to the gate and my friend yelled, “Look Out!”
and a huge tire came over the wall and flew by us into the parking lot. The cars at the hard tops weren’t worth more
than a few hundred dollars. They were
just street jalopies, stripped of all non-essentials, but with half a dozen
roll bars welded on. One of the things stripped
off were mufflers. The noise of a dozen
cars, their engines racing at full throttle, none more than a hundred yards
away, meant you had to shout at the top of your lungs to communicate with your friends
during a race.
The test wasn’t of the cars, it was of the
men, foolish enough, young enough and brave enough to race at full throttle, 60
MPH, around a third of a mile track for 5, 10, or 20 laps against half a dozen
other wild ones. Al “Mambo” Pombo was the
Merced favorite and champion. Our very
favorite was Ray Raineri, a local San Jose man, who had an automotive shop in
town. The appeal was that for a few
hundred bucks, any one of us could have entered the race and tested our skills
with these other men. It wasn’t TV or a
fantasy. In the article below, I noticed
one of my high school classmates, Kathryn Batinich’s big brother Mike’s name in
the 4th heat, beaten by Pombo, but earning a third place.
I only watched the Indy 500 on the big
screen pay per view once, in the mid-sixties, down at the San Jose Civic
Auditorium. It was a disappointment;
most coverage is, when you see the events in person or on TV. I didn't stay more than an hour. TV takes away the whole thrill of imagining
doing all the driving yourself.
I could be Lead Foot Billy, while listening
to a frantic announcer,
"Vukovich tucks almost wildly into the infield ... He’s passing
Rutmann on the inside!! He’s completely
surprised Troy. ... Billy swerves and fishtails back onto the track … now
just inches in the lead."
We didn't listen to Indy 500 racing anymore
after the 1955 fiery death of Billy Vukovich.
An era was over. The Gasoline
Alley names were history now. The Offy
was history. European road racers took
over with big overhead cam V-8s.
Sigh
…
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