Editor’s Note: In a nod to our 92 years of history, each week SPEED SPORT will look back at the top stories from 20, 40 and 60 years ago as told in the pages of National Speed Sport News.
20 Years Ago — 2006
News: A routine Aug. 2 test session at Road America turned disastrous for Champ Car driver Cristiano da Matta when his RuSPORT Lola struck a deer.
The 32-year-old Brazilian sustained a life-threatening closed head injury and remains in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit of Theda Clark Medical Center in Neenah, Wis.
Witnesses reported that da Matta “was on the uphill run to the blind, left-hand turn six when the deer darted in front of the car from the driver’s right. The animal was instantly killed, and the impact was severe enough to break the roll hoop of the Lola Ford-Cosworth.
Team telemetry indicated an impact speed of nearly 100 miles per how: Da Matta was airlifted to Clark Medical Center where CAT scans revealed a subdural hematoma – a burst blood vessel on the outer surface of the brain. He immediately underwent successful surgery, and by Sunday doctors had stopped the bleeding and were working to reduce the swelling on the brain.
“Cristiano remains in the ICU under the direct care of Dr. Randall Johnson from the Neuroscience Group of Northeast Wisconsin,” said Champ Car Director of Medical Affairs Dr. Chris Pinderski. “The cerebral adema (swelling) is common with significant head injuries and was expected in this situation.
“His condition has stabilized, but he will remain under heavy sedation as his recovery process continues.”
Winners: It took less than eight minutes for “The Bulldog,” Jesse Giannetto, to capture the $10,000 winner’s share in Saturday night’s non-stop 25-lap conclusion to the 16th Annual American Sprint Car Series Knoxville Nationals.
Giannetto completed 25 laps around the historic half-mile mKnoxville Raceway in seven minutes and 49.511 seconds.
Giannetto slipped around early pacesetter Larry Pinegar on the 12th circuit and raced away to his first O’Reilly ASCS National Tour feature victory with a 5.682-second advantage over fellow track regular Josh Higday at the checkered flag. Giannetto drove the Wesmar-powered Bulldog Motorsports/Professional Freight Sales No. d1 Eagle.
Giannetto worked lapped traffic masterfully over the flna1 rounds to take the checkered flag. Higday was second, with eighth-starter Brian Brown taking the show position.
Dustin Lindquist crossed the stripe fourth, with Larry Ball Jr. rounding out the top five.
40 Years Ago — 1986
News: If Indy Car owner Rick Galles has his way, there will be a new kid on the block as far as chassis makers are concerned on the 1987 CART /PPG Indy Car World Series. Galles’ Lola cars are currently driven by Geoff Brabham, Roberto Moreno and Pancho Carter.
Galles revealed this past weel.t at the Michigan Int’l Speedway the GR-4 (Galles Racing, 4th chassis) chassis is in the drawing board stages and could be ready for wind tunnel tests as early as late September. The team has its own wind tunnel within its Albuquerque, N.M. headquarters.
Citing concern for increasing costs of foreign-built equipment (Galles switched from Marches to Lolas this season), Galles said Lola charges $28,000 for carbon-Fiber bodywork, which he can do for $4,000. ·
“If we don’t see significant advantages, we won’t build it until we do,” Galles said. “Nothing is concrete.”
Galles said he has already designed and built his own SCCA Can-Am cars in the past, one of which AI Unser Jr. drove to the 1982 championship. The Indy Car design is being handled by team engineer Gary Anderson, who was formerly with the Brabham Formula One team.
Roger Penske’s team has been developing its own PC-15 chassis all season, but with limited success. The Penske team has been concentrating on the new Ilmor-Chevrolet engine, which was utilized in a March chassis during Saturday’s Michigan 500. AI Unser drove the Chevy-powered PC-15 to finish 22nd in this year’s Indy 500 after starting fifth. Unser finished 18th at the Phoenix opener in April while Rick Mears drove the car to another DNF at the Meadowlands.
Winners: Johnny Rutherford ran a gauntlet that included a monsoon, a rash of accidents and a four-lap sprint race to the checkered flag Saturday to win the sixth Michigan 500.
He nipped Josele Garza by 1.82 seconds in a Tex-Mex barnburner finish by the simple expedient of ticking off closing laps at 217 mph, faster than he had run all week.
Rutherford thus became the oldest man ever to win an IndyCar 500-mile race.
J.R. is 48, compared to Bobby Unser’s 47 at the time he won the 1981 “long count 500” at Indianapolis. Rutherford’s victory in the Vermont ·American March/Cosworth brought the Alex Morales team $125,446 in prize money. It also projected Johnny into the point battle for the PPG Cup. He is now seventh with 63 points.
There was great wheel-to-wheel racing for the lead among Rick Mears, Roberto Guerrero, Michael Andretti, Bobby Rahal and Tom Sneva, but none were around at the finish.
This wild-and-woolly affair lasted more than five hours, including 90 minutes of down time when a violent rainstorm hit and forced a red flag with only 18 laps officially completed at 2:22 p.m.
Most of the crowd retreated to their cars or other places of shelter when rain, lightning, thunder and huge clouds of dust swept the Michigan Int’l Speedway.
But just about all of them returned for the resumption at 3:52p.m.
Eight of the 28 drivers in the starting field tested the concrete walls of the two-mile, high-banked track.
60 Years Ago— 1966
News: What will undoubtedly be the greatest field in the history of supermodified racing will turn out for this weekend’s $15,000 added meeting at the half-mile Knoxville Raceway at the Marion County Fairgrounds.
The 25-lap race on the fast dirt track has attracted the likes of Don Edmunds, former Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year, Lou Blaney, a torrid winner on eastern tracks, former IMCA champions Gordon Woolley and Jerry Richert, red hot Larry Cannon, Jay Woodside, winner of several events this season and New Mexico State champion Buddy Taylor.
The starting field for Saturday night’s race, expected by racing director Marion Robinson to attract a crowd in excess of 12,000, will be established by qualifying time trials Thursday and Friday nights.
The fastest 50 qualifiers will run in five heat races Saturday. Entries are expected to approach the 150 mark.
Winners: After six long years Roger McCluskey, returning to the track where he started his USAC championship career in 1960, Sunday won his first national championship race the 150 miler at the Langhorne International Speedway.
Driving the Lindsey Hopkins owned, Jack Beckley tuned G. C. Murphy Special rear-engine Ford, Roger led all but eight miles to complete the event in 1 hour, 22 minutes and 57.25 seconds at an average speed of 108.493 miles per hour on the mile paved track.
The victory also marks a first for the Dan Gurney designed Eagle machine.
Gordon Johncock, driving the Weinberger Homes rear-engine Gerhardt Ford finished second, 16 seconds behind McCluskey. Third-place money went to AI Unser in the American Red Ball rear-engine Lola Ford.
Rounding out the top 10 finishers were Gary Congdon in the Valvoline rear-engine Offy, fourth; Don Branson in the Leader Card dirt Offy, fifth; Bud Tingelstad in the Federal Engineering supercharged rear-engine Offy, sixth; Chuck Hulse in the Wynn’s dirt Offy, seventh; Bob Harkey in the Central Excavating rear engine Offy, eighth; Dick Atkins in the Agajanian-Rev 500 rear-engine supercharged Offy, ninth; and Ralph Liguori in the Enterprise Machine dirt Offy, 10th.
By virtue of his second-place finish, Johncock earned 241 points, giving him 1,850 points and the point lead.
