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.”
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