INDIANAPOLIS — Racing lost another hero and this one had a Mount Rushmore presence.
It was the great Parnelli Jones, a man who literally could drive – and win in – any type of racing machine. He was as proficient in NASCAR stock cars as he was USAC midgets and sprint cars.
Rufus “Parnelli” Jones died peacefully of natural causes on June 4 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
To many, the “Golden Age” of racing was the era that included A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Bobby and Al Unser, Johnny Rutherford and Gordon Johncock.
Jones, however, was slinging dirt and collecting trophies prior to that period.
The man from Texarkana, Ark., was part of an era that included Jimmy Bryan, Rodger Ward, Jim Rathmann and Tony Bettenhausen. Foyt was also part of that era, but his stardom came later.
“You have to keep in mind that Parnelli was in the era that preceded Mario and Rutherford and Johncock and those guys,” Indy car team owner and former driver Chip Ganassi told SPEED SPORT at Road America. “Although he raced with those guys and raced very well against them, Parnelli was kind of before those guys, in what some called the greatest era of racing.
“Well, I think the doorstep of that greatest era was started by Parnelli.
“Parnelli was, in Mario Andretti’s words, the greatest driver of all, the one he respected the most.”
There was no live television coverage of the Indianapolis 500. The race started on closed-circuit television at movie theaters beginning in 1964 through 1970.
ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” started showing a dramatically trimmed down version of the race in 1965.
“I can still hear Chris Economaki saying his name coming out of the television set or during an interview,” Ganassi recalled. “And so that was really my introduction to Parnelli, when I was a little tike, basically.
“He had one of those names that in the 1960s, that you really remembered. When you had a name like Parnelli, boy, that stuck out.”
Jones made history at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1962 as the first man to break the 150 mph barrier in qualifications for the Indianapolis 500.
He drove J.C. Agajanian’s Calhoun roadster to victory in the 1963 Indianapolis 500 and four years later, came within three-and-a-half laps of wheeling Andy Granatelli’s revolutionary STP Turbine to victory, but a $6 ball bearing broke after Jones led 171 laps.
He made seven Indianapolis 500 starts from 1961 to ’67 and led five of the seven races for a total of 492 laps. In the 1965 Indianapolis 500, Jones finished second to Scotsman Jim Clark.
He had six USAC Indy car wins and 12 USAC Indy car pole positions in 59 USAC Indy car starts.
Jones made three Daytona 500 appearances (1960, ’63 and ’64), notched 25 USAC national sprint car victories and won 25 USAC national midget features — 18 of which were after his 1963 Indy 500 triumph.
Jones earned one USAC Midwest sprint car championship (1960), two USAC national sprint car titles (1961 and ’62) and one USAC Stock Car championship (1964).
His stats also include 22 NASCAR West Coast stock car wins, two Pikes Peak Hill Climb stock car triumphs (1963 and ’64) and he was the SCCA Can-Am Los Angeles Times 500 winner in 1964.
Jones won the NASCAR Motor Trend 500 in 1967, claimed the SCCA Trans-Am championship in 1970, topped the Baja 500 off-road race in 1970 and ’73 and was a two-time winner, 1971 and ’72, of the Baja 1000.
He won four NASCAR Cup Series races and three pole positions in 34 series starts.
After his driving career was over, Jones became one of the most successful team owners in his era as co-owner of Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing with California businessman Vel Miletich.
Their cars won the Indianapolis 500 in 1970 and ’71 with Al Unser driving. The team recorded seven 500-mile USAC Indy car victories, 53 USAC Indy car wins and 47 USAC Indy car pole positions, along with three USAC national championships (Unser 1970, Joe Leonard 1971 and ’72) and two USAC national dirt car titles (Unser 1973 and Andretti 1974).
Jones fielded a Formula 1 car with driver Mario Andretti for the final two races of 1974, all 12 races in 1975 and two races in 1976, with a best finish of fourth in Sweden during 1975.
Jones was a strong man who could manhandle any type of racing machine and take it to victory. But in his later years, he grew frustrated at the affects Parkinson’s had on his body and how he needed help for basic tasks.
A proud man, Parnelli Jones was universally revered by some of the greatest names in auto racing, including modern day greats such as Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti.
Parnelli Jones was a Racer’s Racer, and there is no greater compliment than that.
THIS ARTICLE IS REPOSTED FROM THE June 26 EDITION OF SPEED SPORT INSIDER
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